I don’t think it’s an overstatement to call Elden Ring Nightreign’s reveal a shock. In the span of three years, and an expansion to Elden Ring. They’ve always had a fairly steady cadence of releases, but three excellent titles which were all nominated for countless award is a pipe dream for most developers.
Even more surprising is just how different Elden Ring Nightreign is compared to FromSoftware’s other work. A strange melding of FromSoftware’s seminal Souls formula, rogue-like elements, and battle royale design tropes is not at all what you’d expect from the Japanese behemoth. It’s a combo that’s hard not to be sceptical about, yet FromSoftware has managed to pull it off for the fourth time in four years.
Set in a universe parallel to that of Elden Ring’s, Nightreign takes place in an altered version of Limgrave, fittingly named Limveld. In this world, Limveld is under the threat of the Night Lords, corrupting the land with an encroaching mass of nocturnal flame and torrential rain known as the Night’s Tide. Ferried to Limveld via mysterious means are the Nightfarers, eight warriors who must unite and fight back against the Night Lords.
Elden Ring Nightreign is very forthcoming with the idea that story, world, and lore are not at the forefront of its focuses. FromSoftware have always taken a reserved approach to storytelling, but that sentiment has never rung truer than it does in Nightreign. Aside from a few cutscenes on the golden path, Nightreign doesn’t seek to suck you into its world like Elden Ring does. It still has that key FromSoftware sheen that has you asking questions about this world, though it is less emphasised.
That isn’t to say Nightreign is devoid of narrative. There is much to find for those who go looking for it, primarily in the form of Remembrances. These are small quests you can complete during runs to learn more about the Nightfarers. Each one has a hazy recollection of their pasts and the circumstances that led them to Limveld, and completing Remembrances helps them to connect the dots.
It’s a fun way to include details about these characters if you want to get to know them better, especially if you gravitate towards a particular Nightfarer. The quest steps are also structured in a way that compliments the core gameplay loop, sprinkling extra objectives and incentive for exploration during a run. It’s not nearly as fleshed out as FromSoftware’s other undertakings, but they easily could’ve elected to exclude this stuff entirely.
To address the elephant in the room, you can play Elden Ring Nightreign in solo play, though it’s not something I would recommend. This is an experience built for and best played with other Nightfarers, whether that be through matchmaking or with friends. There’s a decent amount of consideration here for solo players, but only so much can be done when bosses are built around multiple players and team compositions.
Nightreign’s core loop is a simple one. From the Roundtable Hold, you select a Night Lord to go up against and embark on an Expedition. You’re dropped into a random part of Limveld, which is littered with enemy camps, Churches of Marika, Evergaols, mines, and much more. Day one kicks off and you have about 15 minutes to run around the map, defeating enemies and bosses to level up, collect gear, and obtain permanent buffs.
At certain intervals in the day, the Night’s Tide will close in on the map, creating a battle royale-esc zone you must stay in to avoid damage over time. The second instance of this will shrink the map down to a small arena, where you need to defeat a boss to move onto the next day. You do it all again in day two, reaching the Night Lord for a tough final encounter after day two’s boss. The Night Lord fight is usually the point at which a run is decided as a victory or a loss.
There are eight of these in total, including the final boss which unlocks after you down four Night Lords. They’re also all wildly different, from the three-headed hellhound Gladius that splits into individual combatants, to the utter chaos of the frenzy-wielding Libra, each requires different strategies, weapons, and team compositions to take them down.
Despite playing in teams of three, all of these Night Lords, bar one, are no pushover. These are enemies with enormous health pools, aggressive attack patterns, and mechanics that can wipe your run if you don’t engage with them properly. Their strength means you’re incentivised to really push through each day, planning a route where you can demolish as many enemy camps and bosses as you can before time runs out.
Nothing cements this more than how fast Elden Ring Nightreign moves once it all clicks. Between a sprint that doesn’t consume stamina, the ability to climb up walls, and zero fall damage, you’ll end up zipping around Limveld at dizzying pace. It’s thrilling, moreish, dripping with replay value, and really captures that ‘one more run’ mentality that the best rogue-likes and battle royales hold you hostage with.
There’s also a progression outside of the game in that you slowly learn how to efficiently progress a run. Between identifying which bosses are worth fighting at what time, learning how to complete world events during Shifting Earth changes, and how to best traverse the map, it feels like there’s always something new to learn. It means a run never feels wasted, you pick up something else to help you on your journey.
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Runs are shaken up further by a system called Shifting Earth, which fundamentally alters the map in some way, introducing world events that can be risky undertakings but yield worthwhile rewards. The Crater variant of Limveld, for example, creates an enormous magma filled crater in the northern part of the map. Reaching the bottom of this crater will allow you to upgrade a weapon to Legendary tier, but will take up a whole day exploration with a gauntlet of encounters.
There are more of these that I won’t spoil as they’re a joy to uncover, but each one changes how you interact with and explore the map. It forces you to re-evaluate your priorities and make tough decisions that can mean the difference between failing and succeeding at a run. It also just goes a long way to keeping the whole experience feeling fresh as you rack up Expeditions and take down Night Lords.
The bosses at the end of each day are less threatening, but you still can’t sleep on them. All of them are existing bosses from Elden Ring or previous Souls games, with new or remixed move sets to accommodate three players. I can see how this might come across as an asset flip to some, but facing down iconic Dark Souls III bosses like Dancer of the Boreal Valley or The Nameless King retooled for Elden Ring’s sandbox is a great time.
The only real issue with all this is that Nightreign can be really frustrating when matchmaking with random players. It has no voice chat whatsoever, so even if you know that a boss might have an attack that can wipe the team as it transitions into phase two, you can only hope your fellow Nightfarers are equipped with the same knowledge. This problem is exacerbated by runs often reaching the 45-60 minute mark.
There’s also no way to practice these bosses separate from runs, which means the only way to learn these fights is to reach the end of day two in a run. Some will love the way this works with Nightreign’s rogue-like elements, but those who were brought onboard by Elden Ring’s key changes that alleviate this formula’s inherent friction might feel alienated by the time you’ll need to put in to overcome these challenges.
One area I feel Nightreign really excels is in its roster of playable Nightfarers. There’s eight of these in total, each with unique playstyles, stat spreads, and character kits. Each is equipped with a ive Ability, Character Skill, and Ultimate Ability. Using these skills properly is key to success in Nightreign for a few different reasons.
Wylder, for example, is the game’s poster boy. He’s a well-rounded Nightfarer who’s ive ability allows him to cheat death once with a deft evade. His character skill is a grapple hook that can pull you around arenas, or can be used against enemies to pull them to you or vice-versa. His Ultimate Ability is a large chargeable explosion that does a chunk of damage and significantly reduces enemy poise.
He sounds simple at first, but when you realise you can use the grapple hook to reposition or stagger enemies out of attack animations, your ability use becomes more calculated and considered. While it’s easy to hit his Ultimate Ability as soon as it comes off cool-down, it might be best to hold it to stagger a boss when its winding up a big attack, or to use the invincibility frames it provides to nullify a threat.
Recluse, on the other hand is a magic wielding witch who can absorb Essences from enemies to concoct spells. Essences are all tied to elements, so you can absorb different element combinations to reach a desired effect. Her Ultimate marks all nearby enemies, healing anyone who attacks them for a short duration. Each character has a similar level of depth to engage with and master, and they’re all fun to experiment with.
To customise these Nightfarers further, each one has a loadout of Relics you can take with you into a run. These are items that drop at the end of an Expedition regardless of whether you succeed or not, providing you with stat bumps, ive abilities, or items at the start of a run. They’re sorted by colour, so certain Nightfarers can only equip a certain colour combination of Relics, but items can be purchased to unlock a new Relic combo for each Nightfarer.
All of this is done at the Roundtable Hold between runs, which is mostly similar to how it is in Elden Ring. It’s a hub where you can view your game statistics, interact with Nightfarers, hit the training grounds, and more. It’s a nice break after you wrap an expedition that’s fun to explore and even has a few secrets to uncover throughout its decrepit halls.
As a vast majority of Nightreign is reused assets from Elden Ring and previous Souls games, it isn’t as visually distinct as FromSoftware’s other titles. That isn’t t say it looks bad, it sports a visual fidelity comparable to that of Elden Ring’s when playing on performance mode. The boss arenas are entirely new and are quite pretty, but I do wish there was more distinction than just a different coloured skybox.
Performance is a bit of a mixed bag, though. On the mode that prioritises framerate, I saw consistent stutters and drops on a base PS5 that weren’t detrimental to any of my runs, but came up often enough to be an annoyance. The network infrastructure here is very realiable, though. Across 30 hours I only experienced one disconnect and was able to play with other regions with no issues whatsoever. It is weird that cross-play is omitted here, though.
Elden Ring Nightreign is strange game, the only thing stranger is that it’s made by FromSoftware. On paper, it sounds like this is something that shouldn’t work. A multiplayer Souls game combining popular elements from different corners of the industry like they’re going out of fashion. Despite this, Elden Ring Nightreign is another great FromSoftware title, one that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend if you’ve got friends to dive into the night with.
