What has not been said about FromSoft and the action-RPG legacy they’ve built? The people who brought back simple, but difficult gameplay, and challenged an entire generation or two of gamers to their absolute limit? A company at the top of their own genre would be forgiven if they somehow rest on their laurels a bit and simply release a game that feels like more of what they’re known for. It’s very easy to imagine that, really. When you’ve seen things like Call of Duty, or Assassin’s Creed, Pokemon, or many sports games do well despite making only minimal changes, if at all to their formula, for another successful company to release a slightly updated game of a successful release, well, that doesn’t take much imagination.
But imagination is what FromSoftware definitely has in spades. Pretty much every major release they’ve made is created with quality and care, yes, even Dark Souls 2. They always try to change things up a bit or introduce new ideas, not that everyone liked it. They deviate enough from their formula to make their new games distinct, and then refine what they found to be well-received, or discard what simply didn’t work out well, like Armored Core V.
They tried transforming weapons in Bloodborne, fast-paced parrying in Sekiro, and brought some of those ideas into their newest robot game. It’s because of this drive to create new experiences that it’s hard for a fan such as myself not look forward to their new games.
Speaking of Bloodborne, that was my first Soulsborne game. And after I defeated the first boss, I was so satisfied with it that I couldn’t help but want to continue playing the game to see what the next boss would be like. No matter how frustrating or scary the next area was, finding the next boss was at the very front of my mind. I kinda wished the game had some sort of boss rush mode that I could play through just because of how fun so many of the fights were.
Now, the last game I played would be Elden Ring, to be more specific, the expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree. And my last playthrough of it was modded to have seamless coop, letting me play the game freely with my friend. Where we made our own stupid rules to make the game more interesting, we had level caps, we couldn’t use the same weapons, we had to both survive to clear the boss, and only Igon can kill Bayle. That was probably the most entertaining run I played, thanks to the banter I had with my friend as we constantly fought over who would fight over who gets the critical hit, and bickered about failing to dodge certain attacks. It was something I would like to do again.
Wouldn’t be crazy if there was a game that specifically catered to the experience that I was wishing for, go fight as many bosses as possible as quickly as I can, which lets me play with my friends seamlessly and get into the action as soon as I can? With classes, I can freely change between runs so I can try different styles quickly, to boot. Wouldn’t it be crazy if a game like that were suddenly made out of nowhere? That’s cross-play too, wouldn’t that be just insane?
So, Elden Ring Nightreign is a spin-off game using the same old assets to create an entirely new game for us to play. Wow, never heard of that happening before. And no, you don’t need to know or own the original game to be able to play this. To those who may be scared of making the original game a requirement to know how to play this spinoff, have no fear! You will simply disappear from social consciousness for about 90 hours and you’ll be back in one piece! Though having any decent experience in any of the Soulsborne series by FromSoftware will most likely inform you of much of what you need to know, except maybe Sekiro. However, it does help with your chances of survival. Most of the open-world enemies are plucked directly from Elden Ring, so having this knowledge allows you to recognize what you can and can’t take on.
I’ve actually been playing this on and off since release, mainly because there were other titles to review and also I’ve just been generally busy with other things. But hey, here’s my long-overdue talk about Elden Ring Nightreign. And to be honest, that’s pretty impressive that I come back to this game no matter how strong the pull is of eastern gacha games and their robot/mythic/horse girl waifus are. Anyway, let’s give you a breakdown of what playing the game is like.
It’s A New Direction
Welcome to the first challenge of Elden Ring Nightreign: having friends. Because this game does not want you to play alone. You will play online, with two other party members, none of whom are AI. Meaning you will ideally work together as a team to take enemies down. And the truth is, you will need to. Because there is a new motivator added to the game to ensure your cooperation, and that is your impending doom.
Most well-known from battle royale games, the map will effectively shrink as time passes. Where you can either move to safety or be left to burn to death over areas taken over by the night. This means that everything you do is running under a time limit. To this end, they made anything that doesn’t involve frantically hitting whatever’s trying to kill you a simplified task. Looting, improving your stats, and managing your inventory are all faster to do in Nightreign. To further help you with your indecision, the game helps you pick from a set of characters (8 from when I last checked) that have their own presets as to how they work and scale. They come with unique skills to match and essentially turn them into their own classes. Such as tank, mage, fighter, and none of you can be a healer. Everybody would much rather drink estus than trust medical advice from somebody unlicensed. For those who like to play one character and one character only, because learning is for people who can think in more than one direction, rejoice! You can all play the same character, where all three of you will compete for the same attack windows, positions, and equipment!
Even if you can only carry up to 6 of them at a time, the bonuses they carry are always active. That way, you can carry a crossbow that lets you lifesteal, only to never use it because you are a greatsword user. Of course, you can share equipment between party members, given everyone is willing to cooperate and like each other enough to do it. Hopefully, all three of you have slain enough bosses, gained enough levels, and strengthened your gear enough for the third phase of your encounter.
When the map shrinks a second time, you will be forced to an arena-sized portion of the map to duke it out with the big bad of the night, if you hope to survive for the following day. What boss are you fighting? Who knows? There were runs where I ended up encountering a secret boss after slaying a boss for that night. That’s right, the genre has advanced to having 2 boss fights in a row, forget phases. Clearing this stage boss will reward you with a good bounty and experience points, and you’ll need it because you have to do it a second time.
So yes, the second day will be more or less the same song and dance, but you’re no longer naked and should have considerable strength to take on even greater bosses, so off you go.
Assuming you make it to day 3, there’s more scouring the map for maybe a better sword or rushing to get a level up. It’s time to take down a Night Lord. Basically, the final boss of the run, where you’re introduced to an upgrade room to sort out your build. Finalize levels, items, and more, and you cross the gate to take them on.
Your first encounter will be some giant wolf that we can argue is probably Cerberus. Who not only has three heads, but can split into three different wolves. Perfect for dividing between your trio of boss slayers right? Well, let me tell you something about Night Lords. They are the most ridiculous bosses FromSoftware has descended upon us. I wonder if a team of three is enough to take them down. Spoiler: They are, you just have to not give up! If you or any of your teammates are taken down and don’t feel like getting back up, you may beat them until morale improves. This is literally how you revive fallen allies in battle, so yes, it works.
The Next Run Could be Better
Should you fail to finish your run, you are given the honor of trying all over again. Back from level 1. Though you can carry some improvements with you, basically three runes that can give you better stats, or just generally help you make a build that works for you. These are found from your run, and you can also buy some at the shop.
You can also take some quests like remembrances, which give characters access to stronger equipment by default. Or even find completely new characters to try out.
And well, even if you do finish the run, you still go back to the start of a new run. Only this time, you get to pick from a vast array of bosses to attempt, and hopefully have a better run at it than I ever did. I still haven’t taken down Libra, to my shame. I know the mantra is to get good, but the only thing I’m getting good at is getting slaughtered by this goat man.
Also, like any rougelike game, Elden Ring Nightreign is full of secrets and surprises that the game simply refuses to explain to you. Like how to handle an ice mountain, or a forest of rot, or a pit of hell, and how to best take advantage of it. How could it be an invisible bug magician who’s trying to steal your levels, or a boss who will chase you to the ends of the earth? All this is to remind you that while you might be getting better at the game, the game can choose to get harder in turn. I thought poison swamps were the worst that FromSoftware could throw at us, but apparently, they can get more creative and throw bubbles of nightmares at us just because.
Looking to the Dusk
After getting used to it, I was having a solid sense of what to do, where to go, and how I should prepare for the Night Lord I was aiming for. Not that everything goes according to plan, in fact, the plan often changes depending on who we decide is in charge. I also feel like some encounters weren’t well adjusted for the format of Nightreign, and could’ve used some tweaking.
I could, however, appreciate how well the netcode holds up, where I don’t think I had any real problems with keeping up with others during the online experience. Even if there were cases of disconnection, getting back into the game was a very direct and smooth process. I do wish there were a way to either terminate a run early if things are just not going well, or if players were just starting to grief the party.
In retrospect, you can see how FromSoftware simply does not want to replicate the experience; they always want to try something new and give us something new to learn. I have an irking feeling that their upcoming title, Duskbloods, will be taking a lot of ideas from Nightreign and improving them to make an even smoother and interconnected experience for its players.
So if you want to have a rather interesting spin on the soulslike formula, which may be what its future game will be looking like, why not fly down to this spinoff and start learning, taking on this intense, non-stop boss rush of a game? I totally loved the intensity and think other people should give it a try!
It’s on a lot of platforms right now, and should be possible to pick up if you’re interested!