I’ll be the first to admit that after all my time in Elden Ring (comparatively low to a lot of people, but a lot for me) I’m satiated. Satisfied. Happy to have been there and done that, and I know I’ll be back to it to finish bits off in due course. So when Nightreign was announced, I was kind of underwhelmed.
Hoping we’d see a teaser for something new from FromSoftware. So I wrote it off as something I’ll check out at some point.
Since then, there have been some write-ups from different outlets that have had some hands-on time with it. And suddenly it feels like it’s becoming clear that this twist on Elden Ring might be just what’s needed to revitalise my love for it.
Better still, I think it’s going to be a new entry path for people who want to get into Elden Ring but perhaps feel intimidated. Nightreign looks to remove a lot of the obstacles that put people off.
What is it?
The biggest question for me around Nightreign has been exactly this. What actually is it?
The announcement trailer only really showed that it’s a multiplayer game set in the world of Elden Ring. Initial reactions were that it was a Monster Hunter-style game where you hunt bosses. It seems accurate, but now the specifics have come out a bit more.
PvE co-op, battle royale with roguelike elements. Let that sink in for a moment…..
That’s a lot of acronyms and genres to mix together. All combined with Elden Ring bosses and combat. So let’s try to break it down a little, based on what people have seen.
You match up with 2 other players, then you pick your character/class. Start a game, clear out minions, and pick up loot/gear to be better prepared. Levelling up as you go. Then the world is shrinking around you (like a battle royale), so you have to push further in.
At the end of a day, you fight a boss and hopefully get to day 2. Rinse and repeat but with a difficulty increase. Day 3 is the final boss of your run. And you’re done!
So you have a run-based game where you collect gear and loot (roguelite/battle royale). Then you have Elden Ring combat and bosses and you do it co-operatively with a squad. All the while, keeping inside the safe zone a la PUBG.
This is crazy!! Builds will be based on what you can pick up and what your chosen character has as passive and active abilities. Gear will shape your run and will be randomised with varying degrees of quality like, say Fortnite.
Too crazy?
I couldn’t quite believe what Nightreign was, based on what everyone had reported over the past few days. It feels much more “pick-up and play” than you’d expect.
Having pre-defined characters will help, too. Because you can’t exactly spend 3 hours perfecting your stats when you’re starting a run with a team.
Honestly, it feels crazy to me that FromSoftware has taken such a turn, but damn, it’s exciting, isn’t it?
May 2025
What is crazy is actually how long until Nightreign is due to come out. We’re seeing a launch before the middle of this year. With a May 30th date now announced. It’s really not that far away at all.
Presumably, because the world was so intricately built originally, it was likely relatively easy to build a new type of game into Elden Ring. Sure it wasn’t a flick of a switch, but it’s barely a year off Shadow of the Erdtree and From have been working on this, ready for release in May?
Super impressive, and now it’s starting to look quite exciting.
Beta testing
This weekend starting 14th February 2025. There’s Nightreign network testing taking place in 3-hour blocks. But it’s only for those who signed up and were successful in registering. So we’re not likely to see much of that this time around.
That’s fine though because May isn’t too far away, and honestly. Not knowing too much about it will make those first few runs all the more interesting and special.
What do you think Nightreign will be? How well will it land with Elden Ring fans, and those looking to get into the Lands Between for the first time? It’s going to be interesting for sure, and let’s be honest it’s rare that FromSoftware ever miss the mark with a release.
We’ll see in May, I guess?!
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