Elden Ring Nightreign Review

I’ve been playing FromSoftware games since the ’90s, and I’m astounded at how much they can keep surprising me. After wandering through the sandboxes of theKing’s Fieldseries, I hopped into high-octane mech combat withArmored Core, open-ended esoteric exploration withEternal Ring, and eventually, the quiet brilliance ofDemon’s Souls. From there, the studio has further cemented its legacy withDark Soulsand beyond, which eventually led us to another oddity:Elden Ring Nightreign.

I try to go into every FromSoftware game blind, and that’s just what I did withNightreign. I wasn’t prepared for just how different it would be, primarily because of the out-there implementation of a three-player co-op system, as well as the battle royale mechanics injected into the game’s core foundation.What I ended up experiencing was a whirlwind, unapologetic about what it is, for good and ill.

Elden Ring Nightreign equipment screen

Nightreign Is Kind Of Like An All-Star Souls Game

It Might Be Your Next Online Obsession

It’s very important to break down just howElden Ring Nightreignworks, because it’s not a traditionalSoulsgame.Each match, you’ll “drop” into a mapwith randomized points of interest with two other players. You’ll hit all sorts of locales to gear and level up, running away from an ever-contracting ring of fire/death. Then you’ll have to square off against a randomized boss in the final small middle ring, which denotes the end of “Night 1.” You repeat the process for Night 2, then take on a Nightlord boss: the main enemies ofNightreign.

After beating four Nightlords, you can face the final boss of the game, then repeat runs to gather extra permanent equipment (found in the form of relics, which are like perk gems) and unlocks (like costumes). Although solo play is technically possible (and hardcoreSoulsplayers will have videos of this imminently), the experience is not properly scaled for solo play. Bosses have tons of health and do a lot of damage, so if you die in a big fight,the entire run ends. It can be a huge detractor for solo play, so keep that in mind.

Elden Ring Nightreign exploring lava cave

To go a step further,Elden Ring Nightreignis arguably best experienced with a static group with voice chat on hand (the latter needs to be facilitated outside the game). The in-game ping system is sufficient for playing with randoms, but there are instances where you may need to warn a player about an enemy that’s too strong, or tell your team to avoid a pin and go for a much bigger reward.Time is constantly of the essence inNightreign, and nearly every minute counts. You must be geared/prepped for the final boss, lest you get rocked.

Nightreign Can Be Fun Or Frustrating, Depending On The Run

Group Dynamics And RNG Can Influence A Lot

So that’s how it works in theory. In practice,Elden Ring Nightreignis one of the most fun and frustrating games I’ve played all year. When the run lines up just right, the session sings. you’re able to choose from Nightfarer class archetypes (including two unlockable ones), which, at a base level, include a jack of all trades, a tank, a ranger, a thief, a summoner, a berserker, a sorceress, and a samurai. All classes are viable and can be fully customized, but some are extremely tough to play, which can impact a run immediately.

I’ve found that runs can go south very quickly unless every player is on the ball. Death is severely punished inNightreignbecauseif a teammate doesn’t revive you, you’ll lose a level and potentially all your currencyif you don’t run back and grab your stack of souls. Sometimes teammates will run off independently, die, lose levels, and be under-prepped for the Nightlord. This can happen at the start of a run to set the tone, or at the very end. Given how runs can top out at around 45 minutes (boss fights have no time limit), it’s an investment.

While playing Nightreign, I was constantly reminded of my MMO career, and how Nightlords are like raid bosses. Some require intimate knowledge of the encounter, and having the entire team on the same page can make things that much smoother. That’s where voice communication can come in handy.

Some of the frustration is on the technical side. On one run, when it was going very well,I was booted from a session during the boss of Night 2. The gametriesto recover matches after that happens, but after hitting the main menu, I was greeted with an “unable to restore session” message. Thankfully, it only happened once, but it put a damper on my runs that day. I’d also hit framerate issues during Nightlord encounters, a problem that a few other players on my runs shared.

The Highs Of Nightreign Are Very High

When You Get That Perfect Run, It’s A Blast

Moment to moment, it’s easy to forget how a few bad minutes can end a run. Small tweaks in the locomotion system, which differ from theSoulsseries, make a huge difference.You can sort of hyper-dash everywhere, roughly at the pace of riding a horse inElden Ringproper. Boost pads litter the ground, allowing players to leap as high as skyscrapers at key points to get to new points of interest. At one point, I leaped into the sky with my entire team, pinged something midair, landed, and ran toward my destination with my crew, all in sync.

Ranged playstyles are so much more fun inNightreigndue to a lack of arrow consumables. All ranged weapons have unlimited ammo, so you can really cut loose and focus on the action at hand, rather than inventory management. Each class offers something distinctly unique too, especially the higher skill ceiling additions like Duchess and Revenant. You can really do some crazy stuff with the loadouts in this game.

It was a blast, and the action never stops if you don’t want it to.Nightreignclicked for me when I realizedeach match involves running around in arcadey fashion and beating up on things with two other people. With proper planning and game knowledge, many of its frustrations can be planned for and alleviated. New map deviations (which happen with a world tendency-esque system as you play the game and clear Nightlords) add extra wrinkles and puzzles to figure out.

I can see diving intoNightreignin the future and just having a good time with friends, learning new tidbits along the way, and sharing strategies and anecdotes.The randomization ofNightreignis going to create a lot of silly emergent moments, most of which will be shared online. Watching a teammate get smacked across the screen, then diving into the air as the tank class and reviving them, is a fantastic feeling. Camaraderie and team play are baked into the DNA ofNightreign, more so than anySoulsentry before it.

But without proper prep, and without practicing with the same group of people,progress can be extremely slow. The relic system can be impactful after you’ve hoarded a ton of high-quality gems from myriad runs, but many contain vague upgrade phrasing or can be near-useless. Sometimes, you’ll just have a bad run with absolutely nothing to show for it as a result of RNG.

Nightreign Isn’t For Everyone, But Diehards Will Love it

The More You Play, The More You Learn

Over the decades, I’ve played many “All-Star” type games, andElden Ring Nightreignfondly reminds me ofCastlevania: Harmony of Despair. Released in 2010, this bygone gem celebrated the entire series, wrapped in a co-op-forward package. While it didn’t make a gigantic splash on the gaming industry as a whole,there was a very dedicated player basethat encouraged folks to join up and helped them along the way. That’s the exact trajectory I see forNightreign.

There will be inevitable patches for balance and content, as is customary for FromSoftware games. But right now, in its imperfect but quirky shell,Elden Ring Nightreignwill attract many people with its siren’s song. As players crash against the rocks, both figuratively and literally, most of them will have a smile on their faces the whole time. This game impacts folks, and I plan to see where it goes for a long while: warts and all.

We spent 40 hours withElden Ring Nightreign, and took down every boss but the final one for this review.