Elden Ring: Nightreign Review — Rain Portents The Night’s Reign

Elden Ring: Nightreign has without a doubt been one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, and after playing it myself, it’s no surprise why. The multiplayer-focused take on the world of Elden Ring is an absolute blast to play while maintaining 100% of that classic FromSoft challenge and mandatory exploration. While it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to call Elden Ring: Nightreign an expansion of the titular Elden Ring itself, with the game reusing many of Elden Ring‘s assets and enemies, it also contains a lot of originality, presenting new bosses, ideas, and especially new characters that have already captured the imagination of the fanbase. I will admit that community-made fanart did a lot of the heavy lifting in making me interested enough to finally give Nightreign a try.

My reluctance to play Elden Ring: Nightreign comes from the fact that, in my opinion, a truer version of “multiplayer Elden Ring” already exists in the form of the Elden Ring Seamless Multiplayer Mod. Playing the actual Elden Ring open world side-by-side with a fellow Tarnished was a far better pitch to me than the roguelike boss rush that was promised with Nightreign.

While a more official version of the Elden Ring mod I mentioned is more of what I wanted, I am glad that I eventually gave in and gave Nightreign a try. Nightreign is very different from simply “multiplayer Elden Ring,” something you’ve probably already figured out yourself. Nightreign plays more like a class-based roguelike, where players enter an open-world map with a battle-royale-style damaging ring slowly closing each night over the course of three days. On the third night, players must join forces to defeat a challenging, original-to-the-game boss known as a Nightlord, who, I will warn, is a FromSoft boss adequately buffed to take on three players at once. Along the way, you gather as many runes, items, and levels as possible to increase your chances of survival against the final boss, mostly by fighting bosses recycled from past games in the Souls franchise with some clever additions or twists implemented to up the challenge.

Though the experience can vary greatly when queuing up with random players, I have to say that Elden Ring: Nightreign does accomplish an incredibly fun take on a multiplayer Soulslike. The increased pace, aided by new movement mechanics like wall mantling and the removal of fall damage, and caused by the need to move through the game as fast as possible in order to both avoid damage from the ring and to efficiently gather the most souls, makes for a good, quick way to experience some of the excitement of Elden Ring without having to dedicate a lot of time to grinding levels or learning boss patterns.

The flipside to this is that the game can quickly become a little repetitive. While the roguelike elements create variety in every run, I found that there aren’t quite enough weapons to create drastically different builds from game to game, so you’ll still mostly be playing your character the same way each time, with maybe one or two preferred builds depending on item drops and a difference in status effect damage to counter the Nightlord. The map does not change much either, so you may often find yourself running the same paths to ultimately defeat the final boss, of which there are a decent but not an incredible amount. Essentially, Nightreign is a game that can, feasibly, be beaten, and once you do, there isn’t a whole lot more for the game to offer you—at least not until more content is added in future updates.

Not only this, but there are some real problems with the game that the community seems reluctant to discuss. Namely, Nightreign can at times suffer from some serious bugs, such as desyncing, which can be devastating in fights, drops not occurring or disappearing, and even outright crashes to desktop, which can be devastating in a game that requires you to have a party of three to play, if not playing Solo.

The game also, as far as I am aware, has yet to implement the highly requested duos functionality, which would allow parties of two to play together instead of three. Without this, currently, pairs who wish to play the game have to invite a third member to their party, which can have devastating results given the nature of FromSoft’s community and multiplayer gaming in general. A game so carefully balanced to be a challenge for three can quickly become impossible when one player is falling behind, or outright quits the game, or rages, or plays at their own pace without care for the rest of the party. A game without any form of communication can especially suffer in these scenarios.

Elden Ring: Nightreign is great. It’s a unique take on a multiplayer version of the FromSoft experience that can be played in short or prolonged bursts alike, solo with strangers online, or with a small group of friends. However, certain bugs need to be fixed, and the game’s content can fall a bit short after around six to ten hours of gameplay. Continued support is vital for this multiplayer game to succeed, and the game is best played in a premade lobby of friends rather than trying your luck with strangers online.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review of Elden Ring: Nightreign. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Elden Ring: Nightreign is available on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.