I’ve always considered myself a good gamer, but Elden Ring: Nightreign has certainly reminded me that even the mightiest of warriors can be humbled. FromSoftware has taken a fresh approach to the roguelike scene with their new game – it feels like the game has taken bits and pieces of 1000 ideas and Frankenstein-ed them together to create something new.
The core loop of Nightreign involves choosing one of eight characters and going out on expeditions with three other people or solo (sorry to any players who wanted duos, for some reason it’s either three or one). These expeditions see you arriving onto a large island in the world of Elden Ring via spectral hawk – similar to the battle bus entrance from Fortnite.
After landing on the island, the general idea is to move as a team to clear out camps, grab loot, level up and move on to the next one, all while the storm closes in around you.
The items are random for the most part, but on the map you can see symbols for the type of item that will drop somewhere in the camp, which is handy if you want to try and target hunt. However, what this inevitably led to in my experience was all three of us landing, pinging different camps and running around like headless chickens.
After the storm closes in, you’re faced with a wave of adds, then a boss. Should you get good enough to kill that boss, the storm recedes completely, and you rinse and repeat for “Day II”. Beat Day II’s boss and you get transported to the real endgame boss in this loop. And boy howdy, are these bosses worthy of the Elden Ring title. If you beat the boss, or die while facing one at any stage, you are transported back to Roundtable Hold to start all over again.
The gameplay in Nightreign is basically Elden Ring with a bit more focus on speed, movement and verticality. They have included a wall jump mechanic to traverse the island more effectively, and each character has a passive, an active, and an ultimate to make them feel unique.
Nightreign’s graphics and audio can be put in the same bucket as Elden Ring, to the point where it feels very much like you’re playing a spin-off or DLC, not an entirely new game. That’s not to say that this is a bad thing – Elden Ring is an absolutely incredible experience and its visuals and soundtrack absolutely slap. The audio during fights is great too, especially with a headset on (Note: that golem archer can shoot you from forever away and it’s LOUD).
In the way of story, there’s a loose couple of lore bits tying everything together. Nightreign’s narrative isn’t as in-depth as normal Souls games, but it’s good to give some context to everything that’s going on and why all these monsters hate me being alive.
Nightreign is an experience of peaks and troughs
From my experience, Nightreign runs well with load times that are pretty short, never really stopping you from getting back into the action. The matchmaking is my biggest complaint though, as the design is clunky, and as mentioned before, you can only play 3 players or solo. Why? No idea to be honest. But if you only have one friend, you are stuck matching with a PUG and hoping they are decent.
The replayability of this gameplay loop is pretty significant if you’re into that kind of thing, but for me it honestly felt a little bit hollow. There’s no real sense of progression like there is in the standard Souls-like games. The only things you take with you are some gems of different colours that your characters can socket to provide small buffs.
I also have a bit of a problem with the timing of the storm closing in. For me, it’s probably about two to three minutes too short – I like to be able to feel comfortable enough to face a boss without getting my ass whooped, and when you’re missing some gear because the storm was too fast or RNG hates you, it can feel frustrating. I think that if they ever decide to add more teams you can PVP with through the experience (à la Hunt: Showdown), it’ll probably make it a little more fun too.
As a FromSoft title, you’re getting all the juicy combat, exceptional character and boss design, and beat-your-head-against-a-wall-until-you-knock-yourself-unconscious level of difficulty that you’d expect in Nightreign. Admittedly this does come with a confusing menu, but that’s pretty much expected at this stage.
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I do also feel like the length of the gameplay loop to get to the final boss, and the fact that you lose literally everything to start again, makes the experience a fair bit more difficult. You can’t just reload from your last save and try again and again and again – getting good feels like it’s going to be a lot harder than the base game. But who knows, maybe I’m just not cut out for this anymore.
If I was to summarise my time with the game, I’d simply say that Nightreign is a fun, fresh and innovative “storm closing in” roguelike experience that, after playing for a few hours, gets old until you have a break and turn it on again. Speaking of, my break has probably been long enough now – time to try the summon class and see if I’m any better when other people are fighting for me.
Elden Ring: Nightreign is definitely worth a play if you love a bit of co-op in the Souls universe. If you loved the original game, you’ll probably like this too.
