Elden Ring Nightreign review for PC, PlayStation, Xbox

In 2022, FromSoftware’s latest and greatest title was released to incredible responses from both critics and players alike. To say that Elden Ring made waves in the gaming atmosphere would be an understatement. It was nominated for and won Game of the Year in 2022, and its later expansion DLC “Shadow of the Erdtree” was nominated for several awards in 2024. To say that people were clamoring for more Elden Ring is an understatement. That brings us to today, with the release of Elden Ring Nightreign on the horizon.

Elden Ring Nightreign is a 3 player PvE experience centered around the ever-changing land Limveld. You will pick from one of several Nightfarers, your playable characters in this entry, and battle your way across multiple days to reach and (hopefully) defeat the Nightlords. Scour the lands, raid camps, and slay enemies to acquire new loot, level up, and prepare yourself for your final encounter. Each Nightfarer you play as boasts unique skills and traits, so feel free to experiment and find the one that best suits your playstyle. They’re all generally pretty fun and I don’t really have complaints about any of the ones I spent good time with. While we aren’t allowed the freedom to build our characters as previous FromSoftware games gave us, Nightreign’s preset characters makes it easier to pick a playstyle/role and just run with it right off the bat. The diversity of the cast is pretty well handled, so you’re sure to find a Nightfarer that best suits your desired playstyle.

In the vein of character builds, you’ll still be leveling up. But beware, as dying while exploring without being revived will cost you a full level. It’s a way more aggressive version of the level drain attack that King Allant had back in Demon’s Souls. This isn’t by itself a big deal, but there are some other things that really make this a pain if you get caught off guard or get blasted by something off screen. There’s oftentimes you’ll get caught and lose your level’s worth of runes somewhere you can’t return to due to a variety of factors, making it even more frustrating that you’re now down a level. You’ll really want to make sure you’re getting levels fast to circumvent this as your base HP is pretty negligible. Leveling up does start to really stack up your HP and your damage resistance, so it’s a necessity before you start hunting for better gear. Numbers are very against you until you start to snowball. Both your damage and ability to take hits are pretty terrible until you hit level 4 and above, so be prepared to feel mediocre until then. It gets fairly annoying after several runs, but eventually you just become accustomed to it.

One of my biggest gripes with upgrading myself was the shop/weapon upgrade systems. The shop never seemed to carry anything important until it was too late. The diversity of options available to me were also pretty poor, with them often seeming like variations of just large two handed weapons. To really kick me in the gut, never once did I come across a Somber Smithing Stone required by the weapons I was often given. A majority of my run-ins in the final Nightlord were slapping it with an un-upgraded weapon at nearly max level. I could take a hit just fine, but I was effectively slapping the boss with a pool noodle by that point with no means to really boost that without stumbling into another armament with a convenient Ash of War on it.

Additionally, there’s a system implemented into the Roundtable Hold enabling you to equip passive buffs to your Nightfarers. You’ll acquire these as you play, with each color fitting on specific Nightfarers. They can do things like giving you better skill cooldowns, adding an elemental damage type to your weapons by default, etc. You can even save these as “loadouts” so you can hot swap your setup based on what you’d prefer to use against specific Nightlord encounters. Sadly, they don’t seem to make a huge impact, leaving them as something to just give you a sense of progression even on failed runs. This very well could merit itself to me just not hyper specializing those equippables, but generally speaking they didn’t really seem to affect my characters or runs very much.

Luckily, this is where the multiplayer somewhat helps with these issues. When you’re queued with two other players you can all chip away at the boss(es) healthbar(s), making your single shortcomings feel less problematic. Sadly, this means that playing solo is a considerable waste of time. The game is not remotely made for any less than three players in a session and it will repeatedly prove that to you as you play. I’m unsure where the decision to give you the option to play solo and then not remotely balance the game around your decision came from, but it severely impacts enjoyment if you don’t want to wait to queue with other players.

Touching on multiplayer brings me to another thought I had while playing that I just can’t shake. FromSoftware games have had multiplayer in the past, but it was always something extra. Nightreign’s culmination of forced multiplayer (for a balanced experience), emphasis on repeated runs without too much changing between runs despite that being a core point, and strange battle royale “fog” circle closing in feel like a blend of things done solely to hit bullet points. When the game flows well, it feels good, but oftentimes I felt like it was a mismatched blend of game styles put together solely because they’re popular. It wants to hit that roguelite mark, a pseudo battle royale mark, and a Soulslike mark, but doesn’t particularly do any of the three remarkably well. There is talk that the devs are still working on balancing the game and whatnot for full release, but from what I was given to play, it doesn’t really hit any of its targets.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Nightreign is bad. Elden Ring Nightreign is a step in a strange new direction for FromSoftware, and it’s clearly one they’re unfamiliar with. I don’t know which team was behind Nightreign, but you can tell it’s not the main. Part of me wonders if the game would generate as much excitement and buzz if it wasn’t full of Dark Souls/Elden Ring content. We know that FromSoft wants to branch out to more unique styles of games, as evident by the recent-ish announcement of The Duskbloods for the Nintendo Switch 2, so naturally Nightreign seems like a logical step, right? I wish I could agree, but maybe it’s better for From to stick to what they do best with primarily single player titles with multiplayer as an option for those that wish to play with friends/engage in the invasion system.

Elden Ring Nightreign does offer a new and interesting step in a different direction for FromSoftware and Bandai Namco, but I’m not exactly confident that this is the best choice. I think it’ll be an enjoyable title to mess about in with your friends, lending itself more to games like Risk of Rain with the roguelike/roguelite aspects, but as a FromSoftware game boasting the Elden Ring title, I think it’s missing the mark from what we expect from the studio. It’s a hard recommendation unless you can get two of your friends to jump aboard with you, so I’m stuck in a middle ground. It has merits to it, but the flaws really do put a damper on overall enjoyment. If you’re REALLY seeking more Elden Ring, you’ll find it with Nightreign, but it’s different enough that I have to give a warning to those expecting more of the same with just multiplayer as the focus.

Note: Bandai Namco provided us with an Elden Ring Nightreign code for review purposes.

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