It takes a special kind of conviction to truly master 2022’s Elden Ring. For some, FromSoftware’s open-world action RPG is the pinnacle of hardcore gaming — an endless gauntlet of death and discovery that rewards heavy stat crunching and min-maxing on specific character builds to bend the game to a player’s will. That level of commitment isn’t for everyone, but it hasn’t prevented Elden Ring and its ilk (including Dark Souls, Sekiro, etc.) from becoming a widely popular subgenre in gaming. Even when the Sisyphean task of beating towering bosses is tough, there’s an entire world of secrets and lore to explore that helps make the difficulty an easier pill to swallow. Along the way, you’ll (hopefully) get better.
But what if all the slow-paced exploration and roleplay were stripped away, leaving behind just the primary loop of playing, dying, and learning again and again? Would it be possible to successfully cherry-pick the most hardcore elements of a game like Elden Ring for a more streamlined approach that caters to top-tier players and casuals alike?
That’s what Elden Ring Nightreign (out May 30) hopes to do, and it works surprisingly well. By setting sights on shorter spurts of action without sacrificing the sense of discovery, Nightreign is designed to be a video game chimera of bizarre influences that mostly work together in stride. For Elden Ring sickos, it requires rethinking of old strategies and perception; for newbies, it demands a major learning curve and more sweat than a game like Fortnite. But once it clicks, Nightreign turns the Soulslike formula into something entirely new.
Bootcamp for all
The first thing to know about Nightreign is that it’s an Elden Ring game through and through. In early previews and pre-release memos, the developers have been adamant that, despite targeting a more casual audience with some more forgiving elements, this is meant to be enjoyed by people who have spent hundreds of hours in the main game and its 2024 expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree.
Whereas those games are fully open-world experiences where players can spend huge swaths of time poking around and learning the ropes at their own pace, Nightreign opts to go full-tilt from the get-go. After selecting a class in the Roundtable Hold (the primary hub to start and return to), players can either queue up with others or go solo for their excursion. The game only allows groups of one or three to play — no duos can be selected, which is an odd choice.
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Dropped into their selected map, players have two in-game days to explore a small, contained region filled with icons, monsters, and mini-bosses, all the while leveling up and finding new gear to empower themselves. At the end of each night, a mandatory boss fight emerges where death means losing the run entirely. If players can survive to the third day, they’ll face a mammoth creature of hellish design (that they’ve selected prior to the mission) that must be defeated to clear the level. None of which is easy.
For the uninitiated, death will come quick. Going solo, enemies have less health than they do in three-player mode, but they’re still extremely lethal. Anyone unfamiliar with the basic combat rhythm of blocking, dodging, and expended precious stamina for an attack will die repeatedly even from basic groups of foes. The game is hard, and you’re expected to take it on the chin and meet it at its level.
Part of that comes down to selecting the right hero to suit your particular play style. From the onset, there are six character types to choose from, each with unique capabilities that neatly fit them into well worn RPG classes: Wylder is a well-rounded swordsman; Ironeye is a ranged archer; Guardian is a slow moving paladin; Raider is a hulking berserker; Recluse serves as a magic-casting sorcerer; and Executor is something like a cross between a monk and druid that’s quick to the cut and can become a feral beast. After progressing through the game, two more classes become available with their own complex systems.
Picking one of these characters doesn’t fully lock users into one path; any of them can pick up all the games’ weaponry and gear, but their individual stats and abilities make them all suited for specific roles. This is key to a successful multiplayer run where synergy is paramount. If one tank-like hero can draw an enemy’s attention, it allows ranged fighters or heavy swordsman to deal damage from the rear. With a solid team, combat can become more strategic and less of a desperate struggle, but it requires getting familiar with each classes’ strengths and weaknesses (and good communication to boot).
Overall, it’s a streamlined take on classic Elden Ring. Rather than spending dozens of hours crafting a unique build for one long solo journey, Nightreign offers the ability to pick up and play with stock archetypes and figure it out on the fly. But it’s the “on the fly” part that presents the biggest challenge.
Working against the clock
The greatest change in Nightreign from previous Soulslikes is the speed at which the game operates. Pulling from games like Apex Legends and Fortnite, each map works as a self-contained sandbox with multiple points of interest and structures to explore that grows smaller over time as the poisonous death cloud tightens in a ring.
For anyone accustomed to playing open-world games at their own pace, the first few rounds of Nightreign will be confusing to the point of frustration. Systemically picking off enemies, pilfering treasure chests and selecting the desired loot, and exploring the map and its many secrets is par the course for this type of game, but it comes at the cost of precious time. Each day in Nightreign last maybe ten minutes or more, but there’s no clear on-screen indication of how much time is passing. It’s very easy to get caught up reading the flavor text and stats of an item or even get locked into a large-scale battle with a monster, only for the noxious cloud to arrive abruptly, forcing players to ditch whatever it is they’re doing in a mad dash for safety.
In games like Fortnite the ever-closing ring around the map is more of a slow burn catalyst that pushes players together to force conflict. The same is true here to some degree, although it’s a cooperative PvE (player-vs-environment) game rather than a competitive one. The difference is that Fortnite actively encourages exploration more than Nightreign, despite Elden Ring itself being synonymous with a sense of open-world discovery. After dropping into the map, each run demands that players sprint toward only a handful of locations — mainly memorized from previous runs — to get a specific type of elemental loot that will be effective for the bosses later (again, only gleaned from past encounters).
The game isn’t interested in having anyone stop to smell the roses, but the narrow window to get anything done can be exhausting. For players who aren’t already Elden Ring experts, even basic combat can slow things down to the point where only a handful of items or levels can be earned before the invisible clock runs out and it’s time to trudge on with whatever’s in your pockets. Obviously, it’s a game of repetition and attrition; each run is quick enough that defeat doesn’t necessarily hurt morale.
It’s not hard to restart and get ride back in the saddle, but there’s a cheapness to how easily levels and loot can be lost to the mad dash structure of the missions. Dying to an enemy means having to race back to that point from a nearby respawn point, but if the cloud comes, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to regain what you’ve lost. In Elden Ring Nightreign, enemies are punishing, but not as much as the ticking clock.
The tug-of-war between tough combat and the constraints of the time limit make for a double-edged sword. While there’s no real penalty to dipping out of a fight — other than losing experience and valuable items — sessions can frequently feel fruitless. If you’ve just cracked the code to felling a flaming stone giant only to be arbitrarily ripped from the encounter to feebly battle a much stronger boss without solid gear, it can be frustrating.
The right stuff
By the same token, the trial-by-fire nature of the game can be conducive to learning at a breakneck pace. As someone who’s not particularly good at (or even that fond of) Elden Ring, I was able to acquire a baseline knowledge of what fights to engage and how best to beat most fodder enemies quickly through trial and error. Mini-bosses and Nightlords (the big bads arriving on day three), were a much bigger hurdle however, especially in solo mode.
Suffice to say, the game really shines in cooperation with other players. Although Elden Ring is renowned for its community of elite gamers who routinely stream their downright ridiculous levels of skill, Nightreign’s systems can be more welcoming to casuals who might not otherwise have the ability (or frankly, the time) to get the most out of the original game. By teaming up with high-tier players, even mediocre gamers can progress relatively far in Nightreign’s mission-based campaign. Whether it’s partnering up with friends or randomly matchmaking with strangers, applying whatever skills you’ve gathered through repetition can be enough to skirt by with the right teammates. Sure, it’s nice to be able to contribute — it feels a lot better to land a killing blow on a three-headed hellhound than play a chew-toy distraction — but winning’s winning.
It’s difficult to say if Nightreign will be as endlessly replayable as the original game. By its nature, it’s designed around repetition, but after mastering each mission type and class, the spin-off may not have the same kind of longevity. In Elden Ring, it’s a part-time job getting to the game’s end; it’s a full-time one to master it. There’s still plenty of systems to study and break, but it’s also a game that doles out thrills faster and in more digestible bites than its predecessors, meaning it could be something diehard fans burn through rapidly.
At its heart, Elden Ring Nightreign is two different visions that bleed together surprisingly well. For existing fans, it’s an opportunity to take their skills and become the next great speed runner or boss rush master, dropping in to carry amateurs to the finish line. For casual players, it’s hardcore Fortnite — a pulse-pounding multiplayer experience that demands your best even though it offers frustratingly little time to teach. Rarely does a game like this manage to cater to such far ends of the gaming spectrum, yet somehow it works.
Elden Ring Nightreign launches on May 30 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and Windows.
From Rolling Stone US.