I’ve played 500 hours of Elden Ring. I’ve beaten every boss, explored every invisible door, collected every rare armament. If I had to pick one favorite, generation-defining game above all others it would definitely be the base game and its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.
But 160 hours into Nightreign, FromSoftware’s multiplayer spinoff that launched at the end of May, I know that there’s no way I could ever go back to the original open-world game anymore. Nightreign changed everything.
Nightreign is the brainchild of Junya Ishizaki, the developer who oversaw combat on Elden Ring. Ishizaki wanted to create a game with a different flow than that of Elden Ring, which is how FromSoftware arrived at Nightreign’s peculiar design proposition: “What if Elden Ring but make it Fortnite meets Monster Hunter?”
A team of three sets upon an expedition where the eventual goal is to defeat a tough Nightlord boss. You each start at level 1 with basic gear, and must scrounge your way into a better kit. Everything takes place on one large land mass, but the loot and boss battles are randomized. Things can be shaken up suddenly by events, like locust swarms that steal levels from players or gods who bribe the player into buying back their health.
It’s not exactly what fans would expect out of FromSoftware, who are known for lore-driven single-player experiences. The gameplay is still punishing, and players can expect to see “YOU DIED” often, just as they do in the main game. But while core Souls games offer co-op, the multiplayer is typically stuck behind a convoluted process involving arcane items and limited areas. Some players only do co-op as a last measure against boss fights that they can’t take on their own, and it’s something that is typically frowned upon by longtime diehards. Otherwise, the expected Souls gameplay loop involves slow-paced methodical exploration over dense areas pocked with winding routes and inscrutable secrets.
Nightreign’s lightning-fast design structure was bound to be a shock for even the most ardent FromSoftware fans. An ever-encroaching storm means that players cannot scour every pixel of an area, as they might in Elden Ring. Despite the emphasis on online connectivity, Nightreign is missing many of the modern conveniences people expect from multiplayer games. Matchmaking options are limited, and the game is best played with three people even if smaller teams are technically possible.
Group play, as a concept, also takes some getting used to. There are few ways to communicate with one another; players can emote or use items to say small phrases that are barely audible. Areas of the map can be marked, and equipment can be signaled to your squad. But Nightreign is a complicated game where little is explained and much is expected out of the player. It’s hard to optimize builds when you can’t talk to your team to discuss who gets what gear or why a specific area of the map is worth visiting over another, at least when you mostly play with randoms like I do. A third of my matches sometimes end early purely because someone has rage quit after dying once, which may not have happened if anyone could have reasoned with them.
There are no shortage of flaws in Nightreign, many of which have been spoken about at length by Elden Ring fans and detractors alike. I still can’t imagine going back to the core game.
Some of this realization is purely mechanical. You can run faster in Nightreign, and easily climb a hill at a 90-degree angle.There’s no such thing as fall damage, even if you’re vaulting off the tallest possible point on the map. There are two different running speeds, separate from the walking speed. The combat is also brisker, especially if you play agile classes like Duchess. Elden Ring now seems like it moves at a glacial pace, almost as if the player has been enveloped in a thick layer of molasses. That’s the last feeling I want on a revisit.
There’s no shortage of possible pain points, and most of them are the other people playing with you. Oh, the melee player has taken the staff that the magic user on our team would actually benefit from. Or Ah, there goes H1TL3R in a beeline in the opposite direction of the team, toward a boss that will kill them in a single hit. Also see: Why is the archer pinging a point on the island on the completely opposite side of the map? We love to watch in complete helplessness as a teammate runs toward the waypoint while contributing absolutely nothing.
Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome, but I’ve also come around on the way Nightreign handles its social aspects. The fact that communicating is so difficult makes a good run feel phenomenal. The high of wailing on a boss with your crew with such precision that their AI stops being able to move is peak. No moment in Elden Ring matched the terror of seeing your entire team fall to its knees, only to have one player stand back up with his single-use revival item – and then proceed to beat the boss with a sliver of health left. The drama of just barely reviving a player on their third wheel when no one has any flasks left is a shot of pure dopamine.
The smaller moments stay with me as well. It’s noticing a player silently drop an item for you. It’s running back and forth between someone and a weapon on the ground until they notice you’re trying to tell them something. It’s watching the entire team run in happy circles after beating a boss, because in a few seconds the game will toss you back into the lobby and you’ll never see each other again.
Some things are as annoying as they are endearing. I’ve found myself in a pinging war against other teammates where everyone repeatedly ‘argues’ for going to a specific point in the map. It’s frustrating, but I also know that the people involved all care about having a good run. There are uglier emotions as well, like the shame of repeatedly getting downed by an enemy and needing your teammates to revive you. Conversely, I know that when I’m on the other side of that interaction, the person I’m risking life and limb to revive knows what the stakes are. I like to imagine they’ll try a little harder so that your efforts aren’t in vain. Ultimately, even when the emotional repertoire is difficult, I like that Nightreign can evoke such a wide range of feelings to begin with.
In recent weeks, my interest in Nightreign has been reinvigorated by its inclusion of souped-up versions of existing bosses, which it calls ‘Everdark’ Nightlords. But I’d probably be playing even if there wasn’t new content. Though I’ve spent nearly 200 hours bolting through its castles and ruins trying to evade the impending storm, I know that Nightreign is flush with secrets. There are events I’ve never seen before, only glimpsed in social media posts from bewildered players. There are routes I haven’t tried, treasures I’ve yet to find. I discover something new nearly every day about the way Nightreign’s world works. I’m constantly developing new approaches for better runs.
At first, I saw Nightreign’s design as anathema to everything Elden Ring stood for. I couldn’t understand the logic in rushing me through a landscape that was flush with opportunities. I saw Nightreign through the lens of denied possession: I wanted things, and the game was telling me that I couldn’t have them.
Here’s the thing: I’ve played Elden Ring. Really, I’ve wrung it dry. Whatever magic that brought that world alive to me is gone. I imagine this is what the Tarnished might have felt like at the end of the game, after the player becomes the Elden Lord. Getting to that point requires strength and persistence. The player has to survive countless monsters and forces beyond the realm of human understanding. Beating Elden Ring is unmistakably an achievement.
Your reward: a dead husk of a game, where every living thing has been snuffed out until the player is the only one left standing. A kingdom of ashes.
Nightreign only defies you. It tells the player they can’t have everything they want, just because they want it. Every time you set out to conquer it, the world of Nightreign is born anew. You can’t map out its contours, nor can you predict the gifts the world might bestow upon you. There’s only sacrifice: What will you pursue at the cost of all other possibilities? Are you certain?
But by denying me like this, Nightreign also makes me appreciative. It’s true, I can never go back to Elden Ring. I can also never fully possess Nightreign like a pinned butterfly in a frame. For a spell of this caliber to work, maybe it’s for the best that I can’t hear what my teammate CUML@RD has to say.
The post After 160 hours of Nightreign, I can never go back to Elden Ring appeared first on Polygon.
