Elden Ring Nightreign Impression

Nightreign at its best feels like the “jolly cooperation” of Soulslike titles distilled into one great, chaotic package.

After being announced at The Game Awards last year, Elden Ring Nightreign surprised many gamers as not another DLC for Elden Ring but a standalone cooperative adventure within the same universe. Borrowing elements from battle royale games like Fortnite, Nightreign features a continuously shrinking arena set in a procedurally generated version of Elden Ring‘s starting area, Limgrave, now known in Nightreign as “Limveld.” In this world, players can choose from a slate of designated classes, each with their own gameplay niche. These players must survive three consecutive nights, facing off against hordes of enemies and collecting equipment to take on bosses at each night’s end, with the third night revolving around one ultimate final boss. Bandai Namco and FromSoftware recently held its first closed network test, allowing some players a first opportunity to brave Limveld’s three nights. Of the five sessions, RPGamer was able to experience two on PlayStation 5, totaling just over six hours of gameplay.

From the get-go, players arrive at the Roundtable Hold and can choose from four different classes, called “Nightfarers,” each with a unique ability and ultimate attack. The knight-like Wylder is statistically well-balanced and utilizes a grappling hook and arm cannon for maneuverability and explosive offense. The bird-like Guardian can whip up whirlwinds and raise protective aegises, focusing on defense and support. The Recluse, a witch, utilizes powerful dark magic but is challenging to master. Lastly, the Duchess is fast and dextrous, able to clone herself to multiply attacks and cloak teammates to allow for surprise ambushes.

A Wylder jumps into the fray, exploding a knight with their special ability.

From here, players can wander around the Roundtable Hold, with the only area of note being the Sparring Grounds, a training area where players can practice each character’s abilities and experiment with different weapons and spells. Otherwise, at the roundtable, there is a single expedition to throw yourself into against “Tricephalos,” which, after experimentation with the four classes, Wylder seemed the most obvious first choice, as it was the most accessible class.

After dropping into the world via Spectral Eagle, players immediately set out for the very first settlement, and one overarching rule to success became immediately apparent: leveling up is paramount to any other gameplay element. With each level up, stats skyrocket, making a massive difference against any major enemy, especially the boss of each night. Therefore, players must gather as many runes as possible very quickly. This rush ahead underpins the second major aspect of Nightreign: the immediacy of traversal. The dark circle of health-draining rain closes in faster than one might expect and moving from settlement to settlement while killing everything in sight as fast as possible has a brilliantly fun, heart-pounding urgency. To account for this, players have an increased movement speed compared to the base game and can utilize Spiritspring wells located across the map to traverse vertical distances more easily.

Gathered equipment is the second most important key to success, and players are allowed to carry six weapons (three in each hand), two talismans, and four consumable items. However, collecting equipment is often chaotic and slightly troublesome, as there is little time to process the Ashes of War (special attacks or abilities attached to weapons) or other benefits of items due to the game’s frenetic nature. During some expeditions, other players sometimes rush into the fray without giving teammates time to evaluate and reequip, and, in some cases, the entire team becomes wildly separated or underpowered. The ability to become separated, which is often dangerous, underpins the overarching, central concern that beleaguers some, but not all, expeditions in Nightreign. The lack of ability to communicate outside of placing markers on the map makes deciding the group’s itinerary confusing. Given the importance of leveling, a lack of team cohesion can very quickly set back an expedition or outright doom it, especially during the second night.

When players mesh together well, Nightreign is a blast.

Nevertheless, when players do click, in typical FromSoftware fashion, the bosses are absolutely brilliant, and coming together to slay a boss in the world feels excellent. One huge benefit of Nightreign is that death is not initially permanent. When players die, they are given a limited amount of time where allies can hit and resurrect them. The more they die, the more hits it takes, but this feature felt very smartly implemented, and the time allotted to save allies is aptly balanced against the difficulty of the bosses. In essence, Nightreign at its best feels like the “jolly cooperation” of Soulslike titles distilled into one great, chaotic package. With proper teamwork from timely revivals, good positioning, and an intuitive understanding of the combat mechanics, taking down the first night’s boss feels exhilarating.

One interesting gameplay element is that, after each expedition, players are awarded relics, which offer stat boosts or abilities that can be applied to each class back at the Roundtable Hold. Players may also receive marks, a currency that can be used to barter for stat boosts or other benefits for the next expedition. Maintaining momentum across each attempt and growing a character to fit a specific playstyle seems interesting, even if the limited time allotted in the closed network test didn’t allow too much experimentation with this mechanic.

Exploring the game’s randomized dungeons as a team is thrilling.

That said, one other concern is the game’s RNG aspect. While it works excellently with the variety of weapons and experiences afforded to players, it comes with some drawbacks due to the dependence on Elden Ring‘s metagame and balancing aspects. Like in the original, bleed builds are extraordinarily powerful, leading to imbalances in how classes are played if there are enough lucky drops. In another example, during two consecutive expeditions, the second settlement encountered was full of Wormfaces, which are notoriously difficult and troublesome enemies in the original game that utilize Deathblight, a status that builds quickly and instantly kills players. With pre-existing knowledge of Elden Ring, avoiding this area, cutting losses, and moving on seems obvious, but that did not turn out to be the case here, and valuable time was lost. This example and others like it lead to a pre-existing knowledge of Elden Ring feeling necessary or else suffer a harsh learning curve in how the world interacts with the players. Due to the fast-paced nature of Nightreign, this raises concerns as to whether or not foreknowledge of Elden Ring will greatly influence a person’s experience in the early going.

While there were some instances of disconnects, most of the expeditions on PlayStation 5 ran into zero frame rate or graphical issues, which is a positive and encouraging note for a first network test. Some form of better communication would have made the experience even more fun and cohesive, and there are some eyebrow-raisers with respect to balance. Nevertheless, there’s a lot to love here, with many chaotic moments, near-death experiences, and some fun and gripping multiplayer battles. All in all, Nightreign represents a promising cooperative opportunity for fans of Elden Ring, Soulslikes, or just fun multiplayer experiences when it releases for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on May 30, 2025.