Elden Ring: Nightreign review

I’ve been playing Elden Ring: Nightreign (FromSoftware, 2025) basically any moment I have between moving to a new apartment and preparing for my next teaching assignment. I found myself playing even in some moments I didn’t have—if I’m being honest.

had preordered the game shortly after it was announced back in December of 2024 at The Game Awards. The timing was perfect. I had just

finished going through Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoftware, 2024) DLC for the second time as I worked on a research paper about the similarities between the character Miquella (a saintly figure who seeks to bring the world to peace by making everyone fall in love with him against their will) and the Old English poem of Andreas, in which St. Andrew goes to a country of cannibals and helps them convert to Christianity. More importantly than that, though, was that my professor and I both emailed each other when Nightreign was announced out of excitement for what the future of the game could bring. Also, just more Elden Ring is very cool.

In the interim there was little news about the game before launch, other than a speculative look at what each of the characters would be able to do: a passive ability, a unique skill, and an Ultimate Art. Each of these painted a picture of what the characters would play like.

At launch, only 6 of the 8 Nightfarers (the name the game gives to the characters that you play as, similar to heroes in other hero shooters like Apex Legends [EA, 2019], or Overwatch 2 [Blizzard, 2023] or Marvel Rivals [NetEase, 2024]) were available to select for runs against the first boss, Gladius. All the other bosses unlock after defeating the first one, for a total of 8 Night Lords. In an update on June 19^th, though, FromSoftware announced limited time, upgraded versions of one boss fight that is completable over the course of a week, called Everdark Sovereigns, though these are altered fights rather than distinctly new bosses.

Alex's FromSoft Record on Steam.

My experience starting the game was admittedly very rough. While I would consider myself a FromSoftware veteran, having completed several ‘souls’ games along with Bloodborne (2015) on PlayStation and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on both PC and PlayStation, there is always a bit of a learning curve when it comes to a new entry in the catalogue. Often the learning curve just comes from slight tweaks to the way that movement feels, or enemy speeds, typically things that are imperceptible to players who have spent little time with the game. Additionally, as anyone who has played one of these games at launch can tell you, playing without a metagame makes the experience much more confusing and sometimes frustrating.

By a metagame, I mean the planning of each run that is a staple of the FromSoft stable. For example, in Nightreign there are several objectives you can attempt in one of the 2 days that you have to explore the map. You know you need to level up (starting at 1 and maxing out at 15) and in every other souls-game you have infinite time to fight everything and defeat enemies in exchange for experience points, while Nightreign gives you only a few minutes to try and gain levels, making efficiency the name of the game. For my first 30-or-so hours efficiency was yet to be figured out by me but also by the teammates I would be paired with online. The game is, after all, designed to be played by a trio of characters. None of us knew exactly what we were doing, what routes would be the most effective in the overworld to reach the areas we needed to go to get levelled up. This meant that we often ended up fighting bosses under-levelled and unprepared. Imagine facing Promised Consort Radahn, but instead of a time between attempts of 10-or-so seconds you had 30-40 minutes? At least, that’s what it felt like at first.

Then, I got my friend Quentin to join me, and wow did that make a huge difference!

Typically, the game only allows you to communicate with other players using 2 methods: Gestures, which take too long in the menu to be useful, and location pinging to suggest where to go next. While this system does avoid issues that plagued Call of Duty (Activision, 2003—Present) franchise, it does not allow for very sophisticated strategy and often led to miscommunication. However, when playing with friends the opportunity to get on Discord to talk through strategies and plans makes a world of difference. I didn’t need to ping as much, and we rarely had miscommunication issues. Overall, I found that it improved the game immensely.

The numbers compare like this: I played for 30 hours and beat 1 of the 8 bosses, but with friends we were able to clear all 8 within 30 hours of them joining the game. The difference is staggering.

I’ve continued to play, though the pace has slowed with the lack of things to achieve in the game. After 100 hours, most of the goals for characters can be pretty achievable, I was able to clear the small story section for each character as well as buy every cosmetic available to me in the shop. With the introduction of the Everdark Sovereigns came an additional shop, though this too I have bought all but one item from (at time of writing).

I am most concerned about the game’s longevity. I love playing, but having so much cleared in 150 hours feels insignificant to what one can play of other games in this style, like Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds or Apex Legends or Fortnite. I know FromSoft has a DLC aimed to release at the end of the year, I just hope it brings enough new content and variety to keep me (and players even more committed than I am) to continue to spend plenty of time in Limveld with as many people as we can bring aboard!