Elden Ring Nightreign: the soulsborne experience with friends that we didn’t know we needed
Far more engaging than simply summoning a friend in Elden Ring—this is where we collectively destroy our controllers in frustration.
For over a decade, FromSoftware has defined the Soulsborne genre, crafting intricate, punishing worlds designed for solitary mastery. Online features have always been present: summoning allies, invading foes, but never as the foundation of the experience. That changed at The Game Awards 2024, where the studio made a bold announcement: Elden Ring Nightreign, a title built entirely around cooperative play.
Skepticism followed. Could FromSoftware successfully translate its deliberate, methodical combat into a multiplayer-driven roguelike structure? After more than 30 hours with Nightreign, the answer is complicated: both brilliant and flawed, Nightreign is a daring evolution that demands commitment from its players, a good starting point to the souls experience that can either hook or drive away new players.
The Nightreign experience: An expedition of speedy strategy and survival
Unlike its predecessor, Elden Ring, Nightreign isn’t about roaming vast open-world landscapes. Instead, the game structures itself around Expeditions, three-day missions where players explore Limveld, gather resources, and face a climactic battle against a Nightlord Avatar on the final night.
I spent a bit more than a week playing this game with other reviewers from around the world. It was quite a cool experience thanks to FromSoftware, that provided a Discord channel to connect with other gaming professionals to discover and discuss this world with them. I almost didn’t want it to end, as an awesome community sprouted in there with all sorts of helpful tips, interesting discussions, and always someone willing to tag along.
The logic we found is quite simple: players must make fast decisions, avoid losing time, and keep on leveling up while surviving. Curiously enough, the hardest part seemed to be knowing when to flee, as this game keeps inviting players to overcome hardship, and be rewarded over it.
Expedition Breakdown: A Three-Day Cycle
Each Expedition follows a predictable yet challenging pattern:
- Day 1 & Day 2: Free exploration with periodic battles. The world gradually shifts under the influence of the Night’s Tide, a creeping environmental hazard that shrinks the playable map, and kills players that fail to remain inside its safe zone.
- Nightfall (Days 1 & 2): Players are forced into combat with powerful, randomly selected bosses.
- Day 3: The ultimate challenge: an intense showdown against a Nightlord Avatar.
This cyclical design ensures every run is unique, blending battle royale-style zone reduction with roguelike unpredictability. A well-planned character build can make or break an Expedition. Players can know what to look fore before going on these runs, as they select the Nightlord in turn beforehand, and it actually shows it’s weakness while they do so.
And oh what a great boss design it is! Elden Ring Nightreign actually offers some of the most awesome bosses that FromSoftware has ever made. Cruel, but perfectly balanced, offering a very rewarding feeling once you beat them one by one, after having survived for two full days against their forces.
This is also a good moment to mention that a full run will take about 45 minutes to complete (if players make it to the Nightlords and beat them).
Co-op at the core: Multiplayer over solo play
While Nightreign offers a solo mode, it’s clear FromSoftware intended it as a three-player cooperative experience. Players control Nightfarers, heroes with diverse combat styles, pushing teamwork over individual skill. Solo offers quite a hard experience, which players can also experience if their teammates disconnect and don’t come back (a feature the game allows). As I read somewhere, I think it was from the devs themselves: Solo play is possible, but whether it’s enjoyable remains to be seen.
A lot has also been talked about the missing duos mode, that would seem logical, and the devs have started to think about adding that, but so far it’s not in the game. This is a weak point, because sometimes players only have one companion, and would have to add a random stranger to be able to play together, instead of avoiding the matchmaking process and tackling this world together.
Nightfarers: Building the perfect team
At launch, players can choose between Wylder, Guardian, Recluse, Raider, Ironeye, and Executor, with Duchess and Revenant unlocking a bit later. Each class brings distinct advantages:
- Wylder: A balanced fighter, ideal for beginners.
- Guardian: Tank-like defense, absorbing damage for allies.
- Recluse: A magic-based build with powerful status effects.
- Raider: Specializing in heavy weapons and punishing strikes.
- Ironeye: The elusive ranger with the bow, perfect for safe revives and mobility.
- Executor: Agile melee combat, perfect for aggressive players.
- Duchess & Revenant: Unlockable options introducing stealth mechanics and summons.
This team-based synergy shifts Nightreign away from traditional Soulsborne solo progression; without coordination, Expeditions become overwhelming.
Combat refinements: Faster, deadlier, unforgiving
While Nightreign maintains FromSoftware’s signature weighty combat, several gameplay refinements make it more suited to multiplayer:
- Surge Sprint: A faster mobility mechanic, allowing quick repositioning mid-battle.
- Revival System: Instead of instant death, players can revive teammates by striking them before their life gauge expires.
- Limited Healing: Flasks are scarce (and there are none for magic recovery). Players must find Ruined Churches to increase flask charges.
The combat loop is punishing yet exhilarating, rewarding high-risk, high-reward decision-making.
The Roundtable Hold: Progression hub between runs
Between Expeditions, players return to Roundtable Hold, now redesigned as an interactive hub. Here, Nightfarers:
- Switch characters based on the upcoming Expedition’s needs.
- Train at the Sparring Grounds to experiment with weapons.
- Modify builds through Relic Rites.
- Purchase upgrades at the Small Jar Bazaar.
- Engage in story-driven cutscenes tied to the overarching narrative.
This structure provides a sense of continuity despite Nightreign’s roguelike mechanics, but it feels a bit short, even if it takes hours and hours to complete the stories, and get everything.
Procedural worldbuilding: Shifting Earth and randomized encounters
To keep Nightreign unpredictable, FromSoftware has introduced Shifting Earth events, altering Limveld’s terrain each run. Players might encounter:
- The Crater: A volcanic abyss full of fire-aligned enemies.
- Mountaintop: A frozen wasteland affecting stamina regeneration.
- Rotted Woods: A Scarlet Rot-infested forest with debilitating environmental effects (so players don’t miss Caelid).
- Noklateo, The Shrouded City: A labyrinth where vertical traversal is key.
These procedurally generated shifts ensure each playthrough feels fresh, adding emergent gameplay moments reminiscent of Elden Ring’s world design. Players can also reset the world by sleeping, the very thing they won’t be doing because of this game, they can do in the Roundtable Hold.
Where Nightreign falls short: Multiplayer growing pains
For all its strengths, Nightreign struggles in key areas, particularly with multiplayer implementation:
- Solo mode feels incomplete: Enemy health scaling isn’t balanced for single-player runs. The absence of duo play is glaring.
- Random Events Lack Frequency: Procedural elements like World Events and Raids appear inconsistently, dampening replayability.
- No Crossplay in 2025? Lack of platform-wide connectivity limits community longevity, and, you know: Come on! Really?
- To make the last point worse: it’s got no cross progression, so even if players were to buy the game on another platform, they would have to start over.
- Expedition reward loops: Once players defeat all eight launch bosses, progression feels stagnant: there’s no strong long-term incentive beyond self-imposed challenges like collecting trophies, at least for now.
While Nightreign nails moment-to-moment gameplay, FromSoftware’s inexperience with multiplayer games shows in these design missteps.
Would we recommend Elden Ring Nightreign to casual gamers? Yes, but with caution. This is a nice way to experience what the souls games are all about, great if players find friends to do it with. It’s like a mini soulsborne adventure players can go through while they decide if this gruesome style of gaming is for them or not.
These games are very rewarding, because they are all about overcoming hardship, getting better and making things that seemed impossible, happen. But at the same time, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, not everyone wants to be pushed to their limits and tested, especially after a hard day at work, or coming home tired after a long day, some players prefer to chill with other things, and that’s fine.
For those willing to invest time, Elden Ring Nightreign delivers some of FromSoftware’s most intense boss battles, deeply rewarding teamwork, and layered strategy. But without future updates addressing multiplayer limitations, Nightreign risks becoming a niche experiment rather than a lasting masterpiece. For lovers of the genre, it’s a very addictive experience, that allows for them to share the souls experience with friends, and that’s where FromSoftware hit the mark with Nightreign.
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