A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to get the chance to play the Elden Ring: Nightreign play test! Which was basically a series of 3 hour long test sessions with FromSoftware’s new game. I had quite the fun time with it if I’m being honest! Even with the first play session being completely messed up to the point no one could play. Beyond that hiccup though, I enjoyed the rest of the sessions over the weekend where I managed to get nearly 7 hours of play time with the game. Despite that though, I did want to talk about why some fans of the original Elden Ring might want to be a bit cautious about picking up this new spin off.

For those who don’t know, Elden Ring: Nightreign is a spin off game, not sequel, to the smash hit Soulslike Elden Ring, and it is quite a bit different from that game! From game play to structure to overall budget, Nightreign is a vastly different game from the original in many ways that will make some fans happy but plenty of other fans not so. I wanted to use this post to talk about what I enjoyed and am looking forward to with the full release as well as why some fans of the original might want to skip out on this spin off or at the very least come in with very different expectations.

The original Elden Ring is an open world game about exploring, leveling up, and fighting a lot of strong bosses and enemies as you make your way through the world. It’s a game that can take you over a hundred hours to see everything, to explore everywhere, and to find every secret you can. It was a very refreshing take on the usual Soulslike formula that FromSoft invented so long ago. Most Soulslikes they made prior to Elden Ring were far more linear, with a few places to explore here and there. I feel like the open world nature of Elden Ring is what made it so appealing to so many people that skipped out on the past Souls games. Beating your head against a super hard boss for hours isn’t for everyone after all so being able to simply leave and go some place else and then come back later, made Elden Ring a lot more approachable! So it’s probably going to come as a shock to say that Nightreign kind of loses all that exploration!

Nightreign is a very different beast from the original Elden Ring! It’s not an open world game and it’s not even a linear game like past Souls games. Nightreign is a roguelite, battle royal like, multiplayer focused game! With the focus on 3 player coop being a big part of the game’s identity. Most Souls games FromSoft has made do have 3 player coop, but Nightreign is the first one with a big focus on it! Which is something fans have been asking for recently. A lot of people enjoy playing Elden Ring with friends so the idea of being able to play a full Souls game with your friends is an exciting one! Normally, you’d only be able to summon your friends to help with a single area or boss. But not with Nightreign though! You can play each run entirely with 2 other friends. However, given how different Nightreign is from the usual Souls game, I do feel like FromSoft kind of missed the point of what fans were asking for, but this is at least a step in the right direction!

With that out of the way, how exactly does Nightreign work in terms of game play? Well like I said before, the game is much more of a roguelite than any other FromSoft Souls game. Roguelites being games all about starting over every time you lose with lots of random elements thrown in to keep things fresh. So each run in Nightreign will have you starting from level one with basic equipment and going out in the world to fight and kill the usual big Souls bosses! And honestly, that might sound kind of terrible. But let me explain!

The Souls games are all about trying again, never giving up, and learning from your mistakes. Roguelites are also a lot like this but in a very different way. In a Souls game you don’t lose your gear or levels when you die to a boss, while that tends to be the case with most roguelite games! And that is certainly the case with Nightreign. If you and your two teammates go down during a big boss fight that’s it. The only way to try again is to start back at zero, with a few passive upgrades here and there that you earn from every run, whether you succeed or not. This does kind of fly in the face of how most Souls games work. You aren’t able to run straight back to the boss in Nightreign because you need to level up again, and get more gear, and that gear might be completely different from what you had before! And that’s what I find so much fun about Nightreign as a whole.

Now I should say that I am a big fan of roguelites. I’ve talked about it in plenty of previous posts about how much I enjoy them. So when I heard Nightreign was going to be a roguelite Soulslike, I was hyped! I was really curious to see how FromSoft would try and make their Souls formula work in this kind of genre, and I think they did a shockingly good job. And part of that is because they took some elements from a source I would not have expected. Battle royals!

Unlike other battle royal games, like Fortnite and Apex Legends, Nightreign isn’t about fighting other players, it’s a coop game but still shares plenty of elements with battle royals. The main thing being the fact that the area you are in whenever you start each run is shrinking. The “Night” is slowly closing in on you and when it reaches its smallest ring, that’s when you and your team have to fight a big boss together! Before then, much like a battle royal as well, you have to use that time to level up and find gear. You do this by running around and going from place to place killing enemies and fighting smaller bosses. This is actually where some elements from base Elden Ring some into play! The map we played for the play test was clearly based on the first area of Elden Ring, Limgrave. With the limited time you have, you basically have to pick and choose which places you want to raid and loot before you eventually have to confront the boss of that night. You are given two chances to do this with each run! Two days to collect and level up, assuming you beat the big boss at the end of the first day. After you beat the boss of the second day, you are instantly brought to an arena while you take on that run’s Nightlord! This is the basic structure of each run in Nightreign. And while it doesn’t sound very much like Elden Ring when I lay it out like that, it still did feel quite a bit like the base game at times. Mainly the running around the world part. It was almost like a bite sized version of Elden Ring! That being said, let’s go over some more of the changes Nightreign introduces from the base game since there are quite a few more!

Probably one of the biggest things people will notice is the fact that you don’t make your own character like you do in most Souls games. Instead, you are given the choice between a few different characters to play as! Each character basically represents a different play style or build that you’d usually make in something like Elden Ring. The play test only had four to try out, and each had pretty different builds! The Wylder is the basic “all round” character that mainly focuses on good attack and defense but doesn’t excel at either which does open up a lot of options for which gear you want. The Guardian is a big bird man and is much more of a tank build! Slow but with high health and defense. The Duchess is basically the dexterity build for the game, meaning she’s quick and nimble but doesn’t have nearly as much health or attack damage. And finally there’s the Recluse, the magic build for the play test. She’s the only one that is built to be good with magic and spells! This does leave her with very low defense though and she’s not nearly as nimble as the Duchess. Overall though, each character has their strengths and weaknesses! So it’s good to have a balance when going into a run. Like, while you can do this, it probably wouldn’t be a great idea doing a run with three people all playing the Recluse! And beyond how their stats level up, because you don’t get to choose what your points go into when you level up in this game it’s all based on your character, each character has their own set of abilities!

Abilities are something very new to the series. They are unique to each character and tie into their builds. Such as the Recluse who’s abilities all focus on magic. Each character is given two! A smaller one that has a much shorter cool down so you can use it more often, and a bigger one that is far more powerful but obviously takes longer to come back when you use it. I’m not going to go over each characters’ set of abilities, mainly because this post is already longer than I was expecting, but they all mostly work to enhance each of the characters! For instance, the Recluse’s smaller ability allows her to regain some MP whenever she lands a magic attack on an enemy if you use her ability right after the hit. Do this three times and said ability turns into a magic attack that changes depending on which magic elements you used to strike your enemies! This is really important for someone like the Recluse who’s main focus is magic. Making sure she has MP to keep casting her spells is extremely important as she doesn’t have much in the way of strength or dexterity to use other kinds of attacks. That and there isn’t a flask to regain MP like there is in the base game.

After everyone has picked their characters, you are all dropped into the map that is partly randomized each run but not drastically so. Even with only playing 7 hours, I quickly started to pick up on each of the patterns for the map. This isn’t a problem for a small play test, but could be for the full game if not much variety is introduced. Regardless, after you all drop together you are free to go wherever on the map! You can split up or stick together. Though from my experience sticking together is the far easier option. Like I was saying before, your goal is to spend each day getting stronger so you’re ready for the boss at the end of each night. You do this by raiding different areas, killing all the enemies for experience points and gaining loot. What you decide to raid is very important though! Different structures yield different reward. For instance, attacking a mine will get you upgrade materials and going to a magic tower will get you various staffs. Keeping these rewards in mind, and how long it’ll take to get said rewards, is very important when it comes to building up your specific character. You can focus on just killing bosses for experience and passive buffs, get upgrade materials, or look for loot but you mainly want to do a mix of all of these. This can be a bit difficult since it does require working with your team. And the reason that’s difficult is because like most of the Souls games, there is no voice chat. The best you can do is put a pin on the map and hope your team agrees with going there. This was honestly pretty annoying during the first few play sessions but by the end, most players I ran into were happy to work together and follow each others pins! So I have faith this won’t be too frustrating when the full game launches. I should also mention there is a single player option, or rather there will be in the full game. It wasn’t available in the play test, but if you really want to avoid other people and do things on your own, the option does exist!

By the final few play tests when everyone had started to figure out how the game works and what we were doing, I was honestly having a blast! I was trying to squeeze as many runs in as I could by the end of things and was rather upset when the test was all said and done. Nightreign managed to do what every roguelite should, it left me wanting more. It gave me that “one more run” feeling each time I finished, regardless of if I won or lost. And I did manage to win at least once! I had a good balanced team and we all were working together and managed to take down the three headed monster dog at the end of the third night! And even after we won, I still wanted to play more.

I suppose my current worry for the main game is how much content it’ll have. It’s clear that this game is being made on a budget. Not only is it going to be just $40, but it’s also reusing a lot not just from Elden Ring but previous Souls games as well. I’m trying not to have too high of expectations but if they want this to be a truly amazing roguelite they’ll need to have enough content to keep people coming back! This is FromSoft’s first attempt at a game like this, and it’s clearly being made by a smaller team as a sort of test. Which isn’t a bad thing! I’m happy to see FromSoft green lighting something new like this. Even if it doesn’t feel like they are putting a lot of weight behind it. Beyond that, and the servers being functional at launch, I don’t have too many worries for the game overall! I am super excited to play the full game when it comes out at the tail end of May. That being said, I do still want to caution those that enjoyed base Elden Ring when it comes to picking this up.

Nightreign is very different from Elden Ring! As you could probably tell just by what I described above. While it still plays like Elden Ring when it comes to the combat and such, the overall game play loop is completely different, to the point that calling it Elden Ring is a little misleading honestly. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why they made this game a spin off since making it it’s own thing would have cost a lot more money as they’d have to make a whole bunch of new assets but still. I’m not saying FromSoft was wrong to make Nightreign a spin off, just that fans of the original game should do plenty of research before picking it up.

And those are my thoughts on Nightreign! I really enjoy it’s fast paced nature, roguelite elements, and coop focus despite it not at all being like base Elden Ring. And while it is very different, I hope those that enjoyed the original game will give this spin off a try! Just after they make sure that it’s at least a little interesting to them. I saw a lot of people upset with how different of an experience Nightreign is at the start of the play tests. However, by the end of the weekend, most people were raving about it! I can’t tell if that’s because the people who didn’t like it stopped playing it or if they came around to it after giving it more time. I hope it’s the latter though as while this probably isn’t what most people wanted from an Elden Ring spin off, the game is still a total blast to play!

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Are you excited for Nightreign? If not, what’s got you feeling cautious about it? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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