I’ve been deep into Soulsborne games since Demon’s Souls on PS3. Pretty much every FromSoftware release since then has been a day-one play for me. I’ve spent hundreds of hours learning boss patterns, figuring out weird builds, and dying in increasingly creative ways. Elden Ring felt like the studio’s most approachable game to date, and Shadow of the Erdtree doubled down on difficulty without changing the formula too much. So when Elden Ring: Nightreign was announced as a roguelike co-op spin-off, I didn’t really know what to expect.
The pitch sounds strange at first: take the combat and world of Elden Ring, mix in elements of battle royale and roguelike design, and make it all work as a three-player co-op experience. But after dozens of runs, that weird mix has started to make sense. Nightreign isn’t trying to be a replacement for the main game. It’s something else entirely, faster, more focused, and built around short, high-stakes sessions instead of long exploration. You still get the signature challenge and spectacle, but in a much tighter loop.
Whether that loop works for you will depend a lot on how you like to play FromSoftware games. It’s not as flexible or open-ended as Elden Ring, but it’s got a rhythm and style that kept me coming back.
Three Days to Die Trying
Most runs in Nightreign start the same way: you drop into Limveld with your trio, pick a direction, and hope your plan holds up. But that calm doesn’t last long. Within minutes, you’re juggling timers, routing decisions, and the looming threat of the Night’s Tide closing in. It didn’t take many failed runs for me to realize how unforgiving the pace can be if you waste time or avoid tough fights early on.
My first few expeditions were disasters. We wandered too much, skipped bosses, and focused too hard on collecting flasks. By the time the second night hit, we were under-leveled and out of position. The second boss, the Fell Omen, completely wrecked us every time. I kept blaming bad gear or bad luck, but it eventually clicked. I was managing the run wrong. After I adjusted my priorities, we started reaching the third day more consistently. That learning curve is harsh, but rewarding.
Each run in Nightreign plays out over three days, with a boss fight at the end of each one. Time always feels tight. You can’t clear everything, so decisions matter. Camps and towers offer gear, buffs, and runes, but going after them means gambling time. And once the second fire ring closes in, your options shrink fast.
It’s the kind of structure that encourages reruns. Even when we failed, we’d immediately queue up again to fix whatever went wrong. Sometimes we rushed too much and skipped upgrades. Sometimes we got greedy and ran out of time. The balance is delicate, and that’s what makes each run feel tense and satisfying.
Classes, Builds, and Brutality
Choosing your Nightfarer is more important than it first seems. You can technically equip any weapon or spell, but each character leans hard into a specific role. The Duchess favours dexterity and trickery. The Raider hits like a truck. The Ironeye rains damage from a distance. They each come with a passive ability, a Character Art, and an Ultimate that sets them apart.
I started with the Wylder because I figured the balanced class would give me room to experiment.It worked at first, but not for long. Once I hit the later boss fights, I realized I wasn’t getting enough out of my setup. I switched to the Duchess and immediately felt the difference. Her rewind ability let me double up on burst damage during big moments, and her invisibility Ultimate bailed us out more than once. It felt like I was actually contributing, not just surviving.
Each Nightfarer gets three relic slots. These relics offer stat boosts or unique effects, like healing allies when you use a flask or adding elemental damage. You can customize your build before a run or gamble on new relics at the Roundtable Hold. Some runs I built around poison, stacking gear and buffs that tore through bosses weak to it. Other times, I relied on relics that boosted flask recovery or rewarded risky play.
The revive system makes things more stressful in the middle of a fight. You don’t just tap a button, you have to hit your downed teammate to get them back up. It’s hilarious the first time, but in a real fight, it forces you to choose between saving a friend or staying alive. Your loadout matters. Your team comp matters. And when it all clicks, you feel unstoppable.
Multiplayer or Bust?
Nightreign works best when you’ve got a group you can rely on. Playing with friends who understand the mechanics makes a huge difference. You can plan routes, combo ultimates, and save each other without needing to guess what someone’s thinking. Matchmaking with strangers is another story.
In one run, I joined a random team that looked solid at first. We cleared the first few camps, picked up decent gear, and even shared pings like we knew what we were doing. But the moment the first Night Boss appeared, one guy wandered off and got wiped almost instantly. The other teammate rushed to revive him, got clipped mid-swing, and went down too. I was stuck trying to solo the boss just to save the run. We didn’t make it.
Reviving is clever but risky. You don’t press a button. You have to hit your teammate enough to fill a revive bar. It works great with coordination, but it’s brutal in the middle of a messy fight. Sometimes it’s better to let someone stay down. Not being able to play in duos feels like a miss. Not everyone wants to group with two others, and solo play, while technically possible, doesn’t offer the same flow. No AI companions, no matchmaking filters, and no crossplay between consoles also limit who you can actually play with.
If you’re not playing with a regular squad, Nightreign feels harder than it needs to be.
Style Over Story
If you’ve played Elden Ring or Shadow of the Erdtree, you’ll recognize a lot in Nightreign. Limveld looks and feels like a reshaped version of the Lands Between. The enemies, bosses, and landmarks are mostly familiar, just moved around or slightly changed. It’s not a huge surprise, but it gives returning fans something to grab onto during all the chaos.
That said, Nightreign isn’t really about discovery. It’s about movement, pressure, and execution. The environments are detailed and atmospheric, but you’re sprinting past most of them. Shifting Earth events do mix things up. In one run, we reached an icy area and got wrecked by a frost dragon. Another time we fought through a rot-infested forest and came out with buffs that carried us into the final fight. These changes help, but the map doesn’t really change much between runs.
Performance is solid most of the time. On PS5, I noticed some texture pop-in and minor frame dips, but nothing that ruined the experience. The game looks sharp and clean, especially during boss encounters. Those fights are where the visuals really hit home. Every Nightlord has a distinct look and huge, dramatic attacks that feel built for screenshots.
Story-wise, it’s as simple as it gets. You’re one of eight Nightfarers trying to stop the Nightlord from destroying everything. That’s about it. Each character has their own Remembrances, small stories that unlock over time, but they don’t go very deep. I liked the idea, and a few moments landed, but it wasn’t something I thought about much after finishing a run.
Nightreign looks great and sounds even better, but it’s not here to tell a grand story. It’s here to keep you moving.
Focused, Fast, and Sometimes Frustrating
Nightreign isn’t trying to replace Elden Ring. It takes one part of that experience, boss fights, and turns it into the entire game. You get short, intense runs where everything depends on how well your team moves, fights, and plans. There’s no wandering aimlessly or slowly building a character. You’re thrown in fast, and it’s up to you to make the most of each run.
What kept me coming back was how tight the loop felt once it clicked. I remember one run where we hit the second day boss under-leveled, no real gear, almost out of flasks. Somehow, we scraped through with one teammate alive. That same run ended with us taking down the final Nightlord using a poison-heavy build that none of us had planned for. We just leaned into what the game gave us. That kind of recovery made the whole session feel like a win, even if it wasn’t clean.
Still, Nightreign isn’t for everyone. If you don’t enjoy rerunning content, dealing with matchmaking, or learning new systems under pressure, it might wear you down fast. The solo mode exists, but it’s not very satisfying, and the limited map variation could turn off long-term players looking for more surprise.
But if you’ve got two friends willing to learn the rhythms with you, Nightreign offers something sharp and focused. It’s not open-ended, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a game that knows exactly what it wants to do and executes it well.
Elden Ring: Nightreign
Summary
Elden Ring: Nightreign turns the series’ boss fights into a fast, focused roguelike loop. It’s tough, best played with a regular trio, and drops the open-world structure in favour of tight planning and co-op execution. While the solo mode and limited map variety hold it back, the build variety and challenge make each run feel earned. If you enjoy FromSoftware combat and don’t mind reruns, there’s a lot to like here.
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