Being a huge fan of the Monster Hunter series, rumors of FromSoftware working on a similar experience based on Elden Ring got me quite excited. When Elden Ring Nightreign was announced, however, I have to admit I wasn’t particularly excited about the little that was shown, as I felt that the trademark FromSoftware gameplay mechanics, like the weighty combat and in-depth exploration, weren’t really a good fit for a game that looked to be all about exploring maps as quickly as possible to power-up and survive the final boss encounter. The more I learned about the game, the more I felt this co-op venture could be a fun little game to play every now and then before getting abandoned in favor of meatier experiences.
After playing the game’s Closed Network Test, however, I realized how wrong I was. FromSoftware isn’t just combining its trademark gameplay mechanics with co-op and roguelike mechanics, it is doing so masterfully to deliver an experience that has a lot of potential and could really shine with some tweaks based on the feedback from these pre-release tests.
The basics of Elden Ring Nightreign are really straightforward. From the iconic Roundtable Hold, players can decide to undertake expeditions with three other players, picking one of four Nightfarers, which will become eight in the launch version, all coming with unique special abilities, before getting thrown into one of the game’s maps, where they need to survive for three days. At the end of the third day, the squad will get to fight one of the main bosses and will be rewarded with relics that represent the game’s permanent upgrade system, which improves characters with a variety of different perks. Relics can also be obtained if the squad fails to get to the third day and defeat the final boss, so players still get something for taking part in expeditions.
On paper, winning a game doesn’t sound too difficult, but in reality, Elden Ring Nightreign does its very best to prevent players from reaching the final night. At the start of a game, all characters start with very weak equipment and must obtain better weapons and gear by clearing locations on the map or defeating minor bosses to be able to take on even more challenges, all the while discovering Sites of Graces which automatically restore the character’s HP and FP, the latter used to perform Weapon Skills, as well as Flask charges and level up once enough Runes have been obtained. All of this would still have been easy enough, especially with a competent team that sticks together, if it weren’t for the time limit for each day, which is represented by a blue circle that gets smaller and smaller as time goes by. At some point, the circle will become very small, indicating that the squad should quickly head over to the location indicated by a tree icon on the interface to fight the night’s boss and move on to the following day. All in all, despite the wrenches the game launches, it is a much more straightforward experience than the base game, which is quite simple to understand after a couple of games.
As mentioned above, Elden Ring Nightreign features some roguelike mechanics which come into full force as soon as a game begins. All the weapons and perks that can be obtained are randomly generated, forcing players to make decisions that will shape their builds on the fly. As of the Closed Network Test version, the game features a very good number of weapons coming with different quality levels, but many of them feel too much like others, often having only the Weapon Skill to differentiate them, leading to some bloat in this regard.
I feel fewer weapons that are better differentiated would work better, considering the game wants players to move quickly from one place to another without spending too much time thinking about which weapon to pick, something that is clearly highlighted not only by the fast traversal speed of all characters, the lack of fall damage and the chance to get invaded at any time randomly by some powerful bosses, such as Margit the Fell Omen, who is just as annoying in Elden Ring Nightreign as he is for Elden Ring new players the first time they encounter him. With these variables, death is always behind the corner, but, in true FromSoftware fashion, it is not the end, as it is possible to get revived by other players for a short amount of time. If the other players fail to revive a companion, the dead player will be sent back to the last Site of Grace for the price of all their Runes and one level, which can be restored by recovering them from where the player died.
While the chaotic experience of the Elden Ring Nightreign Closed Network Test was generally fun, especially when playing together with others who didn’t strike off on their own (a death sentence in this game), it also highlighted some issues that must be addressed before launch for the experience to reach its full potential. The lack of duos matchmaking is a major oversight that will hopefully be changed in the launch version, considering how popular it is in other co-op games and how it should be more than viable in the game, especially to up the challenge level a bit if the current balance is kept. As of now, the vast majority of bosses are quite easy to take down, with only some exceptions, even at a low level, so if the balance doesn’t change in the final release, playing the game with only one other companion could definitely make things more interesting, though I would prefer for the general challenge level to go up regardless.
The biggest issue that could make or break Elden Ring Nightreign, however, lies in how map variations will be handled. In the Network Test version, getting to the final boss in a game was pretty much a matter of collecting as many Flask upgrades as possible, which granted excellent survivability in the vast majority of scenarios, allowing some players to even explore outside the blue circle, which drains HP, using the Sites of Grace to restore HP and Flask charges as they went. As such, in one of the final testing sessions, pretty much everyone was pinning for the churches where the Flask upgrades are located, resulting in an experience that was becoming stale fast, no matter the picked Nightfarer or the randomized elements. I sincerely hope the final game will go all out regarding map variations, or the whole experience will turn into a rush toward Flask upgrades that will get boring very, very quickly.
Even though the experience wasn’t perfect, the Closed Network Test succeeded in making me excited about the unique take on the Souls gameplay formula featured in Elden Ring Nightreign. I am now really looking forward to trying out the game when it launches in late May. Hopefully, FromSoftware will be able to address some of the CNT version issues by then and fully realize the potential of the experience.
Tested on PlayStation 5. Closed Network Test access provided by the publisher.
