Elden Ring: Nightreign (30th May 2025)

[Julius]

Co-op focused standalone Elden Ring spin-off?! 

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As Night Falls, We Rise.

So freaking in.

I told my friends for years now all I wanted was a co-op focused Souls game for them to finally jump in – this is it! 

Edited Wednesday at 02:10 PM by Julius

[Julius]

The official site is down at the moment, but apparently this is the rumoured Bandai Namco x From Software gacha game. To quote someone from ResetEra who summarised what was on the site:

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• Three player coop online.
• Select from uniquely skilled heroes (there's the gacha)
• Environment changes between game sessions, so it's maybe run based, with different bosses at the end.

Let's see how this plays out, but urgh. Three players?! Get out of here with that nonsense. 

[Julius]

Hands-on first look from PC Gamer:

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Elden Ring: Nightreign is FromSoftware's next game, coming in 2025-and we've played it. This standalone spin-off throws weapons, enemies and bosses from Elden Ring into a new co-op roguelike set in an alternate version of Limgrave, with new "hero" characters with unique abilities replacing the usual RPG create-a-character. Here's what we learned from 6 hours playing Nightreign at FromSoftware's offices in Tokyo.

Serious respect to them to somehow keeping this under wraps! 

[Julius]

Network test in Feb, registration on 10th Jan:

Obligatory Vaati vid:

Think I'm in. It can be played solo or in a trio (apparently no duos, apparently the password method will be used for linking up with friends), and it seems like I've got two friends who might be onboard. 

Just sounds like an exciting new way to play more From goodness while we wait for whatever they've got next in the pipeline 

Can't help but wonder if this will be digital-only? But I love the art and so would love the chance to get a physical copy! 

Edited December 16, 2024 by Julius

[bob]

On 12/13/2024 at 1:50 AM, Julius said:

The official site is down at the moment, but apparently this is the rumoured Bandai Namco x From Software gacha game. To quote someone from ResetEra who summarised what was on the site:

Let's see how this plays out, but urgh. Three players?! Get out of here with that nonsense. 

Are you upset that it's only three? Or you can't play as two?

[Julius]

11 minutes ago, bob said:

Are you upset that it's only three? Or you can't play as two?

Mainly it's that it's only three, but not being able to play at two as an alternative sucks too. 

My gaming group is four people including myself, and so this just means someone is going to be left out of we'll need to rotate. It's a real shame as I've been looking for any way to convince my friends to try a From Software game, and our collective thought has always been that if there's even a mainly co-op game by them, that'll be when they try one – feels a bit lower stakes than playing through one of these games solo, and they'll have someone who has some experience with these games to hand, too. 

Not being able to play as a duo sucks just in case enough people aren't available; while we're a group of four, sometimes it's just the three of us, or even just two of us, who are able to jump on, just because the others in the group are busy with other things. 

It's been a growing trend over the last few years in the industry where these co-op games are becoming based on groups of three rather than four, and while I get it purely from a debatable balance and design perspective for the people who worked on the game, co-op games - and specifically PvE, where it's your group vs a bunch of non-player enemies - I feel like shouldn't be about finding a perfect balance, but just having people engage with the game in whatever size of group they want. Alien: Fireteam and Warhammer 40k: Space Marine II are the main ones which come to mind where we've been interested and then been disappointed and needed to chalk it off purely because of the three-player angle. 

It is what it is I guess, but considering the size of groups you can play with in Elden Ring proper, I can't help but feel left frustrated that they've gone with a bit of an odd choice 

[bob]

It does seem weird that they're limiting it to 3 (presumably for scaling reasons. Although I don't see how hard it can be, Borderlands used to perfectly scale between 1-4 players all the time), what's weirder is that you can't have 2?! How does that even work?

[Julius]

Reminder that registration for the Network Test goes live today, from 14:00 GMT. The network test will be held on PS5 and Series X|S. 

Sessions will be held from Friday 14th Feb to Monday 17th Feb; refer to the table below for the scheduled session times:

 

Hope I can get in! Fingers crossed 

[Julius]

Registration is now live until the 20th: 

Site is currently getting hammered, as you'd expect 

 

UPDATE: 

Finally got through, fingers crossed! 

Edited January 10 by Julius

[Julius]

Well apparently I'm using up all my luck at the start of 2025, because I've just got into the closed beta 

I'm not going to be able to get a Switch 2 pre-order in, am I? 

[Julius]

According to Insider Gaming, we'll be getting some news on this next week ahead of the Network Test – apparently including the game's release date? 

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Insider Gaming has learned that new Elden Ring Nightreign details are scheduled to be released next week, including a release date.

That's according to source familiar with the games plans, who said that information will be released on February 12. It's understood that the announcement will include media previews and a final release date for the game, which is currently slated for the end of May.

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For those out of the loop, the timing could make a lot of sense, too, as a recent rumor has also suggested that a PlayStation State of Play could be taking place in the same week (although it could just be a coincidence).

But likely, the announcements and embargoes are because of the Elden Ring Nightreign network test, which takes place on February 14 – 17, which is undoubtedly going to see the games contents leak online. So it would make sense for FromSoftware to get ahead of them with official announcements.

I think there were some whisperings of media reviews last week, so yeah, this sounds about right. 

Anyone else interested in this here? 

[Julius]

Beta codes are out!

And the art for the game looks noooooooice

I spied a certain @drahkon owning the beta under this – looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it! 

Looking at the times I think I'm aiming for the 11:00 - 14:00 slots on Friday (14th) and Sunday (16th), maybe get a bit extra in on the Saturday during the 19:00 - 22:00 slot if I'm really feeling it 

 

EDIT: loaded it up. Oof, that menu music 

Edited Tuesday at 02:49 PM by Julius

[Julius]

Random trailer drop (with decidedly few new shots?) and a date – this is coming 30th May 2025:

Pleasantly surprised to see that this will be getting a physical release, too (source). 

Standard edition placeholder image is just the promo cover art, so that's why I'm not posting it here  I'm not a steelbook guy in the slightest but DAMN is that a nice steelbook! 

A bunch of previews have dropped too:

So, uh, I guess this won't be at tonight's State of Play then 

UPDATE: standard edition will be £34.99 and the deluxe edition will be £47.99, per the game's PS Store page. 

Edited Wednesday at 02:13 PM by Julius

[Julius]

Starter Guide for the Network Test: 

Finished watching one of the previews and the 3-player limit sounds like it makes a little more sense with how some bosses are designed (the three-headed dog boss in the trailer apparently splits off into three dogs?!), but it's still ultimately a bit of a bummer as my online group is typically a part of four, but alas, someone's getting the sack 

[Julius]

Undergoing maintenance during the first session:

Whoops. 

Bit of a shame this isn't just being left open over the weekend, to be honest. I get they're stress-testing and stuff but 3 hour session and rounds of 35-40 minutes (if you complete them) doesn't seem nearly enough time to truly experiment with the game, especially with it being the first of these to have pre-built characters. 

Curious to see if they put up another/extend this session 

[drahkon]

The schedule is pretty terrible for me.
Not sure if I can get some playtime during the network test  

[Julius]

An additional session has been added to the line-up, which will go live in about an hour! 

 

[Julius]

Just jumped off the bonus session they threw up and yeah, this is a lot of fun! Made it to the end of Day 2 on each run. 

First run I was Wylder along with a Guardian and Duchess, and that felt like the best run. Everyone being a different class meant our play styles weren't clashing or overlapping too much, and the highlight of this run for me was having a slither of health left after chugging all my Tears (didn't realise until this point that it shows your charges in the top left next to health), having both my teammates go down halfway through, and getting them both back up successfully. We died with this boss on about half health. 

Second and third runs, I continued with the Wylder class (sword & shield is my thing in the more traditional Souls games), by the way I love his Pile Driver move (stolen from AC?) and hookshot! Anyways, on both these runs I was paired with a Guardian and another Wylder, ended up with the same boss at the end of Day 2 where it's not one boss like it was in my first run, but a main boss and two supporting bosses, and yeah...I think this is where the game falls apart a bit with randoms – these match-ups call for coordination and strategy, and that's impossible to pull off with randoms you have no way of communicating with. Voice chat, some Apex Legends sort of strategic commands, anything would be better than how it is now. Anyways, horse-mounted enemies when you've got two Wylders, so need to use close-range weapons and melee? Not it if you start taking on the same enemy, because you just end up in this chaotic cluster in the arena. I tried several times to kite enemies out but, again, impossible to communicate what I'm doing to the others, so that was that. Ideally I think two of us would've taken on the smaller bosses while the main boss is kited by the person best at dodging? Then the other can jump in and lay into him as and when they've taken down the smaller bosses. Highlight of the second run for me for sure was noticing our Guardian was down and me sprinting back into the rainfall to rescue him! Felt pretty epic and a bunch of dodge rolls and jumping felt like a deserved thanks! 

I think it also highlighted that you need someone to take charge – the Guardian did in my first run by leading the way and placing markers on the map, and so I just defaulted to whatever he was doing, and it was great! No-one took charge in the second run until I did, and the third run me and the Guardian were on the same page, but the other Wylder was a total, uh, Wyld card (heh). 

This is because randomly someone on your party can get marked and chased by a pursuer who will track you across the map, and who is, in fact, a mini-boss. Me and the Guardian got caught trying to take this pursuer out - a Fell Omen, btw, so nothing to sneeze at - by the rain coming in, and so I started sprinting away...and the Fell Omen kept teleporting to my position. I then ran into a Leonine Misbegotten out in the open world and ended up needing to kite TWO mini-bosses for what felt like 5 minutes, needing to find Sites of Grace and healing spots to heal myself while occasionally getting clobbered – yeah, it wasn't an ideal time. Eventually I found a Site of Grace at the bottom of a cliff next to a spirit spring, so levelled up in the middle of all of this (the pursuer doesn't care about you needing to do this, by the way, and will continue to attack!), sprang back up the cliff to the Guardian who had finally caught up to me, and then we took him down together (I lost the Misbegotten at some point in all of this). Felt good. Where was the other Wylder you ask? Other side of the map. Crazy. 

Anyways, shared runes dropping from enemies, boosts in stats or stronger weapons from mini-bosses and main bosses, there's a very chaotic and intense flow to all of this while you level up every stat with a level.up – no focusing on a build, your character is pre-built. Some weapons you pick up have passives which are applied even when not equipped so long as they're in your inventory (e.g. a flat % boost to magic negation from a shield I'm not using). I'm not really sure why you'd take the time to upgrade your weapon rather than find a new one, when Smithing Stones are rare to come by above ground, and going below ground seems like you'd be running a massive risk of getting caught out in the rain. Max level I think is 15? I consistently got to around Level 10/11 by the end of Day 2, some well timed Gold Pickles Feet pops during the end of boss fights seeing me go above that in one of my runs. Some weapons are level-gated and you'll level up pretty quickly. I think staying above ground, killing enemies you come across that seems at/just above your level for efficient levelling, building up to the bigger castle areas later in the day/run by taking out checkpoints and watchtowers and focusing on taking out appropriate mini-bosses seems the way to go. 

What I'm not too sure about is how much I'll ultimately play this, especially if I know it's going to be a vastly superior experience with friends in a party chat vs strangers I have no way of communicating with? There's some semi-permanent progress with the relics you get at the end of each run providing permanent boosts that can be equipped back at the Roundtable Hold but they're randomly assigned, I didn't get a single one I could equip to Wylder until the end of my third session (when I jumped off), which feels like a silly decision and makes me worry a bit about possible microtransactions in this? From don't seem the type from their other games to go that route but why else would you not make it so that playing as Wylder just provides you with relics for Wylder, playing as the Duchess provides you with relics relevant to her, etc.? I'm also a bit puzzled by the lack of customisation, I know character classes are pre-built but different clothing options seems like it'd be the way to go, especially seeing as you don't pick up any armour out in the open world (I didn't pick up any during my three runs, anyways). 

Think that's it for me, going to wait until the full game now because I'm totally sold on the concept, and plan to play it with friends at launch, minimising the messiness of teaming up with randoms (albeit they're friends who have zero Souls experience, so, uh, wish me luck?). Looking forward to trying out some other classes too, I think for me just having Wylder use Pile Driver to decimate an enemy's stance and get them down quickly and how familiar I am with Sword & Board in a game like this felt like the way to go for a quick 2 hours. It feels very moreish but I only spent 2 hours with the game, I wonder how much that might persist after getting to grips with it? 

Looking forward to the full release and seeing what other classes are in store for us, as there are 4 not in the Network Test which we haven't seen yet! 

Edited 4 hours ago by Julius