Elden Ring Nightreign is a game of highs and lows.
After more than 20 hours played, and every major boss (known as Nightlords) vanished, it’s provided me with some of the best co-op moments I’ve ever had in gaming, but also some of the most tedious, frustrating and just plain unfun multiplayer sessions I’ve ever endured.
My experience can be neatly categorized into runs that offered pure joy and ones that were, frankly, an unmitigated disaster. But it’s not because of a skill issue (even if I am an average Souls player, at best), but rather because I started by relying on “random” companions rather than pulling together a squad.
If you’re not aware, Elden Ring Nightreign is a new multiplayer-focused spin-off from 2022’s smash hit, and very challenging, Elden Ring. It sees you and two online companions attempt to survive across three days in a procedurally generated mishmash of the base game’s map.
It’s a highly streamlined take on the Elden Ring gameplay loop, and that proves to be a lot of fun, but you need to get just the right conditions to see the game’s true potential.
A rocky start with randoms
In my first two hours of Elden Ring” Nightreign I made one crucial mistake: I opted to group up with fellow Nightfairers via the game’s online matchmaking system.
Essentially, I was teamed up with “random” players from around the globe. I didn’t know these players personally, and beyond placing pins on the game’s rapidly shrinking maps (the closing circle mechanic from battle royale games like Fortnite is shamelessly cribbed), we had no means of communicating.
In a tough game like this, communication is key. In these initial runs, my companions and I just didn’t have the means to coordinate properly. Instead, we bumbled around the map, often traveling in opposite directions, and failing to synergize our ability to take down the game’s toughest bosses.
This led to spectacularly unsuccessful runs that were significantly more frustrating than fun. On a couple of attempts, we did manage to stumble our way to the final boss of a run, but the odds of actually beating these powerful foes were virtually nil. We wiped in seconds.
At this point, after a couple of hours of play, I was genuinely thinking that Elden Ring Nightreign was a huge misstep from developer FromSoftware, a studio with an insane hit rate. I briefly considered whether it was even worth persisting with my playthrough. But I'm glad that was just a fleeting thought.
Getting the dream team together
Things dramatically changed when I did the thing I probably should have done from the start: Grouped up with some friends and industry peers.
Getting a three-man squad together, that included TG’s own Ryan Epps (who reviewed Elden Ring Nightreign), took my experience from largely frustrating to remarkably fun.
Suddenly, runs became an intense race against the constantly ticking clock as my companions and I strategized on the fly to craft the most efficient path through the game’s shifting world.
We became obsessed with figuring out the quickest way to acquire runes (Which allow you to level up your chosen character), loot high-powered weapons and still have enough time remaining to visit every church we could find, as these provide health-restoring flasks.
Battling bosses also became not just significantly easier, but seriously enjoyable as well. We could devise a plan, coordinate our special abilities, and call out when our oversized combatant was about to deploy a devastating chain of attacks that required us to leap out of the way.
I was also able to consistently reach the final boss of each stage and start bringing them down. Even when the repetitive nature of each run became a little monotonous, just having friendly teammates to goof around with kept me hooked and eager to keep playing more.
During a highly memorable encounter with one of the game’s toughest Nightlords, my squad managed to bring the beast down with each of us having just a sliver of health left after three failed attempts. It was in this real fist-pumping moment that I got to see Elden Ring Nightreign at its very best.
Don’t venture into the night alone
There’s an adage in gaming that any multiplayer game is better played with friends, but Elden Ring Nightreign takes this idea to a whole new level.
If you’re on the fence about picking up the game, I strongly suggest you only cough up your cash if you can convince at least two other friends to join you on your journey. Trying to play this brutal game via online matchmaking, or god-forbidden, solo is a recipe for a bad time. It's just not worth the headache.
Under the right conditions, when you have a team of (at least vaguely) competent players all communicating, Elden Ring Nightreign is truly something special. But be warned, if the conditions of play are anything less than optimal, the entire structure falls apart and becomes miserable.
Nevertheless, it's a good sign that I went from considering dropping the game after a few hours, to 20 hours later, having beaten every single boss Nightreign could throw at me, yet I remain eager to jump in again to keep getting that intoxicating adrenaline rush that only a FromSoftware game can provide.
However, I won’t be making the same mistake twice, and unless I can pull together a posse each time I want to dive into Elden Ring Nightreign's pretty unique brand of co-op action, I’ll opt to play something else instead.
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