Elden Ring: Nightreign

Game feels like a recycled greatest-hits album same brutal combat, but with little innovation. FromSoftware leans too hard on old tricks: punishing difficulty, vague mechanics, and zero communication features. Want co-op? Pray your random teammates don't suck, because there's no cross-play or duos. Even pros like FightingCowboy call the balancing unfair bosses feel tuned for masochists if playing solo, not fun.

The world is stunning, but reusing assets and mechanics from past games (*cough* Dark Souls, Elden ring *cough*) makes it feel lazy. FromSoft excels at single-player, but their multiplayer attempts are half-baked. If you have 2 friends on the same console/platform who are willing to play while on a discord call then the game is ok, if not it sucks.

Elden ring nightreign Is the gameplay experience of elden ring, but down to it core gameplay tenets, and now you can play co-op. It is the best multiplayer game I have played with my friends.

The usual night gameplay goes as, get better Gear so you can defeat bigger enemies, So you can get XP and get better Gear, so you can defeat even bigger enemies, and that is the normal gameplay loop of the night. But it is done so fast pace that it never gets boring.

And you have to constantly be on your feet and look at the map, to know if this is worth using your time on, or it is better to go to another place with easier enemies. There is constantly risk assessment to the gameplay, and you have to be on top of so many things

elden ring combat system is one of my favorites of all time, I have played elden ring for 500 hours, because it's so fun to Stan break enemies and dodge big attacks and use all the different abilities and weapon arts. It's just a game I constantly go back to, and now there is a multiplayer version of it, I am in love.

And the different characters feel different to use, and have their own preference weapons and abilities to use. And the variety is good enough, so I promise There's Gonna Be one you're gonna love, just like I love duchess, in two ways.

The biggest negative in the game is the reused, if you played elden ring you will see it everywhere.

The game screams for new content,but the new bosses are great and fun to fight and various. I hope we will get the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC enemies in the game soon .

I have played it for 40 hours and I have not gotten boring once. And I see no reason to stop now with the new enhanced bosses.

Just a big thumbs up, would recommend.

As someone who borderline worships FromSoftware and gets hyped for every new title they release, it honestly pains me to write this - but Nightreign just isn't a strong entry. It's not terrible, no, but it's alarmingly average by FromSoft standards.

I really tried to give the game a fair shot. In the beginning, I even thought, "Hey, this is actually kinda decent." But the further I got, the more obvious it became: there just isn't enough substance here. After the second Night Lord, everything starts to blur into repetition. Same enemies (mostly pulled straight from the base game), familiar bosses, and a gameplay loop that gets stale way too fast. You play through two "days" with your friends (or solo, which - from what others are saying - is absolute misery), grind through familiar Elden Ring mobs, then fight a Night Lord. Rinse and repeat.

The roguelike system - which should've brought in variety - feels completely hollow. 90% of the drops are just boring stat boosts: +3 stamina, +5% damage, that kind of uninspired stuff. Only once or twice did I get something actually fun and unique, like a "walking build" that rained arrows just by moving - and that was awesome. But moments like that are shockingly rare, almost accidental.

Co-op works surprisingly well technically - no major lag, very smooth experience, which honestly impressed me. But then you realize: no communication tools, no crossplay, not even duos. For a game so heavily focused on cooperative play, that's just... baffling.

What hits the hardest, though, is how much this doesn't feel like a full game. More like a mod, or maybe a small DLC. Not a properly fleshed-out, thoughtfully designed experience. And for $40? That's asking too much. Even as a die-hard fan, I can't really justify that price.

TL;DR: If you love FromSoft and just want to bash some bosses with friends, sure - it's okay for that. But don't expect anything fresh or groundbreaking. It's just "pretty decent," and nothing more. I truly hope they expand on it in the future, because there is potential here. Unfortunately, right now it feels like they barely scratched the surface.

I've had a lot of fun playing this. But I can see why a lot of people don't like it. It does need plenty of work still. But even the way it is now, I'm really enjoying it, and can't stop playing.

Sure, some runs are bad, but most are okay. And some are GREAT, when you find the right loot for your build.

FromSoft needs to add better loot and passive abilities to make the builds stronger. Especially after being a mini-boss (I don't want abilities that require guarding!)

Also the Nightlords fights are kind of annoying because 80% of the time, you're chasing them around the huge arenas.

I keep finding new things and ways to play. (I just found out that weapon buffs are active by just having them in your inventory, you don't even need to actively use them!)

Hopefully they keep adding more and patching it up. Has a lot of potential.

Compared to Elden Ring, or even other From Software games, this doesn't really meet the mark. However, it's fantastic compared to the other AAA slop that comes out nowadays. The gameplay is awesome, with tons of variety in playstyles with 8 different playable characters, or Nightfarers to date. My favorite is the Executor, who has a Sekiro-Style parry ability. The teams of 3 players keeps the game refreshing, with combinations of different Nightfarers changing priorities ingame, like trying to make Magic users more powerful by finding Wizards' Towers. Another aspect of the game is that Fromsoftware is new to multiplayer-focused games, which is a double edged swor. That means that you pay for the game (and the dlc that will release later this year) and that's it. There are no microtransactions, or anything. There's a downside to this being Fromsoft's first step into multiplayer focused games. There's no crossplay or ingame chat of any kind except for a map ping feature and emotes. The lack of communication can make the game infuriating when your team doesn't want to do the next logical step, and just wants to fight a giant dragon at Lvl.1. The game's not bad, but it needs improvement. If at least one other member of your team has enough experience, it's going to be a great run, because the newer player will just follow the two experienced players more. Luckily, Fromsoftware is great, and is pumping out hotfixes and new content.