I've played Elden Ring: Nightreign for 6 hours and it's unbelievable that FromSoftware has surprised me like this again

By Ivan Lerner of 3djuegos.com

When they told me that FromSoftware was making a soulslike multiplayer video game, I could never have imagined what I was about to try. One of the big surprises of this edition of The Game Awards 2024 has undoubtedly been Elden Ring: Nightreign , and at 3DJuegos we have had the opportunity to test it extensively. Today I come to tell you about my experience in the six hours that I was able to be at the controls of the most peculiar title of the modern FromSoftware. I'll tell you one thing in advance, as soon as I can try it again, it will take me a long, long time to let it go.

If I had to be reductive and define Nightreign in a few words, I'd say it's Elden Ring's Hunt: Showdown , but without any PvP. The new title in FromSoftware's already-established saga is an open-world cooperative multiplayer game (i.e., PVE) in which up to three players can face tons of enemies. The Japanese made a big deal of calling it "a session-based game," and they're right. Far from the huge, hundreds-of-hour adventures of the base game, Nightreign uses a day system to set its pace.

Each game starts on day 1, when you and your teammates will be dropped (or not, more on that later) somewhere in the outer zone of their map. If you've seen the trailer (and if not, the Elden Ring: Nightreign announcement is a must before reading these acronyms), you'll surely be familiar with the game area, which is based on Necrolimbo . It's not the same map, it's smaller, but it reuses a lot of the imagery and geography from that map.

Now, what happens from there? You and your companions are going to have to find a balance between exploration and action to defeat enemies, collect runes, and level up; but also find weapons, merchants, and items to arm yourself to the teeth. In my experience, the first few attempts were brutally difficult because it takes a while to stop thinking of this as just another Elden Ring game. This is Nightreign, something very different.

Unexpected inspirations for this new souls

From there, you’ll need to make your way deeper into these Lands Between, building up your strength until the storm finally closes in. In that regard, the easiest reference point to turn to is… well, Fortnite . It’s not often that you draw lines between Epic Games’ battle royale and the work of FromSoftware, but the Tokyo studio has found a way to do so without making it sound like nonsense. As the circle closes, you’ll be guided to a golden tree, where, at the end of the day, there will be a mandatory boss fight . If you succeed, you’ll move on to Day 2. If not, you’ll see a “You have died” sign and your session will be over.

Now, I've talked about mandatory bosses very deliberately because there are also optional ones , and they're totally worth it. Not only will these enemies give us a ton of runes when we defeat them, but they'll also have new weapons and abilities for us to use. Yes, you read that right , in Nightreign you can get passive abilities for your characters by defeating their most fearsome enemies. These range from the typical strengths or stat boosts to brutal bonuses that let you cast storms of electricity when dodging or deal area damage when running. The builds in this title are going to be very different compared to the base game.

I'm not just saying that because there are new elements never before seen, but because you're going to have to say goodbye to micromanaging your hero's stats. Every time you level up at a grace spot, all you're doing is trading in runes for automatic stat boosts. More health, energy, and damage are gained through this mechanic, but its complexity has been greatly reduced. Trade in runes. Level up. You don't have to think about anything else . That doesn't mean there's no tactical and critical thinking involved in shaping your character, though.

A different mechanical depth

Any player can use any weapon , as there are no stat requirements, and they retain not only their Arts system like in Elden Ring, but passive abilities that you can take advantage of even if you don't have them equipped. This means that if, for example, you're trying to create a character that takes advantage of bleeds and you find a weapon that enhances them, even if you don't use it, just by having it equipped you'll be able to take advantage of the advantages it offers you. It's a more mechanical and tangible way of building your character than operating by increasing stats at each level, and I can't wait to see the possible synergies once we master all the elements of the title.

If you think this is a radical change, wait until I tell you what happens to our characters' equipment. Tired of managing the weight of all your armor and items in order to roll quickly? Nightreign has done away with that! In fact, the equipment you carry is reduced to talismans, weapons, and shields. It's clear that management has been thoroughly simplified, but there's a compelling reason for this. We're not talking about a simple "haphazard" approach , but the very pace of the game is incompatible with our idea of ​​a prototypical Elden Ring or Dark Souls. It's, in effect, a streamlining of the formula in favor of a more immediately tense flow.

A standard session of Elden Ring: Nightreign has you constantly looking to make the most of your time. Gone are the object descriptions to understand the game's lore, the dialogues to decipher, and the almost archaeological exploration of the levels: this title asks you to be agile and plan your routes and course of action very quickly. The days go by in the blink of an eye, and you won't have time to explore the entire map in one go, which is why I was happy to discover that, upon reaching day 2, the circle opens again and locations that had become inaccessible suddenly become the target of our visit again. Of course, if you think you can go back to the bosses from day 1 and they will have become a joke, you are wrong. The difficulty of all the monsters scales as you progress . On the one hand, this is a good yardstick to measure your power, on the other hand, it prevents parts of the session from being trivialized.

Characters, one of the great novelties

While it's true that there aren't builds like there used to be, that doesn't mean that all starts and progress is going to be ideal, and this is where one of the elements that shocked me the most about the title comes in: its characters. Because no, you're not going to be able to create your own Sinluz, but rather you're going to choose one of the predefined characters that FromSoftware has created. In my session I was able to play with four called Wylder, Guardian, Recluse and Duchess , but we have confirmation that, when the title is released, there will be more to choose from. Each one is radically different from the other , and you could even say that they have their pre-assigned role, although this can change during the game.

The differences between these avatars are notable . For example, Wylder rolls to dodge and is a character of medium weight and endurance. On the other hand, Duchess is much more agile and dodges like in Bloodborne at the cost of having a significantly shorter health bar. Guardian would be something like the team's tank, and Recluse is the mage I was able to test. All of these roles can change in the blink of an eye thanks to the items you find. What happens if you are a Wylder but you stumble upon a magic weapon that is too good to leave behind during your game? Well, you can become a mage. Of course, you have to take into account your character's innate abilities when playing.

Each of the protagonists has a special technique and an ultimate ability that will charge up throughout the game. Wylder throws a hook that can attract enemies (or carry you to them if they are too big), Duchess is able to repeat from a distance the last combo that her target has received, Recluse absorbs magical elements to fuse them and create new attacks and Guardian creates a tornado to launch the enemies in front of him into the air. On the other hand, their ultimate abilities allow you to launch a large explosive attack , reset the aggro of enemies, help you absorb the damage you do to your opponents in the form of life or FP or hit in a similar area, then create a protective area respectively. It is shocking to see a class system that seems taken from a hero shooter in a game signed by FromSoftware, but the Japanese studio has known how to take advantage of these standards that we are all familiar with to give its own flavor to already known models. Plus, this has a very important effect: entering Elden Ring: Nightreign doesn't feel alien because we're already familiar with some of its idiosyncrasies.

The movement will be one of the big changes

As you might imagine, the game’s map ultimately carries a lot of the weight of each session, and while that may feel familiar, the way you move around it alone is a departure from Elden Ring . Movement has been reworked to be faster and more agile. Without Torrentera’s presence here, your own legs are its substitute. You’ll be able to sprint quickly, climb up pretty much any surface you could realistically grab onto (not like Link would in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , but you can grab onto ledges close to your hands), and there’s no fall damage. Again, the pace of a Nightreign match is fleeting , forcing you to be quick with your eyes, hands, and head.

Add to this unique events and the randomization of the enemies you're going to fight (bosses included), as well as the location of objects and other resources, and what you're left with is a soulslike format that I practically never would have imagined would work so well. Let's not fool ourselves, it's a demanding title, the FromSoftware brand is still there, but the good thing is that the games are going to be worth it whether you win or lose , and it's at the end of them that the last of its elements to comment on comes into play: the relics.

Relics, a compelling reason to experiment

Leveling up and getting better gear isn't the only form of progression Nightreign has in store, as you'll earn items called runes from completing quests that you can equip to your characters. These give them various kinds of advantages, from, again, stat boosts, to changes to how their abilities work. For example, with Wylder I got a relic that made it so that when I hit an enemy with my hookshot, my next attack would launch me towards them and engulf my sword in flames.

Relics come in a variety of color-coded types, and each character can only equip a few of these colors. The idea is clear: if you get hold of a rune from a character other than your usual one, it might prompt you to try it out and diversify your experience in the game. If you've been looking forward to planning builds and have been bummed that you can't do so during matches, now you know you can rack your brains to find the best combinations before and after matches. In the end, you'll have some optimization work to do before, during, and after each match.

Nightreign is a mix of familiar elements that creates a completely unique game . FromSoftware's latest offering helps position it even more as one of the most versatile studios in the video game industry. All the frills aside, perhaps the greatest compliment possible for this title is to think that I played it with colleagues in the industry that I didn't know and didn't even share a native language with, and I still had a great time, eager to return to the lobby every time we returned to start another game. That's proof that this daring concoction has the potential to become the default co-op title for more than one person. I, of course, after this first test session, am clear that I want more.