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This bizarre chimera of an open-world action RPG, spliced with roguelike and battle royale genes.
This is, essentially, a mod an Elden Ring randomizer with theFromSoftwareseal of quality.
If you think that is anything short of fine praise, you oughta adjust your outlook on mods.
The preview build only had one main boss: an all-new cerberus-like wolf monster called Tricephalos.
(Technical issues made reaching this boss impossible in our session, sadly.)
You have two in-game days to get all the loot and levels you’ll need to fight it.
Explore ruins and dungeons and mines during the day, fight a random boss at night.
Kinetically it feels like playing Elden Ring with faster movement, which predictably feels good.
But psychologically, it’s triage.
You have to ask, what do I need right now?
My groups worked out a basic recipe for success.
There’s no fall damage, so jumpingoffa cliff without tasting your own kneecaps is also an option.
you might technically split up, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Elden Ring Nightreign is balanced for a group, with no single-player scaling whatsoever, and it shows.
Get downed alone and you’re guaranteed to die and lose a level on respawn.
This was the first of many breakthroughs that made Elden Ring Nightreign much more fun.
Level up immediately; the real game starts at level 2.
I was usually level 11 or 12 by the end of day two.
This helps offset the fact that loot can be a crapshoot.
At least there’s no armor.
More importantly, weapons in Nightreign come with more than just attacks.
I was constantly rotating weapons I’d never actually use to tailor my passives and share with my teammates.
(Some loot is open to all, some is instanced.)
Many passives are genuine game-changers, and this is where a lot of the buildcrafting comes in.
Now kills heal you, or attacks restore FP.
The one-time bubble damage reduction effect from Elden Ring’s Physick flask is available on some junk weapons.
Weapon passives complement character passives mostly acquired from special nodes dropped by bosses.
You have to choose between three rewards, and I usually went for passives unless the weapons were sensational.
(I was smited by the 18th disconnect for my hubris.)
In another, I was dual-wielding thrusting swords with a counterattack talisman plundered off a wandering beetle.
There’s even a random insta-kill perk a la Fallout’s Bloody Mess.
Strong builds can come together quickly.
The Commander’s Standard attack buff ishugein a multiplayer setting like this, too.
At launch, I’m hoping to see greater auxiliary progression.
It’s all very battle royale.
If you fall behind the difficulty curve, you’ll struggle to catch up.
Rearranged the interior, did you, FromSoftware?
Brilliant, but I see the ground approaching.
Some magic is inevitably lost.
Elden Ring pulls you deeper with the unknown; Nightreign pushes you along with its mechanics.
But I think it can really work.
Which is a shame, because this will be a major factor in long-term fun and replayability.
I need to see more maps and more encounter variety within those maps.
The same goes for the boss lineup.
The day two boss was always a Draconic Tree Sentinel flanked by two weaker horsemen.
What else ya got?
If nothing else, the sheer nonchalance of surprise bosses is a riot.
In the open-world, Morgott can just show up on day two with a steel chair.
Weirdness in games is worth celebrating, especially at this level of production.
(The public test and launch, representatives from publisherBandai Namcorepeatedly assured me, will be incomparably better.
I sure hope so!)
This is a mod, and it’s a cool mod.
