Elden Ring: Nightreign Review – A Soulless Successor?

When FromSoftware announced Elden Ring: Nightreign, the hype was real. After the masterpiece that was the original Elden Ring, the entire gaming world was waiting to see what was next. The game launched to massive numbers, with hundreds of thousands of players jumping in on day one. I was one of them, eager to dive back into the Lands Between. But after several hours, my excitement turned into a deep sense of disappointment.

So, what went wrong? Let’s break down why Elden Ring: Nightreign feels like one of FromSoftware’s biggest missteps.

A New Threat in a Familiar Land

The concept for Nightreign sounds amazing on paper. The story takes place in an alternate version of the Lands Between, where a new antagonist, the Night Lord, has emerged. This new foe has unleashed «The Tide,» a creeping purple wall of constant, deadly rain that slowly shrinks the map, destroying everything in its path. Your job is to stop it.

To do this, you play as one of the Night Wanderers a group of eight unique heroes who have gathered at the Roundtable Hold. Each character has their own backstory, abilities, and motivations. The game promises that by exploring the world and defeating bosses, you’ll uncover the secrets of each Wanderer and the mystery of the Night Lord.

However, the storytelling is classic FromSoftware, and not in a good way this time. The lore is scattered into tiny, cryptic pieces. To understand the full picture, you have to complete multiple runs with every single character, performing specific actions for each one. For example, one character might need to defeat four specific bosses and talk to a hidden NPC to reveal their past. Honestly, after years of this formula, the endless theorizing and piecing together fragments feels less like a compelling mystery and more like a tedious chore.

A Clumsy Mix of Genres

At its core, Nightreign is a three-player co-op experience. While there’s a solo mode, it’s brutally difficult and clearly not the intended way to play. The game abandons the traditional Souls-like formula and instead mashes it together with roguelike and battle royale elements.

Here’s how a typical match goes: you and your team choose your Wanderers and drop onto a familiar map, like Limgrave. Each character fits a classic role—tank, healer, damage dealer, etc.—and has a ive, active, and ultimate ability. During the «day,» you scramble to kill enemies for Souls, level up, and find better weapons and items. You can also challenge optional bosses for rare loot.

As you do this, The Tide slowly closes in, forcing all players into a smaller and smaller area. This all culminates in a «night» phase, where you face a powerful, randomly generated boss. You have three days and three nights to become strong enough to defeat the final Night Lord.

The biggest problem? It’s all based on luck. In a true Souls game, you can learn enemy patterns and create a specific build to overcome challenges. In Nightreign, you’re completely at the mercy of random drops. Some runs, you might get a powerful weapon early and breeze through. Most of the time, however, you’ll be left with weak gear, praying that you can dodge-roll your way to a victory you haven’t earned through strategy, but through sheer luck. There is no persistent progression outside of minor stat boosts, making each failed run feel like a complete waste of time.

A World That’s Lost Its Spark

If you were hoping for a visually stunning new world, prepare to be let down. Nightreign reuses almost all of its assets from the original Elden Ring. The locations are the same, the buildings are the same, and there are no significant graphical improvements. It feels less like a new game and more like a high-priced mod. Playing on the PlayStation 5, performance was okay, but technical issues and a general lack of polish are still present. For a major studio in 2025, this is simply not acceptable.

The inclusion of some classic bosses from the Dark Souls series is a nice touch for hardcore fans, but for the average player, it’s a minor detail in an otherwise repetitive experience. After just a few hours, the gameplay loop becomes incredibly monotonous. It feels like FromSoftware threw a bunch of popular ideas into a blender without thinking about whether they would actually taste good together.

The Final Verdict: A Hollow Experience

Forgive me for saying this, but it feels like the magic of the Miyazaki formula is starting to wear thin. Elden Ring: Nightreign asks you to pay a price for an experience that feels like it should have been a free game mode in the original. It’s a hollow, repetitive, and frustrating adventure that disrespects the player’s time and skill.

This game is my biggest disappointment of the year so far. The concept had potential, but the execution feels lazy and uninspired. If you are a die-hard Souls fanatic who simply has to play everything the studio releases, you can the latest version of the game here and judge for yourself. But for everyone else, I strongly recommend you save your money and your time.

Score: 6.0 / 10

Pros:

• Interesting mix of Souls-like with other genres.
• A diverse roster of characters with unique abilities.

Cons:

• Feels like a lazy, overpriced DLC.
• Repetitive and frustrating gameplay loop that relies on luck.
• A nearly non-existent plot hidden behind a tedious grind.
• Outdated and reused graphics.
• Uninspired and ultimately boring.