Elden Ring Nightreign Review: Where We Droppin'?
- Sarah Ertelt
- Jun 13
- 7 min read
I played the Elden Ring Nightreign playtest and was sorely disappointed. Not only does Fortnite and Elden Ring not mix, but the game was also missing key elements in the expedition - including no instructions on how to resurrect players, no button combos on screen, and a very hard to read map.
Thankfully, the final version of the game is much more polished than the playtest, including a solid introduction, tutorial, and more story elements in the game.
At a glance:
Pros to Elden Ring Nightreign:
The game added a solid introduction that explains controls, party revives, and how to read the map
There's a lot to discover on the map with the Shifting Earth events. These events change the topography of the map and give players extra to explore during runs.
The overall gameplay loop is fun - starting with nothing, beating mini bosses as fast as possible to level up, and sailing through two days to get to the final boss. The time passes quickly while playing.
Nightreign also added remembrances for each character. These storylines add more to the game than just the PVE battle royale.
The best part of Nightreign is using the random weapons that drop. Instead of being stuck using the same overpowered build like in base Elden Ring, you can freely pick up a cool weapon you never got to use and instantly hit harder.
Cons to Elden Ring Nightreign:
The random enemies feel unbalanced. It's common to get a randomly spawned mini boss that hits much harder than the real boss at the end of day 1 or day 2
The random rewards also feel unbalanced. It's frustrating to earn a legendary weapon after defeating a low-level roaming enemy and be rewarded with only a 5% buff after defeating one of the two main bosses.
Matchmaking currently takes forever. Only 1 party member can have an active story quest, and it takes forever for the game to match you with 2 people that don't have a quest open. FromSoft needs to allow multiple party members to have a quest.
The rewards are minimal and don't feel worth the 45-minute runs. Since players can only equip 3 runes and the remembrance runes are the best for each character, the runes awarded at the end of regular runs seem unimportant. And with only a couple skins to buy for each character at the shop, the currency used at Roundtable Hold seems worthless too.
You need friends to have fun. The difference between playing with a set group of friends that already like Soulslikes and with a couple random people is staggering. I consistently get to leve 8 or 9 by night 1 with friends and get to the final boss almost every time. But in a match with random people, we barely get to level 4 by night 1 and proceed to get farmed until someone leaves the match. Maybe this will get better as more people play the game and get used to the routine routes, but it's basically unplayable unless I have some friends online.
Overall, FromSoftware recovered quickly after Day 1 Mixed Reviews on Steam. The developers have been very responsive to players, which is always a hopeful sign. Developers have already patched the lag, improved matchmaking speeds, and promised to put in the Duos mode as soon as possible.
With 8 bosses in the game, Elden Ring Nightreign can feel a little repetitive. If you're in a good group, the routes on Day 1 and Day 2 stay almost exactly the same. Right now, FromSoft has a solid foundation to build upon. Hopefully they won't take long to add the Duos mode, new playable characters, and new expeditions to Elden Ring Nightreign.
Nightreign Playtest Review (Published February 2025)
Elden Ring: Nightreign is ONLY multiplayer. The only content you can do solo is sit at the Table of Lost Grace and hit the training dummy.
I personally just have a vendetta against games that are only multiplayer. Why should I pay $40 or $55 for a game that I can't even play by myself?
And even at the training dummy, you can't practice with every weapon and consumable available. There's an inventory that lets you change your weapons, but many of them are locked behind a level - 9 or 12.
After completing an expedition, you earn some permanent runes to use outside of matches, assumedly for leveling up your character permanently. Unfortunately, this mechanic wasn't available at Roundtable Hold for the Playtest.
Elden Ring: Nightreign introduces weapon combos - but for the most part, they don't work and aren't impactful.
Outside of Roundtable Hold at the training dummies, different button combos appear for each hero. We both had issues getting the button combos to even work. The playtest lagged pretty badly, so it may have been an input lag.
Each character has a passive ability, a special weapon combo, and an ultimate ability. The game doesn't explain what each of the hero's abilities do, and the game poorly explains how the button combos work.
After testing the abilities for all 4 characters, I was disappointed that the Guardian's abilities seemed lackluster compared to the rest. I think the Eagle tank character is the best design, but the passive ability Steel Guard wasn't explained at all, and the Wings of Salvation ultimate ability was disappointing. Why is the tank character also the support?
We were also disappointed that the Duchess' ultimate ability Finale is just the ability to go stealth for a short time. For Rogue characters in other games, Stealth is a built-in ability, not an ultimate move.
The Recluse looks like the most powerful character but also the hardest to play. This sorceress has essentially unlimited FP. After casting spells, you can collect the residue back as FP. It was pretty easy to have unlimited mana in the training area, but this ability is harder to use during expeditions. It feels contradictory to have a range caster that needs to be close enough to the enemies to gather mana residue.
Wylder appears to be the most well-rounded melee character, although I wish Claw Shot was more impactful. Claw Shot pull enemies towards you but doesn't stagger them at all. There isn't a guaranteed light attack after the Claw Shot.
The expeditions are missing key gameplay elements, and the chests are full of junk.
My first expedition did not go so well. We didn't even make it through the first day because no one knew how to resurrect. Every other game in existence prompts you with a button to press when you're near a fallen ally, but Elden Ring Nightreign did not have any instructions.
A purple ring appears above fallen allies but with no instructions. It wasn't until my boyfriend's first expedition when another player started pummeling a fallen player with light attacks that we realized you're supposed to fill the purple ring to resurrect allies. I think holding X would be faster.
There are plenty of chests in the Limgrave-inspired map, but they're full of consumables. The first weapon that dropped was usually the only one we had for the entire expedition. Chests only had consumables like a single firepot or a single boiled prawn.
Even on Day 2 or after leveling up, the weapons that dropped after defeating a mini boss weren't scaled higher. It was common to not find a better weapon during the entire expedition.
Also, if a mini boss was encountered on the edge of the rain (the Fortnite circle closing in), the mini boss can stand in the closed area without any consequence. There were multiple times we were fighting a mini boss as the circle was closing in, and we stayed to defeat the boss despite losing constant health.
Finally, there is an awful lot of running around on foot. Coming from Elden Ring, where we had an actual mount, it feels cheap that the developers didn't allow for ground mounts in this game. The spectral birds are only used in the beginning of the expedition to "drop in" and maybe a second or third time if you find yourself on top of a cliff.
Conclusion
Other reviews have described Elden Ring: Nightreign as a rogue-like DLC, and I agree. Elden Ring: Nightreign feels like a cash grab that's capitalizing on the hype surrounding Elden Ring and the current popularity of battle royale games.
Before Elden Ring: Nightreign releases on May 30th, 2025, we're hoping the developers will make these changes:
Add descriptions of every Nightfarer ability
Add the button combos next to the ability icons during the expedition
Add the ability to spend runes at Roundtable Hold
Add the option to test every weapon at the training dummy
Add more weapon drops during expeditions
Add better weapon scaling during expeditions
Add a prompt near a fallen ally
Make the expedition map bigger (Please, I'm old)
Increase the damage and staggering of every hero ability
The real question always is - will we buy the game? If the game only releases with one map, I won't be buying Elden Ring Nightreign. I think this game could potentially be fun with a party of friends to figure things out with, but it will quickly get boring if they release the game with only one map.
It's always frustrating when major games release saying that "DLCs will be added later on" when the DLCs just feel like game content that should've been there from the beginning. Hopefully, Elden Ring: Nightreign will release with multiple maps to explore, better explanations, and better weapon scaling.
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