Elden Ring: Nightreign (2025): The Review

Overview

Elden Ring: Nightreign channels FromSoftware’s signature brutality into a chaotic, pulse-pounding multiplayer experience that keeps you coming back for “just one more run.” It’s an addictive storm of challenge and camaraderie, where every victory feels earned and every defeat stings deliciously. While multiplayer has its rough edges and solo play can feel wildly unbalanced, the sheer intensity and thrill of the fight make it a brutal, beautiful descent into the madness only FromSoftware can deliver.

Score: 8.5 out of 10

The Positives ✅

Elden Ring: Nightreign doesn’t just expand the Lands Between, it reinvents them through chaos. What FromSoftware has done here feels like a mad experiment that actually worked: a Soulslike fused with a roguelike, offering condensed bursts of triumph and torment that redefine what a run-based experience can be. Each session lasts between 30 and 45 minutes, but those fleeting minutes are dense with discovery, loot, and panic. It captures the rhythm of a Souls game: learn, adapt, overcome, but squeezes it into short, brutal cycles that make every death sting and every victory euphoric. It’s rare for any studio, even FromSoft, to reimagine its own formula so boldly, and Nightreign’s structure rewards both veterans looking for fresh punishment and newcomers testing the waters of despair.

At the heart of it all lies Limveld, the procedurally generated nightmare-scape that feels as alive as anything in Elden Ring. From the eerie glow of the Spectral Hawk Tree Castle to the torch-lit crypts of the Great Church, every run reshapes geography, enemy placement, and loot drops. It’s a world that whispers its history through environment rather than exposition, true to FromSoftware tradition, but this time, the stories change with you. That unpredictability keeps exploration constantly thrilling, turning even repeated locations into fresh discoveries. The Shifting Earth mechanic, which alters terrain mid-run, is especially clever, blending roguelike chaos with Soulslike precision. You’ll never quite know where safety lies, and that’s exactly what keeps you moving forward, flask in hand, heartbeat racing.

The Nightfarers themselves are the showstoppers. These pre-designed heroes are far from the blank slates Souls fans are used to, they’re full-fledged characters with identities, quirks, and emotional weight. Each one, from the stoic Guardian to the eccentric Recluse, feels distinct not just mechanically but narratively. Their journals and Remembrances weave micro-stories of grief, duty, and obsession that rival some of FromSoft’s best storytelling. Playing through their perspectives feels like inhabiting legends from lost worlds, each a shard of some grander myth. And since every Nightfarer has their own stats, loadouts, and unique Arts (devastating ultimate abilities), every run becomes an opportunity to reinvent your playstyle. The MOBA-like design, fixed characters, flexible gear, streamlines progression while still encouraging mastery.

It helps that the presentation is sublime. Kota Hoshino’s score soars, seamlessly merging the melancholy of Dark Souls with the tension of Armored Core. The main menu theme alone could give veterans goosebumps. And visually? While some assets are clearly borrowed from Elden Ring, they’ve been retextured and re-lit to stunning effect. Lighting dances across misty ruins, embers shimmer in the dark, and the entire world feels drenched in decay and beauty. The fact that this package costs just $40 feels like daylight robbery in the player’s favor, an accessible price point that makes it easy to convince friends to join. It’s FromSoftware’s most communal experience yet, and when the chaos hits full swing, it’s glorious.

The Negatives ⚠️

For all its brilliance, Nightreign isn’t immune to the curse of imbalance. While multiplayer is where the game shines brightest, solo play often borders on masochism. Enemies are tuned for coordinated assaults, and many bosses, like the monstrous Centipede Demon or the storm-wreathed Tricephalos, are built around mechanics that assume multiple targets drawing aggro. Play alone, and you’re punished for your solitude. The timers push you forward faster than is comfortable, leaving little room to strategize or explore. The shrinking zone system, thrilling in co-op, becomes a ticking time bomb in solo runs, forcing rushed decisions and half-baked builds. It’s Elden Ring’s grace without the grace, mechanically harsh where it should be rewarding.

Then there’s the three-player limit, an odd choice that keeps Nightreign’s potential slightly caged. The trio dynamic works mechanically, each class balancing the others, but it also makes finding a full group frustrating. Many players will end up relying on one friend and a random ally, which can be a recipe for disaster when teamwork is everything. The absence of crossplay only compounds the issue. In an era where even indie games offer full cross-platform support, FromSoft’s insistence on platform separation feels outdated and restrictive. A game this socially driven deserves a united player base, not walled gardens.

Performance issues are another blemish on an otherwise immaculate aesthetic. Despite its reused assets, Nightreign struggles with frame rate dips and stutters in high-intensity moments. Large-scale battles, especially when all three players unleash particle-heavy Arts, can reduce even the PS5 version to a juddering mess. It’s not catastrophic, but it’s enough to yank you out of the immersion during otherwise jaw-dropping set pieces. Considering the series’ usual attention to technical stability, this feels uncharacteristic, and hopefully patchable.

Lastly, there’s a faint sense of narrative detachment. The world of Limveld is fascinating, but without a central character arc like Tarnished vs. Erdtree, it sometimes feels emotionally distant. The lore is scattered through fragments and relics, but without the slow-burn mystique of Dark Souls or the poetic despair of Bloodborne, the story doesn’t linger quite as long in your mind. You’ll admire the craftsmanship and speculate endlessly about the Night Lords, but that haunting melancholy, the “FromSoft ache”, only flickers intermittently.

The Experience 🎮

Playing Nightreign is like being caught in a storm of steel and memory, familiar, thrilling, and just unhinged enough to feel new. This isn’t DLC, and it’s not a watered-down spin-off. It’s a bold experiment that reshapes the soul of Souls around multiplayer synergy and procedural unpredictability. When you and your two allies coordinate perfectly, one sniping, one shielding, one baiting, the resulting ballet of chaos feels transcendent. It’s Elden Ring through the lens of shared suffering, and there’s something beautiful about that. Every failed run turns into laughter, every victory into legend. The Souls spirit of camaraderie, once confined to bloodstains and phantom messages, finally feels realized in full.

And yet, even stripped of company, the core gameplay loop has its own grim allure. The roguelike structure injects urgency into every decision, loot or retreat? Fight or flee? Heal or risk another swing? These moments of tension define Nightreign’s identity. Unlike traditional Souls games that unfold like operas, this one plays more like jazz, improvised, frantic, and electric. Each 40-minute session tells a story of its own: desperate beginnings, frantic mid-run improvisation, and the sweet taste of victory (or the crushing weight of failure) as dawn breaks over Limveld.

It’s not perfect. Solo players will curse the tuning; some will hit frame dips mid-battle; others will groan at the lack of voice chat. But underneath all that noise, Nightreign hums with a kind of creative confidence we haven’t seen from FromSoft since Bloodborne. It’s not just another iteration, it’s a statement: that Soulslikes can evolve, that misery can be social, that experimentation doesn’t have to dilute identity.

At its core, Elden Ring: Nightreign is an act of faith, from developer to player, and from player to the friends beside them. It’s rough, yes, but it’s raw in all the right ways. When the storm calms, you’ll realize something strange: you’re already planning your next run. Because Nightreign isn’t just about survival, it’s about persistence, discovery, and that primal FromSoft feeling of earning your light in the darkness.