Elden Ring Nightreign Could Fix FromSoftware’s Most Despised Locations

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 14, 2025 342 Views 6 Min Read
Elden Ring Nightreign Could Fix FromSoftware’s Most Despised Locations



With the network test for Elden Ring Nightreign in early 2025, excitement for FromSoftware’s newest game is rising. It’s not as high as it would be for a typical new Soulslike, but the combination of Elden Ring Nightreign being a major experiment for the Japanese developer and a counterpart to the massively successful Elden Ring commands respect regardless. Elden Ring and its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion were the best-selling titles FromSoftware has ever made, so for as many fans as Nightreign risks alienating, it could also surprise and delight even more.

Setting itself far apart from the single-player-oriented Soulslikes that defined FromSoftware’s last decade, Elden Ring Nightreign is a multiplayer-focused roguelike that sees individuals or trios explore the parallel world of Limveld. After building strength across three harrowing days, players will have to confront the Night Lord they set out to defeat at the beginning of their run. There are only supposed to be eight Night Lords, but chances are that it’s going to take players a lot more than eight runs to clear Nightreign, especially when it treads out the latest incarnation of a classic FromSoftware biome.

Elden Ring Nightreign Cerberus Boss

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Elden Ring Nightreign’s Boss Fights Won’t Decide Its Fate

Elden Ring Nightreign seems like an entirely new experience for FromSoftware fans, and though bosses are front and center, they won’t decide its fate.

Poison Swamps Are Inevitable In Elden Ring Nightreign

There is no doubt in any Soulslike player’s mind that Elden Ring Nightreign will have at least one poison swamp. Even though Limveld is technically a distinct place from the usual Lands Between, it takes attributes from many of Elden Ring’s regions and mixes them all together. That means players could conceivably end up with swamps from Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, and beyond all in one run, and chances are good that at least the third representative is poisonous. How Nightreign’s map generation works may not be clear yet, but the staple FromSoftware poison swamp should be a common sight once more.

FromSoftware Can’t Get Enough Of Poison-Based Spaces

Poison swamps and their equivalents have been mainstays of FromSoftware’s game design since its earliest days. Multiple King’s Field games, and even some Armored Core titles, had areas where damage was simply unavoidable and the player’s life was constantly ticking down. FromSoftware’s action RPGs kept the tradition alive over the years, and while some, like Shadow Tower: Abyss, began to incorporate tricks to reduce their deadliness, they remained a thorn in players’ side. Elden Ring’s introduction of multiple giant Scarlet Rot swamps may have pushed the idea to its limit, but Elden Ring Nightreign could keep its image while changing its identity.

How Elden Ring Nightreign Can Redeem Poison Swamps

Constant damage and slowed movement are aggravating constants in Soulslike poison swamps, but Elden Ring Nightreign has reason to finally change that. Each third of a complete run up to one of Nightreign‘s mysterious Night Lords is marked by a deadly circle closing in on a boss fight’s location, but players are encouraged to explore and gather as many resources as they can before then. Considering that Nightreign already boasts considerably higher mobility than the regular Elden Ring, toxic sludge’s usual clingy nature may be downplayed to encourage diving deeper into a swamp mid-run. However, the biggest changes should concern the poison itself.

One way to make Nightreign‘s poison swamps more engaging is to make poison something that players can siphon or clean off of each other. A solo run would end up with a more straightforward heightened resistance to environmental status effects, but as a trio, players would need to work together to avoid losing as much health as they can. Playing off of Nightreign‘s time-sensitive nature, a place fashioned like the Lake of Rot would require two players to run around raising platforms and keeping each other healthy, while the third player engages in platforming up above. Despite their reputation, poison swamps could end up being highlights in Elden Ring Nightreign, just as long as FromSoftware handles them right.

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