When Bandai Namco invited me to a preview of Elden Ring Nightreign, I thought it had made a mistake. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a Dark Souls guy. I totally get why people like them. Overcoming brutally difficult games can be incredibly rewarding. But at 34, I just don’t feel like I have anything to prove anymore. If I want to challenge myself I’ll learn Japanese, start rock climbing, or open a savings account or something. That’s not what I want from video games these days, and consequently, I’ve never bothered with Elden Ring.
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Not wanting to turn down the invitation, I went to the preview anyway. To be honest, there are some things about Nightreign that intrigued me. It’s a co-op roguelike (or technically rougelite, since it has meta progression) with elements of battle royale, MMORPG, and Monster Hunter. It was either going to be right up my alley or a mish-mash of hot genres cooked up by trend-chasing executives. Fortunately, and a little surprisingly, FromSoftware found a way to make a Souls game that appeals to someone like me, a lifelong Souls hater.
You Don’t Have To Git Gud To Enjoy Nightreign
It’s kind of hard to understand what Nightreign is until you’ve played it, but the best comparison I’ve come up with is Risk of Rain 2 – and not just because they both end in rain. At the start of each run your squad enters a map full of enemies, items, and optional challenges, and it’s your job to earn as much XP and find as many upgrades as possible before time runs out and a boss fight begins. If you beat the boss you’ll begin a new cycle, now with harder enemies and even better rewards. Nightreign’s runs end with a final boss after just two ‘days’ of grinding, so it’s not exactly like Risk of Rain 2. But if you can imagine RoR’s roguelike structure mixed with Apex Legends’ looting and level design, then flavored with the combat, lore, and physics of Elden Ring, then you’ve got a pretty good picture of what Nightreign has to offer.
Before the event Bandai Namco encouraged me to brush up on my Elden Ring skills so I would be ready, which made me pretty nervous that I’d end up being the weak link on my squad, but that didn’t end up being an issue at all. Sure I can’t dodge or parry quite as well as the other guys, and for some reason my polearm jabs always seem to miss the target by a few feet, but being the amateur on the team never slowed us down, and in fact, it might have actually helped.
While my more skilled colleagues attacked the big scary-hands-with-too-many-fingers head on, it allowed me to sneak around the back and get in some quick sneak attacks, which occasionally turned into those big cinematic hits that do tons of damage. When things got too overwhelming I just backed out of the fight to regroup, which often meant I was the only one left standing when my over-eagers teammates went down, allowing me to play the support and pick them back up to finish the fight. Sure we could have moved faster and gotten stronger if I was better, but we weren’t failing because I wasn’t good enough, which is what I was most afraid of.
Nightreign Turns Soulslikes’ Flaws Into Features
Aside from the difficulty, Souls games are infamous for punishing you for failure. Not only do you lose your hard-earned souls (or runes in Elden Ring), but you also have to fight your way back to the boss after each attempt. This is another reason I’ve never been willing to invest my time into these games. I don’t like the feeling of having my time wasted.
Nightreign is a roguelite, so dying does set you back in a sort of soulslike way – but so does winning. Whether you beat the final boss or die on day one, all you can do is start all over again at the beginning. This makes failure feel way less punishing because it’s easier to accept that it’s just part of the game. It’s exciting to start over too. Nightreign’s world has a fixed layout, but there are semi-randomized events in each run. Starting over is less frustrating here because it’s really just an opportunity to see new things, find more powerful gear, and increase your knowledge of the map and the strategies you’ll use to conquer it.
Most importantly, you’re never failing alone. It’s a lot easier to laugh off an unlucky hit that causes you to die at the very end of a boss fight when your friends are right there with you. It’s just not as devastating or personal when you all fail together. It gives you plausible deniability. Who messed up and made us lose? Definitely wasn’t me!
I like the games that Nightreign borrows from other than Elden Ring. The combat is awkward, the world feels generic, and the boss fights are way too hard. It has all of the things I don’t like about FromSoftware games, but it’s flavored with so many things I do like that I’m finding it at least palatable, if not genuinely enjoyable.
Action RPG
Soulslike
Roguelite
- Released
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May 30, 2025
- Developer(s)
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From Software