Elden Ring Nightreign review – FromSoftware are handheld PC wizards

The first time I saw the towering fortress of Anor Londo in Dark Souls was an unforgettable moment. But it could have been better with a friend or two. Elden Ring Nightreign addresses FromSoftware’s problems with multiplayer head-on, transitioning its RPG formula into a roguelike experience where cooperation is key. While it isn’t without a few stumbling blocks, there’s a fantastic gameplay loop here that makes it hard to put down.

Coming three years after Elden Ring’s initial launch, this isn’t the Lands Between you’re familiar with. Elden Ring Nightreign is still an open-world game at heart, but each session takes place within a procedurally generated iteration of Limveld – a condensed version of Limgrave. With eight classes to choose from, Nightreign sheds any preconceptions about armor, weapons, rings, and the like. Each class comes with a passive, a character skill, and an Ultimate Art. The Wylder can unleash a booming blast upon foes, while the Ironeye primes their bow to unleash a devastating blow that’s faster than the speed of sound.

There’s no armor to pick up anymore, so the focus is purely on buffing your overall stats, earning useful buffs from boss defeats, and finding better weaponry. To this extent, it makes the barrier of entry for first-time Soulslike game players far easier. However, Nightreign still requires at least someone on your team to be familiar with Elden Ring’s ways. If you’ve got a friend on hand to brave it all with you, excellent, but relying on strangers can be incredibly fun or immensely grim. Bringing your friends into the fray is easy, as all I have to do now is simply invite them to the Nexus table – a hub for beginning expeditions.

It removes the dumbest obstacle of the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring by eliminating the need to meet specific requirements before summoning an ally. Sure, the fun is that FromSoftware’s usual bread and butter is overcoming adversity on your own. Yet, these games have always shone brighter when you share the euphoria of victory with others. Now that you can band together on Nightreign’s terms, it finally puts this issue to bed. Although matchmaking times can be hit and miss, the developer notes that it intends to improve this in future patches. So, the adventure begins.

It’s up to you and two friends to survive two days and nights in Limveld, with the third culminating in a fierce battle against a Nightlord. These are your ultimate big bads, the true challenge of everything you’ve grinded for across the last 30 minutes. Despite an always-changing map, there’s still a sense of muscle memory that can kick in after a couple of matches. This much was made clear during my first session with friends, as they pinpointed areas on the map like bona fide experts, pointing out key locations to collect additional flasks or Smithing Stones to improve our weapons.

Soon, I began to engage with Nightreign in the same way. In what is essentially speedrunning an Elden Ring campaign in half-hour bursts, the rush of attempting to clear bosses and attain more power is intoxicating. Nightreign is far faster than Elden Ring movement-wise, leaning more into Sekiro’s blistering paces. There’s even a class that’s blatantly for fans of the famously demanding title. With no fall damage to worry about, charging through areas and using Spiritsprings to soar through the skies is exhilarating.

Nightreign conjures up a satisfying gameplay loop, one that isn’t too dissimilar to battle royale games. As each map variant reuses the same areas, it doesn’t take long to assess where the best places are to loot along the way. Kill some enemies, a mini-boss here and there, and level up with your Runes at a Site of Grace. It’s a rhythm that doesn’t take too long to become accustomed to, until it all comes crashing down. And believe me, things can go south quickly.

Just like Bloodborne or Dark Souls, instead of Souls or Blood Echoes, Runes are left waiting at your point of demise. However, Neightreign also demotes you one whole level for being rubbish. It stings every time it happens, as it could be the difference that grants you a Nightlord victory. It’s awesome, to say the least, keeping the pressure consistently looming over every encounter. The rewards are worth the grind, as each full-run completion grants new Relics to experiment with. Relics enable passive buffs on top of the one pre-existing in your chosen class, allowing you more flexibility and advantages to play with.

For the lore consumers out there, Nightreign has a story of sorts. Remembrances are unlockable missions dedicated to collecting special items and slaying enemies. They fill in the gaps behind the game’s classes, rather than just having them as mostly lifeless NPCs in the game’s hub world. Speaking of, it strikes me as bizarre that you can’t see other players inhabit this space, at the very least, members of your party.

Nevertheless, all of it is exceptionally impressive on Asus ROG Ally, my portable gaming console of choice these days. By default, on the Z1 Extreme handheld, Elden Ring: Nightreign begins on the ‘high’ preset and outputs at 1080p. It’s worth noting the ROG Ally’s 25W setting is the better option here, although it fares decently under the 15W toggle, too. There’s no assistance from frame generation and performance boons like AMD FSR and TAUU either.

It’s refreshing to see in an age where these platforms are seemingly an afterthought for optimization. I still ran into a few frame drops here and there, notably during visually intense fights, but nothing drastic enough to impede my progress. Comparatively, and much to my surprise, I suffered more stutters and drops in the base PlayStation 5 version.

Elden Ring Nightreign Steam Deck action is possible, too, but you’ll need to lower the game’s settings considerably. Beyond performance, unpacking Nightreign’s visuals is an odd topic. On the one hand, FromSoftware’s stupendous art direction flourishes with ease. It’s a stunning rendition of medieval fantasy, complementing the mysterious history of the Lands Between’s surroundings. But I have seen it all before on a grander scale in Nightreign’s predecessor.

To that effect, roaming around Limveld can feel somewhat repetitive and in need of areas with fresh aesthetic touches. Nightreign directly borrows elements from other FromSoftware titles, specifically several iconic bosses. If I can expect to duel The Nameless King or the Dancer of the Boreal Valley in Nightreign, it’d be nice to see some Dark Souls 3 influence from the latter manifest itself in the world around me.

Nightreign might be a little tired on this front, but the highs of working together with friends are why this game is ripe to be a multiplayer staple. There are plenty of developers trying to carve out a slice of the live-service pie, many of which fall into obscurity. It’d be easy to dismiss Nightreign as a cash-grab on the surface, but it’s nowhere near that.

Instead, FromSoftware’s first proper multiplayer title feels like an earnest celebration of everything before it, acknowledging the spine-tingling feeling of triumphing over gargantuan odds and living to tell the tale with your closest friends. Putting a Nightlord to rest with my party erupted the voice chat into fits of laughter and bellowing booms of us simply shouting “YES.” This is the kind of social brilliance I adore and is part of the fabric of gaming moments I still recall to this day.

And it feels like Elden Ring Nightreign has plenty more to give, whether that’s new Nightlords, additional classes, or in-game events. FromSoftware has a sturdy foundation to build on here. Whatever it is, my squad and I will be waiting.

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