Elden Ring: Nightreign – One Year Later: The Souls Love Letter that never was…

Let’s wind back the clock one year.

It’s May 30th 2025 and From Software’s first proper foray into the PvE Multiplayer world dropped, after being revealed at the Game Awards 2024.

With it’s regal title, Elden Ring: Nightreign is a weird amalgamation – Souls meets Battle Royale, meets WoW Raid (Joe will be happy we shoehorned World of Warcraft in)., with an element of Majora’s Mask thrown in too, with its 3-day cycle. (I’m also happy we shoehorned Zelda in).

The concept is *ahem* (Living) jarring, right?

It’s equally as weird to describe too. But here’s my best shot at a TL:DR version, for those who’ve been living under a Living Jar sized-rock the last year:

Nightreign for Newbies:

• Start in Roundtable Hold (Hub):
  • Pick Nightlord Expedition and matchmake.
• Matchmake and load Lobby:
  • Pick Character and Relics (Perk loadout).
• Day 1 (Day) Starts:
  • Explore the map as “Night’s Tide” (storm) shrinks.
    • Fly in. 
    • Visit Places of Interest (POIs) near the drop location. 
    • Beat Bosses.  
    • Find weapons. 
    • Level up. 
• Day 1 (Night):
  • Beat the major boss. 
• Day 2 (Day) Starts:
  • Repeat of Day 1:
    • Beat harder world bosses.
    • Find better loot. 
    • Level up. 
    • Day 2 (Night):
      • Beat the major boss. 
• Day 3
  • Fight the Nightlord.

The game is almost Frankenstein- like in concept, one apparently conceived before Elden Ring came into being. But what a damn good concept it is. And one that works too, to the surprise of some. And joy for so many more.

Personally, I had every faith in the game prior to launch; Co-op is by far one of my favourite things about the Souls series. So I was practically praising the sun when Ishizaki and the team dropped the reveal at the Game Awards, and “thanking youuu” in a pratelling pate voice, to Miyazaki for green-lighting the project. (No doubt the Revenants’ bare feet helped sway things in the pitch for him). Literally everything about the trailers had me two-handing my Great Club, depleting my Stamina, and draining my F(a)P bar. 

Then before we knew it, launch day was here – Joe, Ste, and I partied up. Ready and waiting to take our first steps into this exciting concept, and alternate world of Limveld… and one VGT_Joe stream later… we still hadn’t beaten the first boss. 

This speaks volumes about our skill level. Well, one of our skill levels at least. 

Not naming names here, but if I say anymore he might ban me from ever writing for this site again.

So, fast forward to now, and here we are. One year later.

Did the Nightreign experiment work? Did it meet our expectations? And did we ever actually beat the first boss?

Well, Joe didn’t, and still hasn’t. So there’s no point in asking him any of those questions.

Ste and I did. But Ste will probably answer the other questions with his in-game name, “Dunno.”

So that leaves me.

Luckily, after 300 hours and 100% of the achievements later, I might just be able to answer them…

So, did the experiment work? 

Absolutely. I think it was always going to work, to be honest. It takes one of the best parts of the Souls games for me, and bundles it into a fast-flowing, PvP-free package. 

Now I know this might be sacrilege to some, but PvP is my most loathed aspect of playing Co-op in the Souls series. Back in the COVID lockdown days, I played through each of the Soulsbourne games, Nioh 1, and whatever that anime Souls game was called, cooperatively with Paul from @Power’dUP, on YouTube. It was a blast! Co-op in these games, despite being implemented in weird ways occasionally (DS2, looking at you), is an absolute treat once you get going. Easily the most fun I’ve had playing these games… EXCEPT for the PvP invasions. So, Nightreign’s concept of play was always going to click for me.  

The combining of the 3-day cycle, the Battle Royale storm element, POIs and bosses, the teamplay throughout the run, reviving teammates if they go down, timing your Ults, sharing out weapons and item drops. It all just works. It forms a very addictive gameplay loop once you settle in. 

The characters you can pick from are great too, each with their own weapon preferences, unique movesets, and abilities. So you’re guaranteed to find a playstyle that suits you.

Whether the game met my expectations, though, is another question…

At first, yes, it did. 

In those early Nightreign days, when you’re still figuring out boss patterns, hoping for good RNG, and generally grinding out runs, it’s all fun and games. Everything is fresh and new, and your character builds are constantly evolving – you experiment with different characters, expand your relics, and eventually settle into your flow. I initially found my footing with Ironeye. His dash move coming in clutch on so many occasions, before moving onto the Duchess, after enjoying her rapid dagger moveset, and the fluidity of her dodges. Those early hours are exciting, and the game’s concept is fresh and endearing. Almost like when you get one of those air fresheners that cycle between scents, and you walk into the room and notice it’s cycled to a different smell. That’s what each run of Nightreign is like in those formative hours – fresh cotton one run, sandalwood and beech the next.

Adding to that scented goodness, the game is at its absolute best when you’re hit with a returning boss from the Souls series. There’s literally no better feeling mid-run than going into a Night 2 Boss, and Dark Souls 3’s Nameless King drops in. Or Dancer of the Boreal Valley. Complete with original OSTs, with slight tweaks to their behaviours to better suit the playstyles and mechanics of Elden Ring. 

Bosses that make a return, and the Expeditions they’re tied to, include:

• Dark Souls 1 Bosses:
  • Gaping Dragon
    • Nightlord Expeditions – Gaping Jaw, Augur, Darkdrift Knight and Night Aspect
  • Centipede Demon
    • Nightlord Expeditions -Sentient Pest, Equilibrious Beast, Darkdrift Knight and Night Aspect
  • Knight Artorias
    • Nightlord Expedition – Dreglord (DLC)
• Dark Souls 2 Bosses:
  • The Duke’s Dear Freja
    •  Nightlord Expeditions – Gaping Jaw, Equilibrious Beast, Fissure in the Fog and Night Aspect
  • Smelter Demon
    • Nightlord Expeditions – Sentient Pest, Augur, Fissure in the Fog and Night Aspect
• Dark Souls 3 Bosses:
  • Nameless King
    • Nightlord Expeditions – Darkdrift Knight and Night Aspect
  • Dancer of the Boreal Valley
    • Nightlord Expeditions – Fissure in the Fog and Night Aspect
  • Demon Twin Princes
    • Nightlord Expedition – Balancers (DLC)

The moments when these bosses return and those OSTs kick in are moments of sheer bliss. Souls’ fan service at its absolute peak, and something I wish they leaned into more throughout the game. 

Only having 2/3 bosses from each Dark Souls game feels like such a tease; a tickle of the balls but never the shaft. You’d think with Nightreign being set in a parallel world with no lore implications, there’d be more free (night)reign to slip a Pursuer-sized finger in, or let Smough & Ornstein work their magic on both balls and the shaft. But alas, no. As far as I can tell, there’s no rhyme or reason as to why they picked the Souls’ bosses they did. Based on a Famitsu interview with Director Ishizaki, they just asked permission from Miyazaki and DS2’s Director Yui Tanimura to bring enemies/bosses over from the other games. A much less erotic solution to the potentially orgasmic celebration of iconic bosses, that could’ve been.

The “Rememberances” implemented for each character were a welcome addition too. It was great to have small objectives to work towards on each run. Unlocking info on the characters’ backstories and the lore of the land. Giving you an incentive to jump in and try other characters, beyond just curiosity, opening the player up to be more well-rounded in their approaches to each run, with the differing playstyles of each character. Or you could be like me and decide you hate the character on your first down, and never touch them again outside of their remembrance quests.

Slight map variations exist too, in the form of “Shifting Earth” events, where a section of the map will have a slight tweak to it – shifting the terrain to resemble a Volcanic Crater, Frost-ridden Mountaintop, Rotted Woods, or Noklateo, a small city akin to Leyndell from the main game. All of which are a welcome surprise too and serve as From Software’s attempt at keeping each run feeling fresh and distinct from the last. Complete with occasional mid-run events too to keep you on your toes, ranging from a crashing meteor, random gank by Margit, to the ultra-rare Wandering Mausoleum. An event that I’ve seen once in my 300+ hours playing.

Once you settle into the game, however, and start getting through some of the Nightlords, you’ll no doubt notice that the once heavenly aroma of fresh cotton, or sandalwood and beech each run, isn’t quite so pungent (blood cocktail) anymore. The runs start to blend into one – you notice the patterns each run, the cuck-like nature of the RNG, the recurring bosses, the dependence of these on the Nightlord you’re facing… Once you notice those patterns, those once excitingly fresh aromas emanating from the game, turn stale. 

You see, the problem with tying certain Bosses, Shifting Earths and mid-game events to specific Expeditions, is you then lock yourself out of specific events, if there are Nightlords you’d simply rather not revisit. Thus, it further limits the variety of content you might encounter. Take the Wandering Mausoleum event, for example. I’ve literally seen that once in my 300+ hours of playtime, as it’s tied to the Auger and Calico runs. Expeditions that I barely ever replay. 

So when the fires of excitement start to dwindle, that’s when the support for the game should surely kick in? A chance to reignite the bonfire, if you will, and regalvanise the player. Unfortunately, though, From Soft were unable to stoke the fire beyond its rain-ridden embers… When all was said and done, the support for this game left me… well, more Limpveld than Limbheld. (See what I did there?)

Key content updates, minus hotfix patches, released for the game were:

• Launch – May 30th 2025
• Everdark Sovereigns – June 19th 2025
• Two Player Support – July 30th 2025
• Deep of Night Mode – September 11th 2025
• Forsaken Hollows DLC – December 3rd 2025

Doesn’t that content seem too little, and too far, between?

Well, this is where we get into hollowed territory. I guess, when it comes to discussing support for the game. Nightreign was never advertised as a Live Service title. Quite the opposite, in fact, and they were very upfront about it not being one.

So what’s the problem? From the off, we knew that there’d be paid DLC at some point. Like the live service comment, they were upfront about DLC being on the way – if you wanted to preorder the game, it was either Standard or some variant of a special edition, including the future DLC, which is fine. Let’s be real here, From Software has a record of Beauty School level bangers when it comes to DLC – Bloodborne’s Old Hunter DLC, literal perfection. Need I say more? Dark Souls 3’s Ringed City DLC? A masterclass in design, featuring one of the best bosses they’ve ever made (Gael fans rejoice). So I had no problem with the notion of paying for a Nightreign DLC. 

But when you market your game as being a live serviceless title, and more of a full package on arrival, yet the game only has 8 missions essentially… it was only a matter of time before the base game content dried up, hence why the DLC was such a big deal once that boredom started to kick in.  

So what in the name of Gwyn, or Marika, took so long for the DLC to drop? Sure, we had an occasional piss dribble of free content seep out here and there, to (Night) tide us over. Namely, the “Everdark” variants of the Nightlords, essentially adding a tough-as-nails third phase to each Nightlord. Rotating between certain Everdarks, you can do each week. Plus, the Deep of Night mode dropped too; a risk/reward mode, with enemies that scale in difficulty, and Depth Points for competing runs. All of this on paper sounds great, but that was it. For 6 months…

When the DLC dropped in December, sure, it brought people back and reinvigorated interest in the game. It sure did for me, but for a game like this, at least a semi-consistent piss dribble of content was needed to retain the wider audience.  By December, the “Little (Erd)Trees Nightreign-scented air freshener had long gone stale, and needed a new bouquet to tempt the noseblind.

The Forsaken Hollows DLC Contents included:

• 2 New Characters – Undertaker and Scholar 
• 1 new map – Forsaken Hollow 
• New Relics
• 2 new Nightlords – Balancers and Dreglord
• Swamp (Rot, Frost, Poison) and Forge Village POIs for the base map (DoN Only)
• Handful of returning Souls/ER/Shadow of the Erdtree bosses and enemies

On paper, or screen, that sounds like a lot. But in reality, it wasn’t. 

For the grand price of £13.00, I shouldn’t complain. But after so long waiting for new content with some kind of substance, it felt underwhelming. Especially when I beat the new Balancers Nightm’ladies, first try – it was hard not to feel disappointed. 

But I was willing to forgive and forget when I saw the gyatt on the Undertaker; my FAP Ring was soon equipped, Great Club readied, and Stamina bar one-shot faster than a YouTuber demolishing bosses with an OP build.

Is it just me, though? Are others similarly critical of the game’s support and DLC?

The slow post-launch support for the game was duly noted in reviews and commentary at the time, and a key critique of the game at launch was that it did not support duos. A decision that still baffles me to this day. One that took a whole 2 months to see the light of Day. 

For some, that wasn’t a huge issue, and granted, for a time, it didn’t bother me. Queuing with randoms was fine. That is, however, until you start encountering teammates who have the mental fortitude of a spoon. That easily turns any run from that fresh cotton scented goodness, to a turgidly rancid ballsack of an experience. Sometimes, if playing with a pal, you just want to chill and not have the hassle of matchmaking with a random, who might be hollowed in the head. 

The addition of the Everdark Sovereigns and Deep of Night were, of course, more than welcome additions. Even if it feels like some Everdark versions of the bosses resort to just nuking the arena more as the fight goes on, leading to cheap losses. Unfortunately, that’s not anything new for veterans of the genre; “die and die again” has turned into “try and try again” for many of us. Plus, you get a couple of the best relics in the game from beating these variants. Except for the gank-focused Everdark Libra fight, easily the worst boss and relic reward in the game. 

Deep of Night was okay, too. The idea of a ranked style mode in this style of game is cool, but it could’ve been more fleshed out. It just boils down to the higher rank you are, the more glass canon runs feel, with enemies and bosses one-shotting you most of the time. It’s lame. I only started properly playing this mode with randoms post-DLC, and more often than not, your enjoyment of a run comes down to the quality of your teammates. Sadly, half the time, you’ll find one who spoils this experience, who decides that running off solo to some backend part of the map, then pinging away when they get downed, is the sort of teamplay needed for a mode like this. Personally, I made it to Depth 4 before blunder after blunder deranked me, with teammates more often than not quitting early, ruining the run. The point penalty for losing runs seems too extreme sometimes –  being left solo to finish a run on D4 is just not happening. So why should you lose all those points, based on the actions of others? You don’t even get anything for hitting new Depth Ranks – unique costumes could’ve been a simple, easy reward to net bragging rights, and a reason to do the mode besides funsies. 

Nightreign, the base game, is a mostly positive bag, though. The DLC, however, is where things start to look less positive – you need only look at its reviews on Steam to see the split consensus and recent negativity. So it’s not just me being a Negative Nashandra here, I promise.

First, the good. The new characters introduced in the DLC are (half) great. The Undertaker is easily one of the best characters in the game, with her strengths lying in, well, Strength, and an Ult you can use anytime another player uses theirs. Did I mention she also has a lovely arse too? And the Scholar, who is more of a support style character – able to buff teammates, or debuff enemies with his character skill, level up items as you use them (e.g., firebombs get stronger, the more he uses), and his Ult will thread nearby enemies healthpools together, sharing damage and restoring allies HP. 

On a Tier list, Undertaker is an easy A-tier. (Her arse gets an S tier) Whereas Scholar is more of a D in all honesty. It’s rare that anyone would choose to play him, outside of completing his Remembrance quests. He’s a bit of a simp, to be honest.

Alongside the new characters, 2 whole new Nightlords were added too – and are easily two of the most challenging fights in the game. The Balancers and The Dreglord.

First up, The Balancers:

Just like days of the week, the high seas, and the position Joe comes in on a 7-player race on Mario Kart, the Valkyries are seven fierce fair maidens. I don’t think they have as nice gyatts as the Undertaker? Butt (lol) I stand to be corrected. 

This boss fight is somewhat ganky in nature, with one Lead Valkyrie taking the charge and agroing one player, while the rest of them are split between the team – usually 2 Valkyries per player, shifting agro based on who damages them, plus the Leader alternating her focus between the team. 

It sounds unfair and feels that way at first, but in all honesty, it’s quite balanced, as their name implies. Each Valkyrie has an individual health bar too, which makes up one larger overall health pool; with that pool depleting as you progress through the fight and gradually KO the Valkyries. The fight is made up of 3 transitionless phases – downing all of the Valkyries once, moves them to phase 2, and downing them all again, hits phase 3. With each phase, the Valkyries net stronger damage buffs from the Leader. Some dislike the gank-like nature of the fight, but once you learn to balance your awareness of who the leader is agro’d to, it becomes second nature to rotate accordingly. Plus, the music is absolutely sublime.

They’re also the one boss that’s weak to sleep in the game, a status effect added with the DLC. Now the idea of putting each of the fine maidens to sleep, to help manage the gank, sounds fine on paper… but it’s just not practical during the fight. Plus, there’s no guarantee you’ll actually have a map with any sleep-related POIs to visit, or weapons that drop with that effect; a problem with the game since launch when finding boss-weakness related weapons.

They also have an Everdark variant, though it’s woefully difficult, to the point of being unpleasant. In it, they essentially go full Karen Valkyroided-up mode at the end of their standard phase – dowsing themselves red with blood before charging at you. Finish them all off, and one tears her face off, and turns into a giant slug on ket. Imagine Dark Souls 3’s Aldrich, Devourer of Gods, but American. A hunking gargantuan-sized beast of a boss, that queefs about the arena faster than a 20 stone man eats a hotdog at a Nascar race.

Spouting huge AoE attacks, this fight is both a test of patience and skill as you avoid the behemoth beast and environmental attacks, as she zooms about the arena. Once she channels her signature attack, the Blood Bloom, this is your moment to strike. Deal enough damage, and she resets back to her normal Valky-roided up self – complete with the six other Valkyries. Starting the cycle off again – KO the Valkroids, dodge the behemoth bimbo, deal damage. Incredibly tough stuff, but so rewarding once you beat them.

Secondly, we have the Dreglord.

Now this thing is just nuts. They should’ve named it Dreadlord, because it fills me with exactly that going up against it. I don’t even know how to describe it. Beyond me trying to explain Nightreign’s concept, this is the real Frankenstein’s monster of the game –  an abyssal amalgamation of corpses, souls and spirits of the dregs of the world; an embodiment of hatred for those cast out and left to rot, to those used as pawns in whatever wars the Lands Between has wrought, to those massacred at the hands of those in pursuit of “some greater good”. Traitorous Straghess, to give it its proper name, is like an eternally damned love child of Dark Souls’ best DLC bosses – you’ve got elements of DS3’s Slave Knight Gael, DS1’s Manus, and Bloodborne’s The One Reborn, all bundled into this grotesquely aggressive spawn of vengeance and spite.

Akin to Slave Knight Gael, Phase 1 is just its warming-up phase; gradually finding its flow and increasing the veracity of its attacks. Phase 2, however, is when the fun begins. Channelling its inner Sephiroth and mummy issues, except more two-winged than one-winged in this scenario. Going absolutely berserk with combos, mobility, and leaps into the air that put Ophan of Kos to shame. It’s a cocophone of E Numbers and hyped up ADHD restlessness. It’s relentless.

And of course, the OST for this fight is out of this world. Perfectly synced to the boss’s moveset. 

Thankfully, there’s no Everdark version of this boss, and to be honest, it doesn’t need one.

But here’s when we come to the critique of the DLC, and in my view, a huge part of why the feedback surrounding it, and its substance, has been so mixed. 

Now I can live with the fact that no new weapons were added to the game when the DLC dropped. It would be cool, don’t get me wrong, to have more of them, but I’ve also not played the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC to even notice what would’ve been new. To some, that’s an issue; to me, not so much. But I get where people are coming from.

The returning bosses bought over from Souls, and Shadow of the Erdtree, are a mixed bag, too. They’re a weird mix – on one hand, you’ve got DS3’s Demon Princes. A fight where their phases are split between Night of Day 1 and Day 2… On the other hand, Clifford the Big Red Bear. Literally just a bear. Such a waste of a boss slot, and to be honest, all of the Shadow of the Erdtree bosses feel lame. Demon Princes is okay, but it gets monotonous knowing they’ll be the Night 2 fight. Maybe I just dislike the frantic movesets of ER bosses.

Despite this, I do think, however, the one thing players had been holding out hope for most with this DLC, the new map, is a major let-down.

Visually, the Forsaken Hollows map is stunning. So too is the ambience of the music, as you run around. I mean, again, I wouldn’t expect any less from From Soft when it comes to music.

The DLC map is much more vertically focused than the base game map. With a Giant Crystal at its centre, and POIs encircling it around the map edge. All of which are situated on landmasses of varying heights. The idea is you work your way around the map, visiting POIs as you normally would, whilst also locating smaller crystals scattered across the map. Each in differing locations, each run – destroying a set amount of small crystals will shatter the big Crystal. Netting the player perhaps the best passive ability in the game, and a giga Spiritsteam jump; an invaluable asset for navigation on this map, due to the added vertical nature of this map… and we’re talking cliff faces like Highwall of Lothric x100 high here. Not to mention the addition of bottomless pits too… So Spiritstream jumps, the newly added Teleport Stone, and Spectral Hawks are essential for getting around.

So why is the map divisive to the playerbase? Well, the added verticality is exactly why. Design-wise, it can completely throw off the flow of a run.

At some point during a run, you’re inevitably going to come up against a cliff you can’t climb, or a pit you cannot cross. So the challenge then becomes, how do I navigate around this to get to a pinged location or boss encounter? Wasting precious seconds looking at the map, plotting your way, then sometimes minutes running around the map to get where you need to. A hassle further exacerbated when the storm is closing in around you, and you have to tank the damage running through it, to get to the one ruin bridging a pit between landmasses.  

Plus, it’s not helped by the fact that the map does a terrible job at conveying the depth of the map. The game doesn’t even tell you you can cycle between levels on the map screen (I was probably 200 hours in before seeing this in a YouTube video), and when you figure that out, it only cycles between 2 levels – “overground” and “underground” essentially. When arguably there are more than 2 floors to the map, in my opinion. And even then, the lower-level map is just a couple of cave systems and a niche under the cliff with a couple of POIs that you’ll never visit. Literally pointless. And some icons appear on the map on a certain level, but are actually on a different level than you.

Then again, you’ve got the addition of bottomless pits, too. They can be funny when falling down whilst playing with friends, but end up feeling like cheap deaths when the pressure is on. Especially as the storm closes in. Plus, inconsistency with fog obscuring the lower levels doesn’t help either, making it hard to tell if you’re about to fall onto solid ground or kiss your runes goodbye. Ironically, sometimes it’s somehow easier to just jump off the edge and let the game respawn you closer to your objective, but isn’t that entirely against the ethos of the Souls genre, to not die? At least with the Volcano Shifting Earth, arguably the only other map variant with a similar amount of depth, you can tell where not to fall due to the copious amount of Centipede Demon spunk (aka lava) covering the area.

Just tell me where the bottomless pits are on that map, at a glance? Let alone when you’re running from A to B as the storm is nipping at your heels.

Then you’ve got the frequency at which the map appears – only appearing as a Shifting Earth event, if you go up against either of the 2 DLC Nightlords. Or if someone in the group has a Remembrance quest active for that map. It feels like it pops up all the time, and yes you can use the bed or Signboard to remove the Shifting Earth event supposedly, but I’ve never used this feature. So coming back again to the predictable nature of runs, do this map enough times, and you’ll get to a point where you’ll instantly know which bosses you’ll be up against, based on who you fight the first Night on that map. And that gets boring. Fast. Especially if you’re grinding out runs against Everdark Balancers.

I feel bad slandering the DLC like this, but I just can’t help but imagine the missed potential the more I’ve replayed the map whilst writing this.

Maybe I’m just complaining for the sake of complaining here, it is the English way after all. Maybe expectations were still not met, despite them not being too high, as From Software’s radio silence went on. To be honest, too, I’ve had runs that have gone immensely well whilst writing this, thanks to great routing by great teammates. When those moments happen, the map is a breeze. I’ve even made it finally to the top of both Tower POIs on the map – normally, any such attempts are abandoned. Netting a nifty perk for the rest of the run. But on the other hand, when they don’t happen and everything goes to pot, it’s a chore and an unenjoyable experience. I think we’ve all felt runs slipping away on that map at some point, as you watch people jump aimlessly again and again, against cliffs they will never climb.

Now that all is said and done, the Forsaken Hollows DLC is exactly that. Hollow. 

At the end of the day, you’ll see the new stuff and barely notice it as being new. It sounds like you get a lot when you read into it, but you simply don’t notice some of the additions, or even care for them to be honest. The new Swamp and Smithy Village POIs you’ll breeze through, and you’ll completely ignore the added Forges in the Smithy Villages. They are just pointless. 

“But Skyf,” I hear you say, “is there anything you like about the map or DLC?”

Why yes, dear reader. There is.

The arse on the Undertaker, remember?

So what’s next for Nightreign?

Nothing. That’s it. 

It’s a finished package now, as far as we know. For a genre so steeped in the notion of “Git Gud”, the support for the game never really matched that motto ironically.

As I mentioned before, if the Forsaken Hollow DLC is Hollow, then perhaps Nightreign is now Forsaken too? Finished and confined to the annals of the FromSoft catalogue, left to become a Remembrance in itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for them to announce more content for the game. The DLC itself sold 2 million copies in the first week, so clearly the demand is there for more.

But just humour me for a minute here:

Imagine you’re on the team over at FS. You’re discussing the DLC and future content for Nightreign. You’ve got the entire Dark Souls catalogue of bosses, enemies, areas, and weapons at your fingertips. Plus Elden Ring and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.  What do you do?

The whole premise of the game in the first place was an experiment. So go mad with it. Bounce on that concept crazy style – throw as much dung as you can at it; see what sticks, see what doesn’t. You can afford to get away with it. We Souls fans are masochists. We love throwing ourselves against this stuff over and over, no matter if it hits or not.

To ad-lib a quote from Father Gascogine in Bloodborne, “the unexplored potential is enough to make a man sick.”

Nightreign had the potential to be a real love letter to the fans, a celebration of the games that came before it, and where the genre is at now. A marriage of the old and the new. Just imagine if we could’ve had some POIs, or maps, inspired by areas from DS1-3? Arguably, the best moments in Nightreign are those moments when bosses from the older games rear their heads. The fights versus the genre iconic bosses. Just look at the DLC and how hyped people were for Knight Artorias’ return – he’s still kicking ass 15 years later.  Imagine if we’d have been able to run around a Nightreign version of Lothric from Dark Souls 3, complete with a Lothric Castle POI, Anor Londo, Forlorn Keep, plus Ariandel and Dregheap POIs from the DLC? PPmaxxed fan service right there. And fan service isn’t a bad thing. We fans are the Estus Flasks that keep the genre going after all – the community has already taken it upon themselves to create mods with more map variations, bosses, and add weapons from Shadow of the Erdtree and DS3. You just need to watch videos with this content to see how much it revitalises the game, and how easily From Software could revive the game with these additions, so what’s stopping them? I mean there’s still bugs in the game since launch that they need to patch, like bosses freezing in place, or boss boons not dropping. So why not kill two (Death Rite) birds with one stone?

Perhaps the paid DLC we ended up getting is precisely what should’ve been dropped gradually across the course of those first 6 months, for free. With something grander and more fan servicey, akin to the above, left for the actual DLC. Plus a fully roguelike mode where every boss encounter, weapon drop, and mid-game event is random would make for infinite replayability.

But that’s probably where the problem lies. Just like FromSoft and their imaginative boss design, maybe our imaginations got the better of us, too – Nightreign was never meant to be a love letter to us or the genre.

Perhaps in a way, Nightreign is a victim of its own success – what it does, it does extremely well, and people simply wanted more. It speaks volumes of the quality of the game, and wanting more of that isn’t a bad thing. Plus, in a way, perhaps the DLC is also a victim of how high From Software set the bar with their past DLCs. The game was only ever an experiment after all, a Souls-esque PvE game broken down into bitesize 40 minute runs. So to squeeze 300 hours from a title like this, reflects just how addictive the game can be when it sinks it’s dragon-sized claws into you.

As a package now priced on Steam at £34.99, or £47.99 for the Deluxe which includes the DLC (priced individually at £13.00), it’s more than worth it. Despite my issues with the DLC, you’ll hit a point where curiosity will get the better of you and you’ll buy it regardless. So you might as well earn relics for ALL characters from the off. The hours you’ll get out of the game at that price too more than makes

It’s fun. It’s solid. It’s downright addictive at times too – when you’re in that stride, it hits so good.

It can equally be as marred with frustration too, in familiar and entirely new ways. with teammates it all hits the fan. But that’s just something we fans accept in any Souls-like right? It’s never smooth sailing. But the challenge is often more unifying for us, than dividing. Unless you spam ping during a run.

It’s just the lost potential that’s the real kick in the teeth looking back. The excitement and wonder for what the future could bring post-launch, just sadly never materialised in anything. Plus the fact that one year later, and there’s still occasional bugs present since launch, tarnishes the experience. I love the game for what it is, but it just never got to the point it could “reign.” I can’t help but wonder what could’ve been for this title, had it had a grander vision.

For now, though, the Night’s Tide has run its course on this now tarnished nightfarer.

The storm has weathered my resolve, and my vigor runs on empty.

There’s only so much longevity in any game, and Nightreign is no different. No doubt that as we grow tired of the content Nightreign has in its final phase, players will probably find themselves returning to it in time. Just to scratch that Souls itch. But just like any storm, those rain clouds will pass, and we all will move on to something new… perhaps that might be Duskbloods, or the next multiplatform FromSoft title, who knows. 

Perhaps before then, we can convince Joe to come back to the game and finally beat the first boss… Or play Bloodborne for the first time.

Now, where’s the Undercaker? It’s “try fingers but whole” time.