Elden Ring Nightreign director reveals he dreamt up the game during Dark Souls 3, which explains a lot of the Dark Souls content

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Though Elden Ring: Nightreign appears to be a spin-off of FromSoftware’s open-world game, it doesn’t entirely fit the mold of an Elden Ring game. Instead, this upcoming multiplayer, cooperative title features many Dark Souls adversaries, including bosses, costumes drawn from the entire Souls series, and classes inspired by the legendary RPG franchise.

It’s interesting to note that the idea for Elden Ring Nightreign, originally conceived by its director Junya Ishizaki during Dark Souls 3 development, didn’t become a reality until the game director was impressed by the vast scale of the team’s upcoming open-world project. This is when it seemed logical to create the co-op spin-off game.

Elden Ring Nightreign has been a concept for years

In a chat with GamesRadar, Ishizaki shared that the idea for Nightreign had been floating around in his mind for quite some time.

The director shared that he had a rather blurry mental picture of a game he wanted to create during his tenure with the company. It seems that this idea may have begun forming, or at least became more defined, around the period when Dark Souls 3 was being developed. He mentioned that his thoughts and ideas about the project were quite scattered and incomplete at that time.

The development for Dark Souls 3 commenced in mid-2013, serving as a grand finale for the series that ignited a surge of creativity within Ishizaki. But it was only when FromSoftware began working on Elden Ring that the concept for this spin-off started to take shape. Interestingly enough, at that time, Ishizaki didn’t even anticipate being the director of the project.

As I delved into the heart of creating Elden Ring, it wasn’t until the project was fully underway that my concepts began solidifying and everything started falling into place in my imagination. Witnessing the vastness of Elden Ring’s world, the diversity of its enemies, weapons, and player builds, I found myself standing at a crossroads ripe for exploration and development – a point where these ideas could truly blossom. That’s essentially how this game came to be.

Regardless of how far the original Elden Ring: Nightreign may deviate from its open-world structure, it can only exist with the foundation of the base game. If given the opportunity to work on another project in the future, the game’s director is interested in exploring a new direction.

Ishizaki’s inspiration from Dark Souls 3 aligns well with what we understand about Elden Ring: Nightreign. The fundamental structure of Nightreign appears to be heavily influenced by Dark Souls, and there is a significant amount of returning content in the base game. Additionally, even more Dark Souls-related content is expected to be added post-launch.

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2025-05-28 14:10