Action RPG

You got Nightreigned: Elden Ring’s spinoff is the most aggravating, player-hostile FromSoft game I’ve played, but I keep staying up past 3 AM for ‘one more run’

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Among all endorsements for a game, staying up late to play it might be the most convincing one I’ve come across. As my 30th birthday approaches and seems ready to shoot its best shot at me, this feat is becoming increasingly difficult for games to achieve. I don’t usually enjoy multiplayer games, so the cooperative focus of Elden Ring Nightreign was a challenge that I thought would keep me from losing sleep due to gaming.

Also, this game is such bullshit. And yet, I keep playing it.

I’ve been working on this project for 42 hours now. To align with the west coast team during the pre-launch phase, I often disrupted my mature millennial sleep schedule by staying up late. When the servers crashed a day before launch, I persistently messaged our group chat, hoping to start early only to be reminded that it wasn’t possible yet. It felt like a dog eagerly begging for food when mealtime is still far off.

Nightreigned

As a gamer, I’ve gotta say, the solo campaign of Nightreign used to drive me up the wall – before they fixed it, mind you. The game itself can be merciless and reliant on Random Number Generation (RNG) to an extent that felt like pushing my sanity to its limits. In numerous battles against a boss vulnerable to poison, we never once stumbled upon a single poison-infused weapon drop. We were certainly Nightreigned!

Attempting to scale a wall while the clock ticks down, only to slip through repeatedly and not manage to climb up? You’ve been Nightreigned. We tried to solve a puzzle involving a boss in a map event, ran it again after understanding its mechanics, but still couldn’t defeat it before time ran out.

Later on, I discovered that our prize would have been protection from Frostbite, a condition which is typically imposed by minor adversaries, the boss we didn’t defeat, and one of the Nightlords – not the one we were matched against – under their reign.

In simpler terms, we encountered a unique boss who inflicted a Dark Souls-like curse, reducing our maximum health by a significant amount. Despite multiple attempts, we were unable to defeat this boss. Eventually, the battle ended and he left. Unfortunately, the three-quarter health reduction curse persisted throughout the remainder of our gameplay, which became increasingly difficult as a result – we had experienced the Nightreign effect.

In the style of Tyler Colp’s Elden Ring Nightreign review, “It’s almost as if you’re the butt of a joke when facing a boss in a FromSoftware game,” but all the challenging, deceptive, and complex mechanics that the studio is famous for are shown at their worst in a fast-paced, run-oriented format that demands 30 minutes from you, with minimal rewards when you fail. If Elden Ring or Bloodborne are Fromsoft in a stylish, dimly lit environment, Nightreign is the studio under the harsh, fluorescent lights of a 1992 DMV.

Accepting that certain bosses in games like Dark Souls or Elden Ring are immune to affinity effects such as bleed and frostbite is a common occurrence. However, it can be frustrating when, after a grueling half-hour run, you find out that the poison bow you’ve relied on doesn’t work against the specific Nightlord you’re facing. In this case, it would be more fitting to say that the Nightlord rules over the battlefield instead of “nightreigned.

It was only after 30 hours of gameplay that I found out clicking the left stick reveals the passive effects of items in your inventory, including the “[Nightfarer’s] Grief” weapon effect, which grants you accumulating attribute boosts when you obtain weapons from defeated players.

While controlling the Executor character, I equipped myself extensively with Executor’s Grief weapons during gameplay to significantly enhance his primary stats of Dexterity and Arcane. It’s not common sense, but the person who meticulously studies subtle details like hidden tooltips in a fast-paced, time-restricted game without any pause option is likely someone who has endured multiple Nightreign sessions more than they wish to remember.

PC Gamer contributor Nova Smith highlighted an intriguing contradiction in this game to me: it appears commercial, like a joke about executives on stimulants (“Elden Ring Fortnite”), but simultaneously, it might be the most unfriendly towards players and least accessible game FromSoft has ever produced. This includes their early, challenging games like the original King’s Fields.

But I keep going back for more

I absolutely adore this game and plan to continue playing it. If additional content is released, I’ll be among the first to purchase it on release day. There are three key aspects that prevent me from giving up on Nightreign, despite its numerous annoyances.

Snackable Souls: This isn’t a mini Elden Ring boss fight mode, but it’s quite similar. I often revisit and replay the original game, but the downtime and exploration in between can feel repetitive on subsequent playthroughs. The fast-paced journey from camp to camp might not match the satisfaction of leisurely exploration, but it does provide a thrilling, pulse-raising experience.

In a compact form, you experience the Souls series’ zero-to-hero RPG journey, and Nightreign’s unique rearrangement of Elden Ring’s vast weaponry offers a fresh perspective. I’ve developed affections for weapons that I previously overlooked in the original game, while encountering a beloved one like Rivers of Blood feels like celebrating Christmas.

Not only do we now own Sekiro at our residence, but its standout features – the innovative mechanics, distinctive aesthetic appeal, and captivating class concepts embodied within each playable character – undeniably make it an exceptional aspect of the game.

2. Delightful unexpectedness: One assurance FromSoft provides is that you’ll encounter and experience things in their games that you wouldn’t anticipate—this is why some passionate fans consider even the sight of bosses or their names as major spoilers, and they have a point.

The boss who consistently depleted our health without warning is a fantastic illustration: Was it incredibly aggravating to lose a game due to this method? Definitely. However, the thrill of the unforeseen, the audaciousness of having an end boss appear as a random occurrence to thwart us, brings a grin to my face just contemplating it.

3. Playing Souls games mostly solo: For me, playing Souls games has been a solitary experience. The last time I found myself deeply engrossed in a multiplayer game was during Destiny 2’s Beyond Light expansion back in 2020.

It’s been quite some time since it seemed like everyone in my circle – friends, work associates, even former colleagues – have all become deeply engrossed in the same multiplayer game, Nightreign. This shared interest has made for an exciting atmosphere, as people are playing Nightreign left and right, and their passion is truly contagious. Moreover, it’s a wonderful feeling to share those surprising, “what the heck?” moments that Nightreign offers with friends, especially when we all gather on Discord calls to laugh about them together.

We successfully defeated the last boss alongside Tyler and the Senior Guide Writer of PCG, Sean Martin. Our gameplay was impeccable, which made us tease that, remarkably, it was our turn to dominate our opponents, just like Nightreigning was typically done by them.

Although the overall feel of the game might not appeal to everyone, enduring the challenges could make the victorious instances even more gratifying.

Not everyone might like the whole experience of this game, but going through the tough parts could make winning moments even more satisfying.

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2025-05-31 20:18

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