As a massive Elden Ring fan, I have mixed feelings on the experience Nightreign provides as a whole. While I enjoyed my time with it for the most part, once I rolled credits and beat 7 out of the 8 Nightlords, I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me. I have yet to return to the game, which is the most damning criticism I have the title. I got a good 20 hours out of it but given that this is a multiplayer game, feeling done with it after a relatively short playtime makes me question Nightreign’s replayability and ultimately it’s longevity. Once you start playing the game, Nightreign is not nearly as complex, deep or confusing as the trailers made it seem. You pick a character class, you fly into the map, you find minibosses to kill to level you up, you pick up loot, you find shrines that increase your healing flask capacity, you face a final boss at the end of the first two days, and then the final day you battle against the Nightlord you selected at the beginning.
While the map adds biomes such as a scarlet rot forest every few real life days, it remains exactly the same. While it is nice to be able to memorize where things are, the map remaining static actively lowers the replayability as you will get sick of seeing the same things over and over again. Once you figure out that the strategy really is not that complex and just comes down to execution also makes the game get repetitive quickly. While the map is not randomized in any way, the minibosses are, which does work in the games favor since you are never entirely sure what enemies you will encounter. The Nightlords feel a bit unbalanced, some are incredibly easy which is anticlimactic while others are extremely difficult. I never felt like any Nightlord was somewhere in the middle between easy and really difficult which is disappointing.
For the sake of not making this review a complete downer, there are positives in this game. The character classes are mostly well made and fun to use however, I would have preferred being able to create my own class. The core combat remains fun and the games complete focus on it reminded me that FromSoftware is still one of the best in the business in making in-depth and varied combat systems. This pure focus on combat reminded me how much exploration was central to the gameplay experience of Elden Ring. Given this game’s battle royale nature, you do not have the time to explore so the experience in some ways feels hollow without that important aspect of the original game present. The roguelike and progression mechanics are poorly executed given the only rewards you get across runs are relics that pretty much only give base stat increases. None of these relics are exciting and none make you feel like you are actually creating a unique build.
Again, I cannot understate how much I love Elden Ring. It is truly one of my favorite games of all time so I was excited for Nightreign and was hoping that this would be the multiplayer game that I would be playing for years to come but that was not the case and I do not see myself returning to this game anytime soon if at all and that is a massive disappointment. I cannot in good faith recommend this game to any souls fan nor any multiplayer fan. It simply does not have the “juice” to keep you coming back for more.
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