Elden Ring Nightreign is a standalone cooperative Rougelite that takes place in a procedurally generated version of Limgrave which for those that did not know is the first open area of From Softwares earlier title Elden Ring. In this review we will be covering everything about the game form character all the way to bosses this is NOT a spoiler free review if you want a spoiler free version of the review please click here.
The Round Table Hold
The Round Table Hold was introduced to us in Elden Ring as a “safe” space as such, well it acts pretty much the same way in Nightreign too. Here you are able to access all sorts of things from your character selection, upgrading your characters Relics, searching through the stats and lore books to better knowledge yourself with the characters you are playing as and of course changing your clothing because it would not be a souls game without a bit of fashion now would it.
Now while the Nightreign shows you these basic things it doesn’t really do a good job at covering things in-depth, thankfully we are here to assist.
Now you might have noticed when you launched the game that you only have 6 out of the 8 characters available to you at the start well that’s because 2 of them are hidden behind unlocks thankfully they are not too hard to unlock.
To unlock the duchess we need to reach the first boss, once you have reached the Nightlord win or lose when you return to the round table hold you should get a pocket watch. Give this pocket watch to the hooded character within the main area and you should unlock the dutchess.
Revenant is a little more difficult to unlock as it requires a fight, eventually jar will sell a beseeched mirror you buy this mirror for 1.5k murk, once you have the mirror you will want to check the corridor to the left of the alter standing in the corner is a ghost talk to the ghost and then you will have to fight the revenant, win the fight to unlock the character.
Also within the Round Table Hold you will find two books one allows you to look through all the characters and there stats, these stat will give you information on what weapon style best suits your character and/or what weapon they will dish out better damage with, its vital that you play to your strengths if you want to take down some of these Nightlords.
The other book within the Round Table Hold isn’t very informative until you have defeated the first boss, this book allows you to start remembrances these are Nightreigns way of telling the story to the player completing each remembrance will unlock another part of the story.
Customisation
While playing Nightreign you will unlock the ability to customise your character with different pre-set clothing options, each option will cost you murk so you might want to save up your winnings to sink into so sweet Elden bling. So far it seems each character has 3 clothing choices and then one remembrance clothing option making four in total. Remembrance clothing doesn’t look any different and is only used to trigger a cutscene after a downing a Nightlord.
Upgrading your character
Upgrading your character within Nightreign is actually quite simple, after a run you will be rewarded with relics these are what you will be slotting to upgrade your character allowing you to enter a run with a little extra boost in stats or a brand new starting weapon. All you need to do to slot these relics is visit the alter within the Round Table Hold you will see it because it has a blue flame around it. Once you have interacted with this you will get an option to slot relic for all the characters personally I would slot as many character relics as you can so your not caught off guard playing a character without and relics.
The Expedition
To start an expedition you will need to visit the round table in the hold, interacting with the table will allow you to choose between different Nightlords to fight, however at the start you will only have access to the dreaded three headed wolf. Once out on an expedition you will fly in on a spectral hawk until the game drops you don’t worry there is no fall damage here.
Once on the ground there is normally a small encampment in front of you its best to dispatch these enemies and level up at the nearest site of grace, now its worth noting that levelling up here is not like Elden Ring, in Nightreign you interact with the grace and then just press X or A to level up and its done.
Your next aim is going to be to reach level 6 plus before the end of day one, this can be accomplished by hitting the nearest POI to the site of grace and beating the boss, your want to move swiftly around the map making a plan as you move trying to pick up weapons that are equal to the bosses weakness in the instance of the three headed wolf it is holy.
At the end of day one you will be slowly pushed into a boss arena where you will have to fight a boss, its important to note that if your team all go down here its game over, killing the boss will net you a decent amount of runes and a power up, once you have done this day 2 will start. During day 2 you will want to dispatch as many bosses as possible your aim here is to clear up get more power ups and powerful weapons and hopefully end the day on level 11 plus. Again at the end of day 2 you will have to fight a boss once this boss is dispatch you will get some runes, a power up and a gloop pool will spawn entering this will take you to the last boss fight.
Before the last boss you will have the option to spend any excess runes, its worth making a game plan here if you have a magic wielder on your team its worth dropping them a few starlight shards so they don’t run out of FP remember you wont need your runes after this so make sure you spend all that you can. Running down the walk way and entering the door will bring you to a pretty lengthy cutscene of your team opening a door. Que the boss.
Upon Killing the boss you will be rewarded with boss relic and some high quality relics for your characters including murk that can be spent on skins or more relics and emotes.
Our Thoughts On The Game
Now before I dive into my thoughts on the game I want to say I am a massive souls fan and an even bigger fan of Elden Ring I have personally platinumed the game on all platforms and accumulated over 1000 hours in the lands between.
Elden Ring: Nightreign is a Rougelite at heart however it throws its own little spin on things mainly the fact everything here can be so challenging. We have spent over 60 hours in Elden Ring: Nightreign all of which have been seriously enjoyable even now the lads are asking for one run on the lunch break, however the game isn’t without its flaws.
Now we are talking about From Software so you know the games going to be hard but when you have to run 40 mins plus to a boss that just annihilates you for you to have to run 40 mins again and repeat this pattern until you learn its moves, this can get a little annoying however I will say the Developers have been active in addressing players issues with the game.
My other biggest gripe is that upgrades are the same across the board if your a mage you will still get swords and melee based skill upgrades and vice versa, in a game where your run has to be routed and to the point sometimes these things really can be annoying.
The game also isn’t as random as you once think, the map seems to cycle between 3 to 4 patterns so once you learn them patterns you can get a really clean run.
In a world of Rougelites I would argue that there are better Rougelites out there however this one does do its job.
Other than the aforementioned issues with the game we have no other issues the game runs well, plays well and is seriously fun, the developers are adding a two player coop mode and harder monsters too so if the starting eight are too easy for you at least you know this was all training for you.
