Elden Ring: Nightreign

Since its announcement at the Game Awards, FromSoftware fans have been eager to get their hands on Elden Ring’s newest adventure, Nightreign. The co-op adventure is a familiar yet altogether unfamiliar take on the Soulslike formula, and the game’s director has just confirmed it will be missing one feature that made the original experience so unique.

In an interview with IGN Japan, the game’s director, Junya Ishikazi, revealed that the “leave a message feature” seen in Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring will be absent from the upcoming standalone title. “You can still see the ghosts of other players, but the ability to leave messages has been removed”, Ishikazi explained, adding, “The reason we removed the message function is that in this game, where each session is about 40 minutes long, there is no time to write your own message and no time to read messages written by others.”

A Small Concession For a New Experience

A player uses a great bow against an enemy in Elden Ring Nightreign Elden Ring Nightreign player uses a Spirit Hawk to traverse Elden Ring Nightreign features the Nameless King from Dark Souls 3 Elden Ring Nightreign players fight Dukes Dear Freya from Dark Souls 2 Elden Ring Nightreign Players work together to fight Flaming Dog Boss A player uses a great bow against an enemy in Elden Ring Nightreign Elden Ring Nightreign player uses a Spirit Hawk to traverse Elden Ring Nightreign features the Nameless King from Dark Souls 3 Elden Ring Nightreign players fight Dukes Dear Freya from Dark Souls 2 Elden Ring Nightreign Players work together to fight Flaming Dog Boss

Ishikazi said that each of these 40-minute sessions is aimed to act as a condensed RPG. Players will embark on these sessions over three days, exploring a random and changing map over the set period. While the game can be played solo, joining a party of three is advisable. There is no option for two-player co-op. Another change is that minor enemies will not revive over the play session, even if a player rests at a Site of Grace. Players will also have eight pre-determined characters to choose from, all with unique “Arts” special skills used to gain the upper hand in battle.

Players will not use Runes as currency, as is done in the base game, but Marks. These can be spent at Nightreign’s equivalent of the Roundtable Hold, the Hidden Roundtable. From here, players can buy permanent buffs called Relics, which encourage repeated playthroughs to collect all the buffs. Players will also be able to obtain new gestures and skins and brush up on Elden Ring: Nightreign’s lore by reading the records. Weapons that teams find in their adventures will be randomized; however, there is a mechanism to inherit weapons and items used by other players.

Ishikazi does note that the story of Elden Ring Nightreign aims to differentiate itself from the single-player experience. The two stories share commonalities until the Fracture War, diverging from there. “The reason why I chose a parallel world is because I wanted to respect the story that Elden Ring players experienced. Elden Ring Nightreign is a different story from Elden Ring, so I think that people who have an attachment to Elden Ring can play it with peace of mind,” Ishikazi explains.

Elden Ring Nightreign releases in 2025 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.