Elden Ring Nightreign’s game director, Junya Ishizaki, puts all hopes of PvP coming to the game to rest as he confirms that it wasn’t considered at all.

Once Elden Ring Nightreign launches this week, FromSoftware will take players on an experimental journey across Limveld. It’s a co-op PvE experience that adds a Roguelike touch to the world of Elden Ring, rather than being your usual bread and butter Soulslike.

With the title being primarily focused on PvE, the question of PvP naturally pops up. Elden Ring did have PvP, as players could fight against other players who invaded their land or in the colosseums, but it seems like it won’t be featured in the upcoming title, which is a bummer for many.

PvP was never considered for Elden Ring Nightreign, according to the game’s director

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In an interview with IGN, Elden Ring Nightreign’s game director, Junya Ishizaki, revealed that PvP was never considered for the game as developing it would have been tough, ditching it in favor of a PvE experience.

From the start, PVP was not something that we very actively considered for Nightreign. We wanted it to be a co-op multiplayer experience at its core and we found that as we developed these character actions and these unique abilities for each character, balancing them and tweaking them around PVP as well proved to be very… Not only very difficult, but took away from those ideas and that scope that we’d established for each of these characters. So we really wanted the focus to be on PVE and on co-op, and so we knew where our priorities were. So no, we didn’t consider PVP in Nightreign.

The game’s overall vision didn’t work with PvP, so it’s safe to say that it’s never making its way to Elden Ring Nightreign. Would the game be better if it had PvP in it? Maybe. But we’re all for developers realising their full vision and making their games around it, so it’s likely for the best.

Elden Ring‘s PvP mode wasn’t a typical PvP mode, as it worked more similarly to invasions and duels rather than having a separate mode. Players invaded different servers filled with players with different builds. Invasions worked in co-op sessions at any point in the world, while duels operated on a 1v1 basis, where players could challenge other invaders to a duel.

Elden Ring Nightreign‘s PvP would have probably worked similarly, the only difference being the number of players engaging in PvP on a single server. The game would have been even more chaotic than it already is, but it would’ve been swell regardless.

On a brighter note, Elden Ring Nightreign will get duo-support in the future

Duos coming soon to Elden Ring Nightreign | Image Credit: FromSoftware

Junya Ishizaki revealed to IGN in the interview that duo-support is currently not in Elden Ring Nightreign as it was overlooked during development, and he also apologised for it. It’s great to see him being this transparent about the game’s features. Hidetaka Miyazaki would be proud.

The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we’re very sorry about that. As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it’s at the core of Nightreign.

Ishizaki further explained how they’re looking to add duo-support as a post-launch update to the game, which should come as a relief to players concerned about Nightreign’s post-launch support.

Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I’m just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start. And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well.

When it was revealed that the game would feature a solo mode and three-player co-op, fans were understandably confused why the option of playing as duos wasn’t featured. It’s only fair to have duos when solo and trios are already in the game.

Thankfully, it looks like it’ll soon arrive in Elden Ring Nightreign. It’s a matter of when rather than if. Until then, you can either play solo or squad up with three players to defeat the bosses plaguing Limveld and emerge victorious in your runs as Nightfarers.

Elden Ring Nightreign launches May 30 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC.