Elden Ring: Nightreign: A Soulslike Battle Royale?

I am by no means, a devout Souls player but ever since Elden Ring released three years ago, I have found myself playing more and more Fromsoft Games. I suffered through Sekiro, died a lot in Dark Souls and endured the Elden Ring DLC. After completing their near perfect DLC, it would be apt to say I was looking forward to any other Fromsoft related projects.

Nightreign and the Souls community

The new Elden Ring game, Nightreign was released recently and as predicted, brought alive the endless debates in the pretentious Souls community. I, for one, find them quite an entertaining community and enjoy their often pointless debates.

The idea that Fromsoft would dare make a Battle Royale Souls game was incomprehensible to them, going against every fibre of their being. I shared their skepticism as well, expecting very little. Much like me, it was clear that gamers were not going in with an open mind.

Upon its release, I found it refreshingly better than I had hoped. Although, my sentiment was not shared among the pretentious side of the Souls community. True, there were some flaws, but at first glance, it proves to be an enjoyable game.

The main complaint that went around was the fact that Fromsoft had finally confronted the Souls community with the true final boss: Making a friend. While it did make it a better experience with two other people, I found it was not as bad playing solo. It was certainly much better than playing with two strangers without being able to coordinate with them. I had a nightmare run with two people who I had to constantly try to revive instead of spending time leveling up.

Fromsoft's Signature Style... without Substance

Once I completed a few runs (failed ones) and finally got to the Nightlord, WOW. The boss fights had to be the highlight. Incredible design as expected with the callbacks to the old games, not to mention the new arenas and soundtrack. You could always count on Fromsoft bringing in the big guns when it comes to design, be it boss design or world building.

After a few successful runs, I felt something I never have felt in any other souls game. I got bored… I mean, the game still had something to offer perhaps but it became boring. Yes, there were still a few more Nightlords to go defeat but after watching a few videos here and there, I honestly didn’t feel the need to go through the whole chore of farming for runes and leveling up, just to fight one boss that you probably can’t even defeat.

I just felt a bit let down after a point. The mini bosses and the night bosses were all recycled or had some slight enhancement from previous souls bosses. While this was initially a cool idea, it really felt like a lazy addition after a point.

I spent a good 8 hours maybe before I dropped it. It just seemed to lack the content of a usual Souls game like Elden Ring.

Little Joys

As far as those 8 hours go, there were a lot of positives. I enjoyed playing as Wylder, with his signature Claw shot which reminded me of the grappling hook from the Batman games. It was quite a handy tool to get around and even during boss fights. Not to mention, NO MORE FALL DAMAGE. Oh, the relief. If only the runs lasted a bit longer, you could probably take the time to appreciate these little things.

While I was only introduced to the Souls genre from Elden Ring, and then made my way back, I felt Nightreign was not for me. It seems to appeal to no one in particular actually. They had no real target audience for this, just Souls loyalists.