Elden Ring spinoff Nightreign is a co-op roguelike with battle royale and Monster Hunter juice, but FromSoftware says it's "not what we would call a live service game"

FromSoftware shocked us all when it announced Elden Ring: Nightreign, a new standalone game set in the Elden Ring universe, at the Game Awards, and thanks to our friends at PC Gamer, we know more about the three-player co-op roguelike.

PC Gamer traveled to Tokyo to check out the upcoming game (I’m not jealous, you are) and interview its director Junya Ishizaki. Elden Ring: Nightreign is a cooperative roguelike adventure set in a parallel version of the Lands Between that changes every time you play. There is no character creator; Instead, you choose from multiple heroes and beat levels while avoiding a “battle royale-like wall of deadly rain” that’s closing in on you. You must survive two days of the game cycle, with a boss to fight each night and a chosen major villain to face at the end of each “30-minute run.”

Those of you worried about FromSoftware jumping on the live service bandwagon can breathe a sigh of relief. “We wanted to have a game that felt like a complete package on the day of purchase, so that everything was unlockable… it’s not what we would call a live service game,” Ishizaki says through an interpreter.

The villainous DNA comes through as it progresses. With each playthrough you will receive relics that you can equip to one of your heroes in future games to improve their abilities. So don’t worry if you don’t make it to the end. One gives your healing flask a group effect, as PC Gamer discovered, restoring health to your teammates.

A giant one-armed centaur holds a colossal stone sword

(Image credit: FromSoftware)

The heroes are all different and function loosely like classes. The Duchess, for example, has a faster quickstep that replaces the dodge roll. It’s straight out of Bloodborne and while I’m happy to see some of the old scary action game, I still just want a sequel, man. The Duchess has another powerful ability that doubles the damage you and your team just dealt to an enemy, and yes, it works with bleed triggers. You can also customize your hero throughout rounds by finding Sites of Grace and equipping the new weapons and powers you find as you fight and explore.

“The focus was on condensing that experience – the RPG elements, the exploration, the character building and the leveling. We wanted it to feel like everything was coming together and culminating in a boss fight, but in a more focused form,” explains Ishizaki.

Similar to a MOBA, you start at level one and must explore and defeat weak enemies to become stronger and stand a chance against the deadly bosses of the night. Sites of Grace work similarly to Elden Ring, allowing you to refill your flasks and improve your stats. Unlike Elden Ring, all of your stats are updated at once, so you don’t have to slow down and decide how to invest – it’s more like moving up a class rank.

When asked how he would respond to the idea that Nightreign was just a combination of popular elements from current games, Ishizaki said: “For that new sense of achievement that you wouldn’t quite find in Elden Ring or our previous titles, we had that Feel.” We needed some new mechanics and some new elements to add to the mix. We were never really like, “Let’s definitely not do what other companies are doing or not follow trends.” So we didn’t really see it as a trend, but we saw interesting elements in it that fit well into our multiplayer-focused game , session-based gameplay could fit.”

As for managers, consider being part of a team rather than acting alone, synergizing skills and communicating to ensure you can be successful. However, solo play is fully supported. If you’re worried about the game becoming repetitive, Ishizaki says there are apparently “large-scale changes to the terrain in the form of procedurally appearing volcanoes, swamps or forests.” It wouldn’t be a FromSoftware game without a toxic swamp, right?

For everything else revealed tonight, check out our Live coverage of the Game Awards 2024.

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Elden Ring spinoff Nightreign is a co-op roguelike with battle royale and Monster Hunter juice, but FromSoftware says it’s “not what we would call a live service game”

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