Elden Ring Nightreign: First impressions of network testing construction
Blog Andrew Joseph 12 Feb , 2025 0
Elden Ring Nightreign is not a big contest. Not that you ever thought it was, but as a former battle royal enjoyer, I can't help but compare the white joint moments I get when the storm is at the last moment of the last hour and a half meeting I desperately try to go beyond the circle of aggression , and enter the salvation site of night grace. The rounded corners do not have PVP elements at all, although they are not missing at all. Still, you put the class on the map, get nothing, and spend time looting the map, hoping you can cheer for the final battle.
From the risk-reward moments of robbing a church when circles are closed, plus a flask, to the wave of sadness you feel when you spend a lot of time building yourself – it’s hard not to see the impact of a Royal Fight . But after four hours of play stress test build, I was ecstatic to report that Nightreign probably won't ruin the Elden Ring name.
When you start the game, you choose to select one of the four available classes, although there are eight in total when the nightclub starts. The current options will be the all-around Wylder, the fast Glass-Cannon Duchess, The Tanky Guardian and the magic-waving hermit. Of course, each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, but in my time, I found the most interesting class to be the Duchess, thanks to her powerful abilities and the quick and flexible Dodge. I also spent some time in seclusion, which was very powerful, but often used up FP and without FP flasks (they weren't in this Elden ring), she would certainly be one of the harder classes to play effectively.
Each class is equipped with a level of road that I will talk about later, but more importantly, they all have unique skills and ultimate abilities. For example, the Duchess's skill is incredible, repeating the last 1.5 seconds of damage the enemy just suffered, and has a short cooldown to activate. It's not only your harm, but everyone's harm. So you are also waiting for the huge health spike to try to take advantage of this loss when you flip in a battlefield landing attack. This is a great thing.
Other skills are also matched with the class’s scheduled roles. Wylder can perform explosive attacks to try and cause significant damage, guardians can create a large shield that both negates damage and restores fallen allies, while reclusive can curse enemies and grants all attackers HP and FP bonuses. So while players can double the class on the run, it is always a good idea to talk about team strengths and weaknesses to diversify your team.
When it starts completely fresh, players will find themselves at the roundtable of Nightreign. After docking with two other random players, or playing directly with your friends with a multiplayer password, a small cutscene will be played and everyone will soar on Limveil (not Limgrave) before landing and starting a run .
A whole naked satellite lasts about 30-45 minutes, depending on how fast you knock down the final boss. While it is a three-day cycle, it does boil down to five separate phases – day one, night, day two, night two and last boss. The map will be fully opened at the beginning of day one, which is when you start exploring and upgrading. Each round starts with a first-level player with basic starter gear, except for artifacts that are rewarded at the end of each round, which keeps you growing continuously between matches, providing better relics to enhance performance. When you land, my team always caresses for the first enemy camp and we can find the experience to start upgrading quickly, which is key to defeating the stronger ones. You will then decide what your team wants to do by looking at the surrounding areas on the map as it will come with points of interest for you to explore.
Each point of interest usually comes with a predictable reward: the church will accommodate flask fees to increase your overall health potion use; the castle will feature a mini boss that can drop more powerful gear. A similar rise to Ranni's rise found between the two will raise a simple puzzle to solve before finding more gears. Just to name a few. At first it feels overwhelmed in Linville, but the threat of constantly closing circles will eventually train your brain to keep moving.
Speed is the name of the game during the game cycle, and luckily everything seems to revolve around. For beginners, upgrading is as fast as a button press. As I mentioned, each of the four network test classes has a predetermined statistical upgrade path. So, when you run to grace period to supplement your health, FP and flask fees, you will also be provided with an “upgrade” menu, which just requires you to press confirmation to improve your level. Heck, you might even have enough runes to level up three or four times, and with three or four buttons pressing, you're all done, and it's much more powerful.
If you have experience in the soul game, the phase of the day should be a breeze. While searching for maps for loot upgrades, I came across the recognizable Elden Ring Mobs. My team and I decided to take a camp, but first, we had to fight three scattered fire trucks before we could get the loot reward. Another time, we climbed to the top of the castle to fight against the Godskin noble boss. This should be horrible, but with the other two defiles around you, these mobs and bosses quickly descended.
Moving around faster than the original Elden ring, too. You will no longer grab the controller as the sprint moves from the circle (or B) to simply click on the left stick. The sprint speed is also about twice as fast as the average Elden Ring. Fall injury? No, not here. It's easy to get off the cliff, you can even run on the wall parkour style, or walk around with Spiritsprings.
In addition to running to improve your level, you will also try to build a character to play the nighttime boss. There is no armor (except the shield) on the naked satellite, only six weapon slots and two amulet slots. It works: In the typical Elden Ring way, you can switch between weapons and shields on your left and right, but everything on your people will bring you a fan. For example, suppose you find a bloody Reduvia Dagger. This may be the beginning of a bloody build if you choose. Now, suppose you cancel a boss, and you also offer some other weapons to choose from, and you find a spear that increases the accumulation of status effects. You won't use that spear because you want to stick with the dagger, but you will still benefit from the state effect provided on the spear, just by putting it on you. Think of it as Roguelike almost to see – sometimes the synergy of the weapon effects and statistical upgrades you will get will build each other so well that you will eventually start melting the mob left and right. Other times, you'll want something like poison, just keep getting weapons that increase FP regeneration. bummer.
Weapons are not the only rewards either. Usually, when plundering your boss, you choose to statistic upgrades or modifiers. Some of them are less exciting than others, such as a 10% increase in physical damage. Yes, yes, but exciting, not that much. At other times, you get something really cool like passive power-up that emits a huge breaking lightning strike every time you dodge. Or the enemy's frost Nova every time you start sprinting. You can use them in your build for a powerful combination.
While the stages of the day may be like walking in a park, the night boss is a real skill check. After the circle has ended enough to end the day phase, a small Edtri will appear, which indicates that it is time to take over. In the hours I've played, my team went from completely destroying a pair of nighttime bosses to barely scratching. If someone falls, you will recover that person by simply attacking your body to descend, and more and more attacks need to fall more and more frequently. Regardless, the way the night ends usually informs you of the rest of the way you run. I've seen the team come back from being caught by a boss who is hardly caught at night, but if that boss is tough, then you're likely to be behind your level and you're going to have a tough fight in front of you, with a chance to be Two nights have a chance to do two nights.
The second day begins. You will once again have a complete map to explore the level and find better equipment. Sometimes you'll be invaded by a random Margit, and the sign of autumn will chase you until he dies or wipe your party. If your team wipes during the day, you will drop the runes and reborn at the nearest location in Grace. You can recover runes, but the main factor that is lost here is time – the battle with enemies is wasted, you are not rewarded, and have to recover lost runes. If your team wipes during night bosses, then it's over and you need to start a new match.
By the evening of time, the two looked up and it was time to do the final skill check. During the game testing we met two different night bosses. You either face the Centipede Demon, who is tough but feels a little manageable, or the three Sentinel Knights are really bad. Not only are they hard to knock down, they also require extreme coordination with your team to make sure you are all focused on firing at one of them. Things start to get easier when each of them falls, but it's a battle of attrition. Eventually, you run out of all the flasks and will be left behind, trying to revive teammates who are increasingly difficult to take over. My team had to spend two overnight in my six to seven full runs.
Finally, the third day was very simple – no one. Instead, you will be able to spend the last rune, either upgrade from the vendor or purchase consumable items, and then you and your team will occupy the final boss of the run.
As I mentioned before, each player will receive a relic that provides continuous upgrades to your character depending on how far you go. These ranges from simple statistics to modifiers that will place you directly from jumping onto the build path. In our tests, this seems to be the only meaningful advancement that Nightreign offers, although I think the whole game might have more to us.
Elden Ring Nightreign is fun. Victory through the skin of your teeth, you can feel the same sense of accomplishment when you beat some of Elden Ring’s toughest bosses. At the end of the round, I couldn't wait to go back and see what kind of build I'll get next time. My team cheered out when I finally knocked down the boss of the third day of that day, which reminded me why I really like the soul-like genre. In its current form, NightReign can be seen as a small amount of lite, so I'm very interested to see how it works when it is released sometime in 2025. , but that's all I think. I absolutely can't wait to come back for more.
