Elden Ring Nightreign Network Test review – Dark Souls meets Fortnite

There may be no sequel planned but Elden Ring continues via a strange mix of roguelike, battle royale, and traditional Soulslike adventure.

You will have noticed that, despite fan hopes to the contrary, FromSoftware did not announce a remaster or remake of Bloodborne at the recent PlayStation State of Play. The creators of Dark Souls have said they’re working on ‘multiple’ titles at the moment, but the only one we know about is Nightreign: a multiplayer-focused spin-off that we’re willing to bet started off as DLC but is now being sold as a mid-budget standalone game.

Surprisingly, there are said to be no plans for Elden Ring 2, despite the original’s huge success, which means that Nightreign may end up being the last trip to the Lands Between. Or perhaps there will be other spin-offs, as this does seem a strange way to end things: turning the original game into a co-op roguelike, complete with randomly generated maps and a battle royale style time limit.

From has never described the game as a roguelike – they’re not exactly famed for unambiguous descriptions of anything – but that is essentially what this is. As you’d expect, the combat is the same but with a mixture of new and old enemies, and plenty of new weapons and items. The role-playing elements are necessarily truncated by the nature of the experience but there’s at least an echo of everything that made the original great.

This weekend’s Network Test was not an easy thing to take advantage of and it didn’t work at all at first. It was never intended to be live for the whole weekend though, as you had to tune in for specific, three hour long sessions each day. Given the technical problems, From did extend their initial plans but, unhelpfully, the final session for the UK took place between 3am and 6am on Monday morning.

Nightreign does not take place across the whole of the Lands Between but only a procedurally generated version of Limgrave (the opening area of the main game), referred to as Limveld. You can see parts of the original map being reused and reshuffled but there are also plenty of new landscape and building elements, to help increase the variety.

You can play the game on your own, but there are no AI companions, making it clear that it’s primarily designed for a team of three co-op players, with the goal of completing a three day long mission that ends in a boss battle with one of eight Nightlords. Although there was only one in the network test: Gladius Beast of Night, based on the three-headed dog Cerberus of Greek legend.

A more unexpected inspiration is Fortnite, or at least battle royales in general, in that the area available to explore shrinks at the end of the first day, once you’ve beaten the mini-boss necessary to move forwards. These all seem to be based on existing enemies but with new moves and weak spots.

A day lasts around 15 minutes, so if all goes well it doesn’t take long to complete a playthrough. Although, of course, the game’s high difficulty ensures things rarely go smoothly. The last day is focused solely on the boss battle, so the best overall tactic is to use the first day to scour the map for weapons and items – purposefully taking on harder enemies in the hope of acquiring runes from them.

Churches always contain health items, and the mini-bosses new weapons, but the best loot tends to be in dungeons. Entering these is a risk though, if you don’t complete them before the timer runs out and you can’t get out in time (the map shrinks via a giant wall of flame, so it really is just like a battle royale).

Given how short a run is, even if you win, a lot of the role-playing elements have been streamlined and while you do level up this only affects health, focus points, and stamina. However, the most radical change is that you no longer take any fall damage and can now very quickly clamber up cliffs and other edifices that, in the real game, would’ve been impassable.

This is the most obvious sign that the Elden Ring gameplay is being stretched to breaking point, in order to fit a structure it was never designed for. From Demon’s Souls onwards, all of From’s fantasy games have been designed around slow and careful progress; checking corners, keeping your guard up, and ruminating carefully over stat upgrades is the essence of not just Elden Ring but Dark Souls and all its sister titles.

But in Nightreign all those elements are either greatly simplified or removed entirely. You no longer create your own character but choose from eight pre-made ones (although only four were in the network test) which act similarly to character classes, with what is essentially an all-rounder, a tank, a rogue, and a mage.

If everyone dies then it’s game over and all progress is lost, just like an old-fashioned roguelike. However, technically this is a roguelite, as some elements are retained after death, in the form of relics that offer stat or attribute buffs. You can also collect a new in-game currency between runs, which can be used to unlock additional slots to have more than one relic active at once.

Nightreign is a strange game, that almost seems sacrilegious in how it perverts Elden Ring’s original design in order to make its peculiar concept work. It succeeds, but whether the concept is worth all this effort remains to be seen. We did enjoy the network test, short as it was, but it already felt like the day sections, were you’re exploring the open world, are considerably easier than the night ones where you’re taking on the bosses.

If you’re a veteran Elden Ring player then it seems only the dungeons are a real challenge, while the bosses remain as punishing as ever. We’ll have to see the full game to be sure though and hopefully get an idea of what, if anything, happens after you’ve beaten all eight Nightlords.

Considering a successful run takes less than an hour, some smart alec is no doubt going to beat the whole thing on launch day and it’s not clear what incentive there’s going to be to continue playing after that. Perhaps there doesn’t need to be any, considering the price and how long it’s going to take most people to get that far, but Nightreign seems to tread a thin line between innovative spin-off and gimmicky cash grab.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £34.99
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: FromSoftware
Release Date: 30th May 2025
Age Rating: 16

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