Forget What You Know, Nightreign’s Gameplay and Combat Flip Elden Ring on Its Head

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Forget What You Know, Nightreign’s Gameplay and Combat Flip Elden Ring on Its Head

Remember Elden Ring’s slower gameplay, fall damage, harder-than-steel bosses, and restrictive mobility? Forget all of those elements while playing Elden Ring Nightreign, except the difficult bosses, as it accelerates the gameplay mechanics for a more freeing and chaotic multiplayer experience.

This game is Elden Ring on crack as it not only builds upon it but also amplifies some of the core elements introduced in the preceding title. Think Elden Ring taking a page out of Sekiro in mobility, and you get Nightreign. Deviating from your usual Soulsborne formula has never been more fun.

The flow of the battle speeds up in Elden Ring Nightreign

In an

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

with IGN, Elden Ring Nightreign’s game and combat designer, Takuya Miyazawa, explained how they kept the core of Elden Ring intact while making changes to the gameplay to make for a faster and smoother multiplayer experience.

So, the changes for the design of Nightreign… Well first, let me give a little introduction to the general design of Nightreign itself. So, as you know, it uses Elden Ring as a base for the design, so the world and a lot of the assets and the base combat flow comes from Elden Ring. But while it does use it as a base for enemies and such, one area that we wanted to focus on with Nightreign was how we encounter these enemies, the flow of the battle, and the abilities you can use.

He further expanded on Elden Ring’s slower gameplay and how it wouldn’t fit the experience that they’re aiming to create, hence, resulting in structural limitations and constraints.

So there are some constraints here. For example, the three-day, three-night time aspect, and the limitations on the player; but at the same time while we’re putting these limitations on the player in terms of structure, we wanted to allow them some freedom points that they didn’t otherwise have with Elden Ring.

Miyazawa did expound on the freedom in Nightreign’s gameplay, detailing how it’s far more freeing than Elden Ring and the mechanics are a lot more varied in comparison when it comes to movement.

So the way they traverse the map, they can sprint and they can clamber up walls quickly. Let’s see… there’s no fall damage compared to Elden Ring. So while we put these constraints on the players from a structural point of view, we wanted to open up and allow them this freedom from a gameplay point of view as well. So it was about creating that balance and that contrast.

Having no fall damage in a Soulsborne title is rather unbelievable, but it fits the kind of experience that Nightreign is going for. Plus, new mechanics such as wall-climbing, sprinting, and vaulting, balance out limitations like the three-day timeframe, death penalty, and more. Now, all it needs is crossplay.

Speaking of the death penalty, Nightreign isn’t holding back on punishments

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Elden Ring Nighreign! | Image Credit: FromSoftware

Faster movement doesn’t mean you can outrun death in Nightreign, as it doubles down on the death penalty set in stone in Elden Ring. Dying in the previous game simply meant losing all your runes, with an option to retrieve them later.

While that still exists in Nightreign, an extra layer of punishment has been added as you lose one level every time you die until you reach level 1. To make things worse, enemies near your lost runes can snag them and run away if you don’t get to them in time.

It might be the most punishing death penalty in Soulsborne history, but when you take into account all the changes in Nightreign, it makes for an exciting shakeup to FromSoftware’s traditional Souls formula. Only a few days left for Nightfarers to join in on the chaos.

Elden Ring Nightreign arrives on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC on May 30, 2025.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Forget #Nightreigns #Gameplay #Combat #Flip #Elden #Ring

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up