Thanks to Bandai Namco, Dot Esports were able to try over six hours of Elden Ring Nightreign gameplay at the end of January to finally experience the game and see what it is about after its initial trailer at the Game Awards in December 2024 teased so much but revealed so little.
While we couldn’t try the whole game experience, with some gameplay features like the shop and a host of other content locked in the build we were playing, we still learned a lot about Elden Ring Nightreign.
Everything new we found out about Elden Ring Nightreign
Gameplay and story
Nightreign is a stand-alone video game set in the Elden Ring universe where players must survive three days against the Forces of Night. It’s a session-based roguelike RPG where you face off against a series of bosses before facing a big boss at the end of day three to clear the session. To do so, you must find items, weapons, and more valuable goodies during your limited gameplay experience to be powerful enough to take them on.
The map you drop into is best seen as a dungeon where you find loot and level up; as such, you need to manage your time wisely to scour it as best as you can with two other players, as the map and its contents differ each session and things aren’t always in the same place as your last session.
Randomized events can also occur, such as bosses spawning that chase you or random mini-events that reward you with a bunch of Runes that can take you out of any plan or flow you might have had.
18 playable heroes and eight final bosses at launch
There are 18 playable heroes known as Nightfarers at launch. Four of these were available to us at the event and are the same characters that will be available in the beta test. They include:
- Wylder: Sword and Shield
- Guardian: Tank
- Duchess: Rogue-esque
- Recluse: Mage
With so many characters, you can create various team compositions to make each run different or find your favorite to play repeatedly. All these characters also have two special abilities you can use to differentiate them from the usual Soulslike gameplay.
On top of the playable characters, there are eight Night Lords (bosses) to choose from for the big end-of-day three fight. You also need to fight two additional bosses at the end of each day, with the day bosses dependent on the Night Lord you chose. Different Night Lords have a pool of varying day bosses for you to take on.
New gameplay mechanics
There are a bunch of new gameplay mechanics in Nightreign that will make the transition from RPG to roguelike work. While the game retains a lot of the core gameplay mechanics, here is a quick list of some of the major new things you need to get used to:
- No fall damage
- Can climb walls and obstacles
- Openable mini-map with pings to instruct players on your team where you want to go if you don’t have voice chat
- You don’t die when you run out of HP. Instead, your allies can revive you by hitting them.
- Awarded Relics at the end of a session that can buff your characters with additional stats and items.
Changes from Elden Ring
Lastly, we thought we would quickly highlight some minor changes for Elden Ring fans to prepare you for the full experience later this year. These changes include:
- Flasks can only be obtained through Churches. No FP Flasks at all
- No weapon or armor weight
- Don’t get to choose stats when leveling up, automatic when using Runes at a Grace.
- Torrent isn’t in-game (the horse)
Disclosure: Travel to the Elden Ring Nightreign preview event was provided by Bandai Namco.
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