At long last,Elden RingNightreignis here, and it’s not going to hold your hand for even a moment. You may have expected thismultiplayer experience to skew more casualthan the OG experience to gain the largest player base possible. I have news for you.
Nightreign isfreakinghard. Itwillpush your face straight into the dirt over and over, regardless of whether you’re a Soulsborne veteran, if Elden Ring was your first FromSoftware game, or if you’re jumping into this one fresh.
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If that scares you, well… good. It should. But don’t lose all hope just yet, Nightfarers. With some basic prep work and alotof trial and error out in the field,you too can take down the first Nightlord and live to fight another day. Maybe. Hopefully.
The list below has 15 salient suggestions that I really think you should heed if you want to find success early on in the game. Maybe you’re reading this before you even start the game, or maybe you’ve already tried and failed run after run for hours and are looking for a helping hand.
Reach out, I’m here for you. Let’s see if we can do this thing together. Nightfarers… assemble!
15Get Your Bearings In Single-Player
The Best Way To Learn The Basics
I’m not going to lie to you.Single-player in Nightreign is not the way to play the game at all. Yeah, it’spossible, and the game is retuned and rebalanced if you decide to go it alone. But it’s undoubtedlywayharder, and only a select few will be able to conquer it single-handedly.
Even so, I’d recommend running three, maybe four runs by yourself before you bring your friends along for the party. You will not win, no. However, in a group of three, the game moves so quickly that it’s difficult to adequately take in the world around you and all the new ideas and mechanics in Nightreign compared to the original Elden Ring.
By yourself, you can take things at your own pace with no pressure of letting your team down.Go in with the mindset of this being a learning experience, study the map and its icons, learn the loop of the game, nail down typical points of interest, and simply get used to the flow and much increased movement and combat speed. You’ll be much better off when you decide to squad up.
14Try Every Nightfarer In The Sparring Grounds
Finding Your Main Is Critical
Right off the bat, you’ll have six different classes, or Nightfarers, to play as in Nightreign. All six playincrediblydifferently from one another, so going into a match with a favorite choice is an easy way to have an advantage from the start. There’s nothing worse than being on an actual run and not knowing what your character can actually do.
In this version of Roundtable Hold, you’re able to go outside. Once in the fresh air, you’ll find a makeshift arena called The Sparring Grounds and a summonable enemy to test your skills against. In the menu, you can freely switch between Nightfarers, tweak settings, spawn certain weapons, and much more.
Try out as many things as you want, butthe most important thing is to test out every class' Character Skills and Ultimate Arts. These are unique to each Nightfarer and all serve a different purpose. Some are offensive, some are support, and some set up other moves. See what feels best and make your first choice. You’ll be using these skills all the time in the actual game.
Being comfortable and confident in your Nightfarer choice is critical to victory.
13Play With The Same Squad
Random Matchmaking Will Be A Challenge
If you played the Nightreign Network Test, this won’t be surprising. Playing with complete randos in general matchmaking is a major mixed bag. Yeah, you’ll find some awesome players, but you’ll also find some people who are still very much learning.
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“Git gud” personified.
Nightreign is not a co-op multiplayer experience where one good player will be able to carry the rest of the team.Everyone is going to have to pull their weight consistently. I know it’s hard to coordinate schedules and play sessions, but if you can get a squad of two others to link up with each time, you’re going to have amuchbetter experience.
Even if you’re able to’t get two actual friends together all the time, there’s no shame in latching onto a general matchmaking partner that you happen to have a good experience with. I won a run with two strangers andimmediatelyadded them to my friend list so we could coordinate more runs. This synergy is crucial for learning each other’s playstyles and strengths, so you actually have a chance to win.
12Coordinate Your Team Composition
Different Roles For Everyone
When a run is launched, you’ll get to see which Nightfarer everyone is choosing. If you’re off mic and unable to coordinate with your teammates,pay attention to the roles everyone is filling.
From the six starting options, Guardian and Raider are tanks. Ironeye and Recluse are ranged. Wylder is an all-around option, and Executor is a Dex fiend that can do a little of everything. If other players are filling in with more melee-focused Nightfarers, then I hope you’re good with Ironeye or Recluse.
Some bosses are more easily conquered by three similar classes, but in general, you’re going to want as much coverage as possible to make sure you’re in a position to tackle anything and everything that comes your way as the game pulls from an RNG boss pool of foes.
It’s typically critical to have a ranged player on the team because they’re incredibly useful for reviving allies from a distance. You deal damage to a fallen teammate to revive them, so being able to hang back away from danger during this process can save an entire run.
11Designate A Decisive Route Leader
And Follow Them To The Bitter End
To win in Nightreign, you need to make instantaneous, snap decisions non-stop. There’s typically no time to even deliberate as a team in regards to map routing and what objectives you want to tackle before night falls. Because of this, it’s imperative to pick a leader. This can rotate each match if you please, but pick someone to be the guide no matter what.
Ideally, your leader will know what they’re doing, which points of interest to target, and how to route the party’s path safely all the way to the very end. During all of this, stick close. Yeah, you’re totally allowed to split up across the map and do your own things until meeting up at the end of the day, but that’ll make the game noticeably harder for everyone.
Your best bet is to simply follow the leader and gang up on any enemy or boss you bump into along the way. Many of the field bosses are pretty easy with three people pulverizing them at once, sostaying together is always the smarter, safer move.
10Leveling Is Your Main Priority
Farm, Farm, Farm
Unlike a typical Soulsborne, there’s no actual way to grind your character into a truly overpowered beast in Nightreign. Each run puts you back at Level 1, so you’ll be starting from scratch every time. Clearly, this means that leveling up as much as you’re able to before taking on the Nightlord at the end of Day Three is your main objective.
Honestly, you’re going to generally feel underleveled for a lot of things in Nightreign, but mitigating this with as much level ascension as possible can go a long way. The best way to do this is to seek out as many field bosses as you can comfortably mow down as a team before the Fortnite-style barrier ring closes in on you.
If you and your squad aren’t at least around Level 12 by the time you reach the Nightlord at the end of the run, I hate to be the one to tell you, but… you’re probably going to have a bad time.You have no time to waste. Kill as much as you may, and level consistently until you reach the final boss.
9Rush Churches For Extra Flask Charges
Running Out Of Flasks Feels Bad
Churches in Nightreign shouldalwaysbe sought out on your run routing no matter where the game starts you. When interacting with the altar at every church, you’ll gain one charge to your flask, meaning one extra time you can heal between resting at graces. As you can imagine,this is a massive boon to your victory odds.
Right when you drop into an expedition, crack open that map, and place a marker on the nearest church if you’re the route leader. Depending on the run’s RNG, there may be anywhere from three to five churches scattered around the map.Hitting all of them is never, ever a bad run strategy.
A lot of times, at least two of the churches are placed outside of where the map barrier ring will descend when it shrinks for the first time, so the churches have to be an early priority. If you happen to miss one though, it’s still not the end of the world. The map will completely reopen again on Day Two, so you’ll have one last chance to rush the remaining churches before the Nightlord.
8Runes Are Shared, Items Are Not
Be A Team Player
Whenever anyone killsanythingin Nightreign, the earned runes from defeating an enemy are shared between all three players. Because of this, you never need to stress out about who ultimately lands the killing blow on a foe. This is a nice quality of life thing, so simply enjoy the runes as they come.
On the flipside, any new items you find in the world from treasure chests, broken boxes, etc., can only be picked uponce. Don’t be that guy who goes around claiming absolutely everything before your team even has a chance to see what items have dropped. Take what you need, but leave some goodies for your friends. If they check them and don’t claim them, then they’re fair game.
The bottom line is that all three players need to be well-equipped to win in Nightreign. Sure, it’s nice to take everything new and shiny for yourself. But if your teammates are undergeared as a result, thenyou’re only hurting your own chances to make it through to the end of the runanyway. Sharing is caring.
Everyone is allowed to select an item from a reward pylon after a boss fight, but the items you find in the world from chests, boxes, corpses, etc., are not shared between teammates.
7Know When To Be Greedy, Know When To Run
A Constant Risk/Reward Loop
This is a fairly vague tip, and it will change as you learn the game and get more acclimated to the different feel that Nightreign has from the original Elden Ring. To put it in the most basic of terms,you don’thaveto do anything in Nightreign that you don’t want toor aren’t sure you’re capable of.
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Taking down tougher field bosses is a great way to earn runes and weapons, but if your team bumps into a Valiant Gargoyle and you’re finding that you just don’t seem to have the time or power to take it down, just leave it. Dying during the run and respawning with one lost level might notseemlike the craziest punishment ever, but it is. You need every last level for any Nightlord fight.
On the flip side, even as the death ring is closing in around the map, it’s sometimes worth taking the risk to burn down an easier boss, to sprint to a grace to heal/level one last time, or to grab one extra flask at a church. Even if you get caught in the rain, it’s sometimes worth it as long as you can keep yourself alive long enough to get back out. You’ll need full team cooperation for anything like this, though.
6Check The Center Castle For Crucible Knight Farming
Sweet, Sweet Crucible Knight Revenge
Smack-dab in the middle of the map every single time is the largest castle in Limveld. Unlike other structures in the game that come, go, and move around based on RNG, this fortress is always present. The one thing that changes about it, however, is the enemies inside of it.
This location is always worth checking just to see what the game has spawned in this time. Every single time you noticeCrucible Knightsinside, that’s your cue to stick around. With three players taking these knights on at once, they’re pushovers compared to OG Elden Ring. Burn all of them down, and you’ll gain an outrageous number of runes, critical for leveling up as much as possible.
If you enter this castle and find trolls lobbing around jars full of explosive blue fire, run away. It is not worth it.Youwillget caught in these explosions, and they can very easily instantly kill you. The threat of dying and losing a level because of this is just not worth it.
