Elden Ring Nightreignseems to truly be cashing in on the success of the original game, despite being a multiplayer-focused title with battle royale androguelike RPG elementssprinkled into it that’s shifted mightily away from the old formula.
Whatever opinion you may have onElden Ring Nightreign,today’s core discussion will mainly focus on me detailing the most important differences between the two games.Although they’re built on the same foundation, several key features differ in their design and execution that you’ll want to know about going in.
Elden Ring Nightreign: 15 Essential Beginner Tips
First and foremost… Run.
I invite you to read along with me as I lay out the biggest differences between Elden Ring Nightreign and its original entry, which should also give you an idea of how some mechanics have been changed in this game in case you’re still on the fence about it.
10No Fall Damage
Legs Built With Steel
This is probably the most obvious detail that everyone who’s followed the game will know right off the bat. For those living under a rock—it’s true! You no longer have to worry about your HP plummeting whenever you hop off a ledge or accidentally fail your platforming jumps.
Every Nightfarer in this game can land smoothly on their two feet while exploring without having to worry about any instance of getting damaged, whether it’s jumping down into a volcanic crater or traversing downwards from large-scale mountains or castles.
It was a necessary feature since you’ll need to make every second count to prepare for your showdown against the Nightlord. If you’re constantly worrying about your jumps half the time, what’s the point of making a shrinking map with a two-day cycle?
Fear not, and jump away.
9No Custom Stats Or Builds
Gone With The Buildcrafting
Each of the characters in this gamehas their own dedicated stat ratings, such as theRevenant having an S-rating in FaithorIroneye having an A-rating in Dex. You can’t allocate stats yourself like the original game, where buildcrafting for your Tarnished was a significant feature in progression.
Stat points are automatically distributed to the character and their proportional stats when leveling up at the graces,and any buildcrafting components are mainly tied to theRelic Rite system, where you slot in relics to boost stats or gain passive bonuses, similar to the workshop gems from Bloodborne.
Is this a bad thing? Not really. It allows you to focus on a specific build in mind for the character. Withcharacters like Wylder, for instance, he’s a Nightfarer with a mixed Strength/Dex stat scaling that allows him to specialize in any kind of quality weapon build.
8Cooperative Teamplay Focus
Together As One
Although the original Elden Ring was mainly single-player-based, it allowed options to engage in good old jolly cooperation with friends and other allies to help against challenging bosses, and or fight against each other in the Coliseums or general PVP.
Well,Nightreign does have a single-player mode, and with further balancing updates, I’m sure they’ll make it a more feasible option for players. However, the core emphasis and idea here was the world of the base game tied together under a short-burst multiplayer vision.
A majority of your time is better executed in this game playing as a squad;steamrolling trash fodder enemies, toppling field bosses, and overcoming the various Nightlords in this game. Even whilst playing together, you’ll actively have to slay everything in unison to have an optimal runso you’re able to easily reach the max leveland have a fighting chance.
Elden Ring Nightreign: 8 Best Nightfarer Characters, Ranked
Who should you main?
7Linear And Rapid Exploration
In and Out, 40 Minute Adventure
Let me level with you for a moment; the one thing that I had a hard time getting used to during Nightreign’s Network Test was the accelerated progression. It was mainly because I adored the slow-burn exploration of the base game, so this was bound to be off-putting in the first few hours.
Thankfully, having an equally worrying amount of experience from Battle Royale and other multiplayer games, this didn’t turn out to be much of a problem later, especially when I became theshot-caller for most of my teams and optimally planned map routesacross the world for the prep work phase.
Although it’s completely fine to visit every landmark and location atyour leisure in the beginning hoursto understand the layout, you’ll eventually need to pick up the pace and speedily explore everything you need on the first and second days as a necessity so you can have an advantage over the Nightlord on the final day.
6Playstyle Is Dependent On Nightfarers
Pick your Poison
Earlier, I mentioned how each Nightfarer is different thanks to their respective stat-scaling properties. That is one of the key elements that distinguishes their playstyles as well, because every single character here has their own abilities and unique kits.
They all have passive bonuses, skills, and an Ultimate Art that gives them a special edge in gameplay. Compare this to the original title where you could freely adopt any playstyle according to your build—whether it was powerstancing with Twinblades or even having hybrid setups—and the possibilities were seemingly endless back then.
Currently in Nightreign, there are over eight Nightfarers for you to try and grasp—each completely different from the other at first glance. From therisk-reward playstyle of the Executorto the Recluse’s powerful sorceries, there’s something for everyone to try out here.
5Fast-Paced Traversal & Movement
Gotta Go Fast
Due to its sheer scale and size, the original Elden Ring allowed you to freely traverse at your own pace via Torrent. Still, things take a sharp turn here since Nightreign’s traversal is all on foot. To accommodate the game’s rapid-fire progression, there are some new features here.
Nightreign provides a dedicated sprint button that allows you to move your characters at a brisk pace, slightly faster than the base game. But most importantly, you can quickly scale and climb various kinds of terrain with ease, thanks to the universal wall-climbing ability.
Consider these with the fall damage changes and the fact that you’re able to shoot yourself upwards at high speed with the Spirit streams and you’ll eventually realize why this game’s optimal progression pattern is built on putting your pedal to the metal to prepare against the Nightlords.
Elden Ring Nightreign: How To Choose Your Map Routing
It’s never easy being the team’s shot-caller.
4Pre-Determined Level Cap
Not Much Solo-Leveling
Another important detail that might seem like a surprise to anyone coming into this game blind is that it has a preset level cap. The maximum that you’re able to reach during a run, as of now, is level 15 for every character in a squad.
It’s not a deal-breaker or anything since it balances the game out perfectly with the stats of every Nightfarer. The base game had a massive world and RPG-focused progression at its helm, so it’s fair to see why it had a large level cap, considering all the stats that you could min-max even after hitting the soft caps.
In a way, it’s nice to always have a highest level to shoot for in each run. Get anything from 13 to 15, and you should be in pretty good shape.
Begone, Fat Roll!
Throughoutevery Soulsborne game in the past, managing your equipment load was an essential part of the experience. If you were running a strength-based build without investing heavily in stamina/endurance, then consider your character’s mobility out the window.
However, Nightreign completely removes that element, further complementing its almost rogue-like design philosophy. You’ve got three armament slots for each hand, two talismans, and four usable item slots, with an additional one available from merchants as an upgrade.
you may fill all these slots with any suitable equipment you wish without having to worry about it impacting your mobility or evasion capabilities, which, to be honest, provides a high level of freedom and flexibility for your expedition runs in various situations.
2Zero Armor, More Fashion Souls
Dress To Impress
Elden Ring Nightreign completely ditches the armor equipment system that fans adored for a conventional cosmetic one, where your armor is pretty much just for fashion. Given that unique stat-scaling has been abandoned, it only made sense for the armor system to be absent here too.
Each Nightfarer has their own set of garbs. While you’ll only have access to their default attire in the beginning, you’ll eventually be able tounlock the Dresser in the Roundtable Holdto purchase and customize new outfits for every playable character.
If you can slowly put a dent in those Nightlords and unlock the game’s final expedition against the Night Aspect, you’ll also be able to unlock a special batch of attires that are callbacks to characters from the Dark Souls series, such as Solaire’s garb for Guardian and Knight Artorias' getup for Wylder.
1Shifting Earth Events
Almost Like Legacy Dungeons
One of the major additions to this game is the Shifting Earth Events, which essentially provide a layer of dynamic variations to the map from an entire mountaintop peak area with dragons and trolls to a whole city that’s almost as large as a base game legacy dungeon.
You’ll gradually unlock each of the four Shifting Earth Events upon successful completion of an expedition.
Although these unique areas often present a slew of powerful bosses and enemies,the winnings you get are equally worth the tenacious effort. Every single Shifting Earth Event has its own secret to complete that rewards you handsomely with special buffs and legendary loot.
I understand that the entire gameplay loop may start to feel repetitive after your sixth or seventh run, but I’m glad these events exist to serve as an occasionally refreshing experience to balance out that asset-repeated map.
Elden Ring Nightreign: Augur Raid Guide
This guide explains everything there is to know about the Augur Raid in Elden Ring Nightreign.
