Elden Ring Nightreign review

Forget everything you know about the Golden Order and Queen Marika’s dysfunctional family. Nightreign spins a yarn in a parallel universe where things went even more pear-shaped. The Nox, those spooky underground dwellers with a penchant for all things dark, have succeeded in their celestial coup, snuffing out the Erdtree and plunging the land – now called Limveld, a remixed Limgrave, into an eternal, creeping night.
You and your chums play as Nightfarers, a ragtag bunch of warriors plucked from time and space to have a crack at pushing back the gloom. The narrative is kept light and drip-fed through ‘Remembrances’, which you unlock. It’s more of a cracking premise to get you into the fight than a deep, soul-searching epic, setting the stage for endless cycles of glorious death and rebirth. And it works, giving you just enough motivation to want to deck the next shadowy beast that wanders into your path.

Nightreign is a strictly three-player affair. No duos, no sprawling fellowship, just you and two other souls against the world. This is where the game both soars and stumbles. The core loop is a mad dash against time. Each ‘day’ gives you roughly 15 minutes to hoover up runes, level up your pre-set character, and tool up before facing a boss. Day 1, kill the boss. Day 2, rinse and repeat. Day 3, you’re off to face the big cheese, the Nightlord of the cycle. It's breathless, frantic, and utterly addictive.

The catch? Try doing that with a couple of randoms who’ve wandered in from the internet. With no in-game chat or even a simple ping system, coordinating with strangers is like trying to teach a cat to do your taxes. It’s nigh on impossible. Dropping a shiny new sword with a passive that would perfectly complement your teammate’s build often results in them trotting off in the opposite direction, blissfully unaware of your strategic genius.
This is a game that practically begs you to jump on Discord with your mates. Our sessions went from chaotic scrambles to well-oiled machines once we could actually talk to each other. "Right, let's focus on the Evergaols. I've got a Relic that boosts key drops." "Oi, this relic makes you stronger for every prisoner you defeat, equip it before the run!" This is where Nightreign truly sings – as a collaborative, strategic scramble for survival.

Like Fortnite and many other battle royales, there’s a circle that slowly shrinks till you fight the Day 1 and Day 2 bosses and repulse the night each time to explore the map again. If you lose any of your runes outside the circle on Day 1, you can always get them back after defeating the Day 1 boss. The game lets you revive teammates by hitting them, and each time they fall in combat, it gets longer (and harder) to revive them. This, paired with the Nightfarers that have close and ranged combat abilities, makes you think about party composition before picking a Nightfarer. Ranged Nightfarers are squishy but excellent at dealing consistent damage and reviving teammates from a distance. However, I’ve lost many runs because of the difficult targeting system. The larger bosses often have more than three spots to target, and if your teammate is getting stomped like a grape, it’s very difficult to lock on them from range to revive them because the boss is in the way. Frustrating but part of the charm, I guess.
The loot system is fast and loose. You find weapons, pop them in your inventory, and their passive abilities are yours, no matter what you’re holding. It strips away the deep RPG fiddling of the main game for something that works in its high-speed context. Relics, permanent upgrades you purchase back at the Roundtable Hold, add a lovely sense of progression between runs, making each failure feel like a step forward.

And the bosses? Oh, the bosses. FromSoftware have reached deep into their back catalogue of misery-inducing monstrosities. Seeing familiar faces from the Dark Souls series pop up is a proper "I know him!" moment, right before they flatten you into a fine paste. The final bosses of the third day are an absolute masterclass in difficulty, the kind of controller-clenchingly tough encounters that the studio is revered for. They will test your build, your teamwork, and your patience. Glorious.
But it gets spicier. As you defeat the main bosses, the world itself begins to shift. New, run-altering modifiers might kick in, like a lava crater suddenly appears on the map, or other versions of Nightfarers invade a certain section of the map. More terrifyingly, this progress provokes the appearance of random boss encounters that act like invasions. Suddenly, the screen will darken, and an old 'friend' like Margit, the Fell Omen might just appear to ruin your day. If your squad can successfully put him down, you're all granted a powerful buff for the rest of that run. But there's a nasty twist: if anyone on your team perishes and you can't revive them before the invader is defeated, your whole team gets saddled with a debuff. It’s a proper high-stakes gamble that can make or break a cycle.

Running on the same engine as Elden Ring, Nightreign is a stunner. Limveld, though a remixed version of Limgrave, is still hauntingly beautiful, and the character and enemy design are top-notch. The best part? It’s ridiculously well-optimised. Our review rig, packing a new-fangled Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti, was cruising at a buttery smooth 60fps at a full 4K resolution. Even those with more modest setups should have a grand old time without their machine sounding like a jet engine.

Elden Ring: Nightreign is a curious but captivating beast. It’s a bold experiment that weaponises FromSoftware’s sublime combat in a frantic, roguelite-style package. Yet, its reliance on out-of-game communication and its rigid three-player structure feels like a misstep in an otherwise cleverly designed experience.
When played with friends, it’s easily one of the most exhilarating co-op games on the market, a whirlwind of tactical shouts, last-gasp victories, and shared despair. When played with strangers, it’s a frustrating exercise in telepathy.
It may not have the majestic scope or the narrative weight of its predecessor, but Nightreign carves out its own addictive, brutal niche. It’s a punishing, often frustrating, but ultimately rewarding blast of co-op chaos that will keep you and your mates saying "just one more run" long into the creeping night.