Elden Ring Nightreign PS5 Review. Elden Ring Nightreign is one of the most unique games I have played in a while. Once again, FromSoft manages to innovate the Soulsborne genre. Is the three-player co-op roguelike ready for the masses? Let’s dive in.
Elden Ring Nightreign PS5 Review
A New Kind of Elden Ring
Nightreign is playable exclusively in 3-player co-op or in 1-player single player. The game doesn’t support 2-player co-op. At the core of Nightreign lies a dramatic shift in structure. Instead of sprawling open-world exploration, players embark on fast-paced “Expeditions.” There are eight character classes to choose from, each with unique skills and different starting weapons. There are eight Expeditions, all taking place on the same map. An Expedition consists of three days, which take around 15 minutes per day. A blue circle around the map gets smaller until the end of the day, then a boss spawns. The first two days are spent looking for better equipment. The third day features the endboss, a so-called “Nightlord.” The Nightlord is predetermined by which Expedition you select.
Everything else is randomized on each run. What bosses you get and what items you find will be different in every match. You don’t keep equipment or levels between matches, everything gets reset. The map layout is the same for all eight Expeditions, which can make it feel repetitive from the get-go. It only randomizes what enemies and bosses will spawn and where the randomized churches appear. Players should plan their routes to visit all churches, as they unlock more healing flasks. When you clear out a location it unlocks a site of grace for leveling up, and you get a randomized reward which is usually a weapon or passive buff.
The only “progression” you keep between matches is relics. Up to three relics can be equipped to your character to add little modifiers. These are helpful, but won’t make up for a lack of skill. The relics include things minor stat increases and other beneficial modifiers. You earn relics as match rewards or by buying random ones from the in-game shop using “Murk,” a permanent currency earned from every match. Relics are divided into 4 colors: red, yellow, green, blue. Each character can only equip certain colors of relics. This can be a bit daunting because when you get a relic you want, it might not be equippable to your favorite class. After beating the first expedition, you can buy “Vessels.” The Vessels allow you to equip a character with different colors of relics. So if the default relic has slots for yellow and green, a Vessel can allow you to equip red and blue instead.
There are also two unlockable characters, the Duchess and Revenant. Initially you only have access to six characters with these two coming from story progression.
Punishing Learning Curve
First off, I have completed most of FromSoft’s games and personally didn’t find them too difficult. You could always overlevel or make overpowered builds. Nightreign turns that on its head. Here it’s about pure skill. Initially I struggled a lot. What makes it so challenging is that there are no retries if you die during any of the three mandatory boss fights. Your success is not only dependent on your own skill, but also on your teammates. If you play with random players, more often than not you get some who die all the time. Then you are busy reviving them, and as a result it feels like a burden to play with others. Dodging the bosses is hard enough, but when you’re out of stamina and also trying to revive two downed teammates there’s not much you can do. When someone goes down, the time it takes to revive them gets longer. Eventually the revive time gets so long that it’s hopeless if two players are downed simultaneously.
If all three players are wiped, the match is lost and you must start from scratch with no progress being carried over. This creates a lot of repetition since it all takes place on the same map and you’ll run through the same locations every time to level up, which you have to do for eight different Expeditions plus lots of retries, so you’ll see the same things over and over.
Skilled players may consider playing solo. The only issue here is that there are no AI companions, and single player scaling is unbalanced. Boss health is reduced in single player, but not nearly enough to make it viable for the average player (it’s not 33% of full 3-player boss health). At least solo you can buy two revive stones (one from merchants on days 1-2, and another from the merchant on day three). If you die it gives you a self-revive. Still, without a retry function it’s extremely daunting to waste 45 minutes on a run just to get one-shotted by the endboss. You can’t even learn the moveset fully and then spend another 45 minutes just to get to the endboss again. A huge time investment and it’s always the same process.
I can see this getting too bothersome for the majority of Elden Ring single player fans. The game is clearly designed for three player co-op, but unless you have a dedicated group of skilled players it feels like a waste of time. Your own skill can’t make up for two inexperienced players.
Speaking of bosses, there are a lot of reused bosses from Elden Ring. Some bosses aren’t included, but the vast majority make a reappearance. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to call it an asset-flip game, but also it works here to make it feel like “Elden Ring.” The eight Nightlord bosses are all new, while the other bosses are simply reused from Elden Ring.
What also makes the game difficult is that there’s barely enough time to reach the maximum level (Level 15) while also going for all health flasks. You really can’t waste a single second or you’ll be too underleveled for the Nightlord at the end.
Made for Hardcore Gamers
Nightreign is definitely not meant for the masses. I worry that most of the Elden Ring playerbase will struggle a lot and give up in frustration.
The game would benefit from the following to make it more player-friendly and less repetitive: Reduced boss health, improved runes gain rate, faster revives, allowing retries on the main bosses, customizing loadout, and customizing relics.
Without retries and with all the randomness it feels like making no progress. Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I kept coming back until I improved. After the first boss it got gradually easier with practice and getting matched with better teammates. With a good group it’s perfectly doable. It’s the sort of game where everyone on your team needs to get good first, then it’s not too difficult anymore. Other than that, the rest of the game is just the same thing you’ve already seen in the beta playtests with a different Nightlord boss at the end.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a unique and genre-redefining experiment. While a bit repetitive and barebones at launch, players seeking a challenge will get their hunger satisfied. For $40 you can get a fair amount of playtime out of it. How much you will enjoy the game will largely depend on how good your team is.
Elden Ring Nightreign releases on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S on May 30, 2025.
Review code kindly provided by PR.