Elden Ring: Nightreign Reviews
For those who enjoyed the base version of Elden Ring and understand the unique proposition of this title — closer to a Roguelike than a traditional Souls — Elden Ring Nightreign is an excellent experience. With friends, Nightreign becomes a great place to dive headfirst into the land of Limveld. However, the future of Elden Ring Nightreign is still uncertain, especially due to the lack of crossplay and the limited communication between players within the game. We can only wait for future updates that bring technical, performance and content improvements — areas in which there is a vast terrain to be explored, considering FromSoftware's history of expanding its worlds with creativity and consistency.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The combination of souls and rogue proposed by Nightreign was an idea that could have worked well, but it was undermined by a superficial implementation of its core mechanics and a lack of new content.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Elden Ring Nightreign has turned out to be a pleasant surprise, drawing on some of the industry's most modern ideas, such as rogue lite and battle royale. In this way, FromSoftware has managed to make a noticeable change to the way Elden Ring is played, creating a highly addictive and entertaining game, especially when enjoyed with friends.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Elden Ring Nightreign offers a distinct experience within the universe created by Hidetaka Miyazaki, while also distancing itself from the legacy of the original game.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Elden Ring Nightreign won’t be the most elegant or polished multiplayer game of 2025, and FromSoftware purists may not be on board. Still, its unique brand of hard-hitting and uncomplicated adventuring is a brilliant distillation of the studio’s most significant wins.
Despite a few technical hiccups and some shortcomings in long-term replayability, Elden Ring: Nightreign is an ambitious and surprisingly well-executed twist on the Soulslike formula. Its roguelike structure, new cooperative gameplay mechanics, and signature FromSoftware difficulty combine for a thrilling, fast-paced experience that rewards teamwork and adaptation. For fans of Elden Ring looking for something familiar yet fresh, Nightreign is a confident contender.
At first, I thought that ELDEN RING with roguelite elements sounds like a huge drag. But getting to try the playtest events and getting to play the full game completely proved me wrong. The way FromSoftware thought up this idea to mix these two different genres to make such an excellent game was quite a gamble. Yet, it was honestly the best gamble I have seen a company make that goes from just making one genre of games. Adding just one thing and making a new roguelite that I have the biggest grin when either failing or succeeding a battle, makes it worth it. This game is a great collection for those who love either Souls-like or Roguelites. And it’s a game that I don’t feel like I can put down if friends want to raid a Nightlord. I give ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN the Thumb Culture Platinum Award
Elden Ring: Nightreign is a daring experiment that mostly works. It sharpens the franchise’s most beloved elements into an intense, bite-sized format that rewards skill and coordination. The bosses are spectacular, the combat is as good as ever, and the roguelike pacing brings something fresh.
A challenging roguelike spinoff set in an alternate timeline of Elden Ring, emphasizing co-op gameplay, procedural maps, and familiar bosses. While visually stunning and engaging, it's best suited for seasoned Elden Ring players at this point.
Nightreign isn’t the game we expected, but it might be the one we needed. At a time when live-service games dominate the market, FromSoftware has crafted its own version without falling into the usual traps of the genre. No battle passes, no microtransactions—just pure, distilled Souls combat. If you're a fan of Elden Ring and have friends to play with, Nightreign is a must-buy. If you're looking for the traditional solo Souls experience, you might want to wait for Elden Ring 2. But give it a chance—you might find, as I did, that dying over and over is even more fun when you can blame your teammates.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
As we wrap this review up, I can honestly say I’m impressed. Fromsoft took a big gamble by pursuing a game of this caliber that is outside their usual palette and dare I say it is a great experience when it’s firing on all cylinders. Certain things such as a lack of in game chat, and weird balancing issues for anything other than the three person queue make it a little trivial, but the game plays flawlessly for the most part and retains much of what made the 2022 Elden Ring game so fun.
What could have felt like a game chasing trends or designed by committee has maintained so much of what’s special about the core franchise.
Elden Ring: Nightreign is not a classic role-playing game but, rather, a competitive action game with moderate role-playing colors. It is worth underlining this because, of course, the two nomenclatures are destined to run close together, but on two parallel lines. Although not without flaws, FromSoftware's work is still an immersive and challenging experience, which reaches its peak in the specific three-player mode. There are several limitations, both conceptual and content-related, which make the game probably not suitable for everyone (including Elden Ring fans) or difficult to metabolize. However, the game has a certain charm and is one of the most intriguing cooperative experiences of recent years, still offered at a fair price.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Great gameplay and character classes in Nightreign are not enough to overlook the obvious issues regarding player communication, the game's technical state, and the absence of a duo mode. With these fundamental problems, the game feels unfinished upon launching.
Review in Unknown | Read full review
I can understand the critical voices surrounding “Nightreign”. Although I also have experienced enough frustration with the game myself due to the overwhelming start and the lack of options in multiplayer, the familiar “Souls” feeling still gripped me in the end.
Review in German | Read full review
Elden Ring Nightreign is a great example of recycling content and turning it into a new experience. Even while it stumbles in some technical aspects, it truly shines when it comes to the game's original content.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Elden Ring Nightreign is ultimately carried by FromSoftware’s stellar gameplay systems applied across a fresh mix of subgenres, delivering a thrilling and dynamic experience, though its lack of modern social features and limited multiplayer flexibility make it a nostalgic but flawed spin-off.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Elden Ring Nightreign is one of the most interesting, creative takes in the multiplayer space for years. It’s unlike quite anything else out there with dashes of Monster Hunter, Fortnite, Diablo and a good old fashioned MMORPG in there, but it’s also distinctly Souls-like with the focus on brutal bosses and punishing challenges. The irony being that most of the game’s drawbacks come from a technical point of view, with matchmaking issues and lack of functionality, but if you want to try something different and interesting, if you have the patience and resolve for it, you’re going to fall under this one’s spell pretty fast!
Elden Ring Nightreign stands as a great way to switch up the normal Souls formula while still keeping it faithful to its roots. The battles are fantastic, the world is finely crafted, and the gameplay is top-notch. I had a blast running through each of the Night Lords, and I don’t think I am going to stop anytime soon. However, the game removes the need to adapt on the fly, which was quite disappointing to me. While the multiplayer is good, it doesn’t quite hit the mark when it comes to communication. Overall, Elden Ring Nightreign is a great new iteration in the genre, but just like Dark Souls 2, it doesn’t quite live up to what came before it.
Elden Ring: Nightreign is an ambitious side project. When the stars align—you and two friends, the same console, no plans for the next few hours—it’s magical. You’ve got great classes like the Guardian or Executor, a Sekiro-esque parry system, and a beautifully atmospheric world. But if even one piece is missing, the tower collapses like a ton of bricks. Anyone looking for a classic Elden Ring experience will quickly skip this one. It’s a big surprise, then, that this successful experiment is being released as a standalone game, rather than as paid DLC for a smaller price. Because then we’d probably have labeled this the best expansion ever for a game that’s already considered a masterpiece by many.
Review in Dutch | Read full review