Remember when From Software’s Hidetaka Miyazaki said they weren’t thinking about Elden Ring 2, but they were thinking about the continuation of Elden Ring in general? Well, who had “three player co-op musou” on their bingo card?
Announced at the annual winter Geoff Awards just now, Elden Ring: Nightreign is a multiplayer-focussed spin-off that pits a trio of Elden Ringers against tides of foes in a world that reshuffles every time you play. It’s out in 2025. Here’s a trailer.
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According to a press release from publishers Bandai Namco, Nightreign takes place in a parallel version of the Elden Ring universe. Players get to choose from eight preset characters, each with different abilities, and the objective is to survive three nights in Limveld while fending off both regular enemies and bosses. Unhelpfully, the map also shrinks at night. Unsuccessful runs earn you relics, used to customise and upgrade your characters so that you can avoid dying so horrendously in future.
The press release accurately notes that Nightreign is “unlike any experience created before by FromSoftware”, being a “condensed action RPG” in which the map and enemies change between runs. “Defeating greater enemies and venturing into the more dangerous parts of the map will uncover more powerful weapons and greater Rune rewards,” it goes on. “Find Sites of Grace to give each hero a chance to level up and gain crucial power.”
In terms of the moment-to-moment, it looks faster and more acrobatic than Elden Ring, with characters scuttling up walls like ninjas and taking to the air with the help of summonable bird creatures. The trailer features plenty of bosses, including a few you might be familiar with from other FromSoftware games.
The “condensed action RPG” bit is in keeping with Miyazaki’s suggestion earlier this year that Elden Ring represents the upper limit for project scale at From Software, and that smaller games may be the “next stage”. You can read more about Nightreign on Steam.
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