2 days ago
7
I've never been one to bristle at calling in help while playing one of FromSoftware's Souls games. I stalked the night all by myself in Bloodborne, but I played through Elden Ring with my best friend using the Seamless Co-Op mod -- only after I explored the game alone, the way I prefer it.
While I don't have any qualms with calling for help or using spirit summons (as far as I'm concerned, these are tools in my arsenal to level the playing field), I do enjoy trying to take on the game all by myself the first time around, slaying massive enemies and making epic discoveries by my lonesome.
So I embarked on my first Elden Ring Nightreign expedition alone with steely resolve, readying myself to charge into battle as the defense-oriented Guardian class (called Nightfarers in the game). I collected enough runes to get to level five, survived until nighttime and was promptly kicked straight back to the lobby when a duo of Demi-Human bosses passed through a cloud of miasma and beat the stuffing out of me. This became a bit of a trend while playing solo -- I never reached the end of an expedition by myself.
I know I'm afflicted with what is colloquially known as a skill issue, and that's what led me to struggle so much with Nightreign's solo experience. As a matter of fact, I was so soured by my single-player runs that I didn't even think I liked Nightreign until I got a chance to queue into a multiplayer lobby. Though once I got my posse together, I quickly fell in love with the game.
Thankfully, players may not suffer quite as much playing solo thanks to a day-one patch that looks to buff players going it alone, according to Eurogamer. But there are still key pieces of the design here that create extra friction for the solo experience, and it takes a lot of extra effort to work around that. If you're extremely good at FromSoftware's usual dark fantasy action RPGs, you'll probably excel here. But if you're an average player, you'll quickly run into these problems.
If you wish to stand a fighting chance in Elden Ring Nightreign, you need to work together as a coordinated squad.
Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNETElden Ring Nightreign revolves heavily around team composition
I'm used to having many different tools in my arsenal when I'm approaching an Elden Ring boss. Even when I specialize my character for a strength build, I can depend on the Wondrous Physick and spirit summons to help me power through a tough battle.
In Nightreign, each individual player has far fewer tools at their disposal. You have your wits, your weapon, any items and arts of war you stumbled upon and your Nightfarer abilities.
Some of these abilities are useful by themselves, like Ironeye's dagger slash that gives him multiple precious invincibility frames (as well as bonus damage on the affected enemy) and Duchess' time rewind that stacks up tons of damage instances at once. But most abilities require a team to capitalize on them in order to feel truly effective. Ironeye's ultimate ability is timely to set up, but it does massive poise damage, staggering an enemy for a melee character to follow up with a critical hit.
When I played by myself, I found that each role I committed to floundered without support from other people.
The Guardian tanked hits but wouldn't have the stamina to follow-up with big damage. As Ironeye, I was under constant melee pressure, preventing me from consistently peppering my opponents with ranged damage. The Wylder might be the best all-rounder of the Nightfarers, especially with his one-time death-escaping passive, but there were still situations where I wished I had other players to chip away at the boss from far away while I dodged around its feet.
Nightreign feels like a smooth and natural experience when you plan ahead and cover other people's weaknesses. I had the most luck when I played the ranged Ironeye and matched up with another CNET reviewer and a Bandai Namco employee who played as a tank and a melee attacker respectively, allowing me to stagger bosses by firing arrows at their weak spots from afar.
If you're ever rooted in one place, you're frittering your precious time away.
Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNETSpeed is key -- and you go slower alone
Unlike the leisurely pace you can take in previous FromSoftware games, there's no time to take in the grandeur of Nightreign's version of The Lands Between. From the moment you land on day one to the end of night two, it's speedrunning time.
Every round involves an anxiety-inducing calculus of balancing your leveling and your looting: By the time you face the Nightlord (the final boss of an expedition) in night three, you want to be at least level 12 and have a good mix of weapons, passive buffs and extra healing flasks.
This is tough enough in multiplayer, where runes are distributed to every nearby member of the team regardless of who struck the final blow on an enemy and bosses are more easily staggered and dealt with between three Nightfarers. Navigating the map's randomized locations requires a lot of game knowledge and team unity.
Taking Nightreign's expeditions on alone is a different story entirely. You're in charge of personally farming every rune you need to level up while still making your way to enough churches to stock up on healing flasks.
Getting bogged down in boss fights for too long is a delayed death sentence, because you're wasting your most valuable resource: time. Still, you need the valuable weapons and passive buffs that boss enemies drop, so you'll have to beat down some of the tougher enemies you stumble across.
The most powerful buffs of all are located in the game's Shifting Earth events that change a portion of the map during each run. These can be volcano-like craters or misty, hidden cities that house some of the hardest bosses and most valuable loot in the game, but you'll almost never be able to take these on by yourself before the circle closes in around you.
I'm confident that I could overcome many of the challenges in Elden Ring Nightreign solo, given enough chances and time. But the clock was so against me that I never felt that I had the time to get strong enough. The game simply moves too quickly for me to be playing alone, and I think many other solo players will likely feel the same way.
If you want to build a powerful team to take on the epic action RPG challenges that FromSoftware is lauded for, then you'll feel right at home with Elden Ring Nightreign. If you're a casual player looking for a good solo experience, I reckon you'll have to wait for another Souls game entirely (and you'll probably want to skip upcoming Switch 2 exclusive FromSoftware game The Duskbloods, too, which looks like it could inherit a lot of Nightreigns' multiplayer gameplay).
