It’s inaccurate and reductive to call Elden Ring Nightreign a Dark Souls take on Fortnite. And yet, if pressed for an extremely brief elevator pitch — say, the kind you’d give to your friends who are curious about soulsborne games but are put off by all the discussions of their difficulty — it’s about as best as you could do. In my hands-on time with the game, I was compelled to ask my team at the outset of our very first run, “Well… where we droppin’ boys?” as we flew over the map in the claws of spectral birds. The similarity to Fortnite and other battle royale games was so striking, the reference simply had to be made. But once we got on the ground, Fortnite took a big ol’ backseat and Elden Ring reemerged as the foremost game Nightreign compares to.
Nightreign strips out the combat and visual aesthetics of Elden Ring and lays them over gameplay that combines multiplayer battle royale action with roguelike live, die, repeat mechanics. Matches will take place over three days. During daylight, players will assault a Limgrave-like map (called Limveld), either solo or in teams of three, beating regular enemies and mini-bosses for powerful weapons, accessories, and runes to level up their characters. As daylight turns to night, a destructive, HP-draining storm called Night’s Tide shrinks the map, forcing the players to a tiny arena where they’ll face a major boss. Defeat the boss to begin the next day, when the cycle repeats and the match ends by defeating the final boss on the third night.
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