First I was maidenless... now I'm friendless... there is no justice in this world.

From Soft dropping the hardest boss ever: having friends.

Great, I hope they add that “friends” thing as a DLC.

YOU DIED (friendless and alone)

It's 6AM on a Monday. I play with strangers and we beat the Night Lord. Dance and repeat. It's a fast phase Elden Ring, you get all the power ups and rush to the last boss. OG Elden Rign feels more solo, dedicated. Nightreign is Fast Food. Get guns, do the job John Wick style. If your friends are like mine though, it's gonna be a struggle…

Fellow maidenless,

Nightreign f**king rules. The game is experimental, flawed, but good. I personally don't think it should win GOTY or even get any MP awards at the VGAs this year (and I say this as a massive Fromsoft fan), but I definitely think the game is worth playing if you enjoy Souls games and rogue likes. It’s like Elden Ring Seamless Coop but you don’t have to actually go through the entire open world for an hour between each boss. Every character is well-designed and fun to play. The returning bosses are great and the new Nightlord bosses are some of the best in the series. THEY REMOVED FALL DAMAGE. I see a lot of negativity towards the game. Some of it is fair criticism. But the idea that this is just an asset flip cash grab or the beginning of the end of fromsoft is absurd. If you liked Elden Ring, it’s more Elden Ring, except without all the annoying busywork of Elden Ring, and you can play with your friends or wife’s boyfriend without a mod or the awful souls game co op mechanics.

It's so good. Maybe the hardest game they've put out yet, at least on first pass when solo. It's brutal, but the satisfaction of overcoming a mere single run is enormous. At first, it can feel overwhelming for a solo player, nigh on impossible. Once you've figured out how to manage and coordinate your runs is when the game starts firing on all cylinders. And it's not even a full priced game. You can pick it up for 40$, which at this point, is becoming half the price of a new over budget AAA game.

Nightreign shocked me by having lore and story as well. It has personal quests for each character, that include cutscenes and NPCs around the world's hub in addition to tasks to perform within matches. There are also quite a few endings connected to the remembrances, which are quite fun and interesting to complete. Additionally, there are static set pieces in the game that are added to maps as you progress the game forward, and those include interesting handcrafted level design. They are not as robust as a legacy dungeon, but they are very cool nonetheless. They scratch the itch and include some wild descents and boss fights, all pasted on top of the procedural maps. And lastly, all the original bosses I've encountered so far are fantastic. And each character has brand new move sets (in the form of tactical and ultimate abilities) that are unique to Soulsborne games in general. Oh, and many of the old bosses that are directly reused have new move sets as well. So, even their recycles have had a little bit of dev work.

Honestly, the amount of new development for this game (that isn't even a full-priced game) has impressed me. To each their own, but Nighteign does not remotely resemble shovel ware. It is good and there is fun to be had for sure. But it’s also… a one note game. It does one specific thing and outside of that it is pretty sparse. Which is fine, especially for a budget title, but I have to say I’m pretty underwhelmed with it after beating the final boss in 40 hours. There’s really not much more to the game unless you just love dropping in and doing it all over again. I don’t feel the urge to grind skins or rng for better relics so there’s no real reason to keep playing. Some people will love just playing it over and over which is great but it’s definitely the quickest I’ve put down a fromsoft game. Still, overall it’s a great condensed version of Elden Ring that has you doing all the fun stuff that Elden Ring provides in a frenzy of fighting, looting, and building your character. It’s just a refreshing game in a sea of corporate slop.

9/10

peak like dark souls 2

I like guys but no one will see this.