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I adore FromSoftware’s take on multiplayer design. Instead of waiting in a lobby with friends or accepting an invite to join a game in progress, the studio’s online functionality has its own character. You can watch the spectral recordings of fallen players, offer to help those in need where they need it most, and by far my favorite, write messages on the floor. These can be helpful, make no sense, or outright trick you, and this dynamic makes FromSoftware’s games, from Dark Souls to Elden Ring, feel truly alive. That’s why I’m sad to report then that these messages won’t return for Elden Ring Nightreign, but it’s for a good reason.
We’re finally in the year of the Elden Ring Nightreign release date, and FromSoftware’s roguelike twist on its formula is one I can’t wait to try out. You and up to two friends will explore the parallel world of Limveld, a procedurally generated open-air dungeon that exists on a three-day timer. Sadly, these differences mean the ability to write messages for other players, which we’ve been doing since Demon’s Souls, is being removed from Elden Ring Nightreign.
“You can still see the ghosts of other players, but the ability to leave messages has been removed,” Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki tells IGN Japan in a new interview (via Twisted Voxel). “The reason we removed the message function is that in this game, where each session is about 40 minutes long, there is no time to write your own message, and no time to read messages written by others.”
Nightreign is trading Elden Ring’s slow, exploratory pace for much faster cooperative play, so I can see why FromSoftware is removing the messaging system. I’m sad to see the feature go, but when you’ve got less than an hour to explore Limveld and fight as many bosses as possible, reading a note that calls a tortoise a dog is just wasting time, I suppose.
Ishizaki also calls Elden Ring Nightreign a “compressed RPG,” where the long-term ups and downs of your adventure are condensed into a much shorter time frame. This is why every single session of Nightreign is randomized, with eight bosses standing in your way that you’ll need to defeat to approach the big bad.
Don’t forget that you can sign up for an Elden Ring Nightreign demo in just a few days, with a network test to follow in February 2025. It’s not clear exactly what the Nightreign demo will contain, but we know FromSoftware is using it to assess the co-op game’s connectivity features ahead of time.
If you were given FromSoftware’s latest game over the festive break, take a look at our list of all the best Elden Ring builds, alongside the best Elden Ring weapons to bring into battle.
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