5 reasons I'm not playing Elden Ring Nightreign on day one

I entered the world of FromSoft games in 2022, when I finally caved in to a friend’s pestering and played Elden Ring. 150 hours later, I was Tarnished, through and through.

When Elden Ring Nightreign was announced, I was excited for more reasons than one. After all, I’d be getting more Elden Ring and that too, with my friend! After all, the base game’s multiplayer elements are just so convoluted that you might as well not try.

Sadly, now that the game’s out, my decision not to pre-order worked out, because I have more than a couple of reasons to forgo Nightreign, at least on day one.

5 Elden Ring Nightreign does not offer a duo mode at launch

It’s planned, yes, but it’s baffling that this mode isn’t available at launch

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m all for a Fortnite game mode set in the world of Elden Ring. Weird experiments in gaming really impress me, and Nightreign is clearly one of them. With a ring of fire closing in on you at all times as you rush to collect the best resources to prep yourself for the final battle, Elden Ring Nightreign is definitely a battle royale-esque rogue-like. However, the biggest drawback in the game right now, is that the co-op element is forcibly a three-person party.

I don’t think FromSoft truly realizes how difficult or rare it is to have three friends, all willing to spend upwards of 40 minutes on each run to have a chance at fighting a Night Lord, and then run it all the way back when they fail the first couple of times. Plus, all of that has to happen on the same platform, too. A duo mode is such an insane no-brainer that it is baffling for Nightreign to not ship with a duo mode.

Yes, a duo mode is planned. Yes, I can still go ahead and mod it to have a two-person run in Nightreign. Does it matter? No, because it should’ve been there from the very start, and I’m not going to spend $40 on a game to then install a mod to play it my way. Especially when said mod could become obsolete the moment the next patch comes along.

4 The lack of cross-platform support is baffling

It’s 2025, FromSoft. What are you doing?

Another decision from FromSoft that is downright baffling is the lack of cross-platform support in the game. A major AAA game that is multiplayer-focused and still offers no cross-platform support in 2025? That alone is enough to turn off many potential buyers, and I’m certainly one of them. The only two friends I have who I could’ve convinced to shell out $40 for this game are both PlayStation users, and even they can’t enjoy it between themselves on the console because there isn’t a duos mode!

I might be an advocate for PCs over consoles for gaming, but that doesn’t mean I’m convincing several friends to switch over. I’m also not changing my own platform just to be able to play the game, regardless of how excited I may have been about it.

3 FromSoft’s latest multiplayer game has no in-game chat

No voice chat in a multiplayer game is nuts

The first thing I’d do if I bought the game would be to queue up to find people to party up with, which is tied to my enjoyment of the game. From the looks of it, queuing-up times as a solo player looking for a party are dastardly. Regardless, if I do manage to find players to party up with, there would still be no way to communicate with them.

That’s right — in a game focused on a three-player multiplayer adventure where the players deal with bosses, looting, optimizing their runs and then taking on a Night Lord who requires an immense amount of coordination to bring down, there is no voice chat or text chat. There’s no way to communicate with the players you’re spending almost an hour with on each run, and the only thing you have is pings. Again, a reminder that it’s 2025, lest we forget.

The only option then would be to either find friends to play with no matter what, so you could have Discord on, or to join the official server where other Discord users are looking for party members. Consequently, this would limit the number of players you could party up with, because, unsurprisingly, not every single user of a game is on the Discord servers.

2 There’s barely any variety between runs

Elden Ring Nightreign punishes exploration, and that’s hugely off-putting

Have I purchased Elden Ring Nightreign? No. Have I still watched dozens of hours of playthroughs? Yes, and it’s clear that the game in its current state can’t justify its $40 tag. After a couple of hours, you start to see the pattern — start here, loot this, beeline there, kill that, and prep for the final fight. There’s a structure to Nightreign that feels far too rigid for a game that’s meant to be unpredictable and replayable.

It’s such a shame, too, because the world looks like it should be fun to explore — dense, eerie, oozing with that signature FromSoft weirdness. But the entire run structure is designed to push you through a highly optimized route with little room to improvise. There’s no real randomization, and once you get the “best path” down, you’re basically locked into it if you want any chance of survival. You can’t engage with the world on your own terms. You can’t breathe. And for a game that’s supposed to be about adventure and discovery, that’s a bit of a dealbreaker for me.

Already, the idea of playing the game for a few hours with friends, and then booting it up knowing full well that there is simply going to be one good way to go through it is off-putting.

1 A single map isn’t nearly diverse enough

That, and the Shifting Earth gimmick doesn’t quite cut it

Nightreign feels strangely small. For a game set in the same hauntingly rich world as Elden Ring, it’s baffling that we only get one main map and a “shifting” underground biome that’s more of a novelty than a game-changer. The moment-to-moment experience starts feeling stale real fast. And the thing is, the Lands Between has the range — there’s Limgrave’s beauty and calm fields, Caelid’s rot-soaked horrors, the Altus Plateau’s golden majesty, and the snowy Mountaintops of the Giants. Each of these could’ve anchored a full map on their own. Instead, we got a sampler platter that only teases the Plateau at the very end.

Honestly, they should’ve gone big from the start. Give us multiple maps at launch, then layer the shifting-earth mechanic as a future DLC gimmick. That would’ve extended the game’s life and given each run the variety it sorely lacks right now. As it stands, it feels like FromSoft built a battle royale roguelike inside a single room and hoped we wouldn’t notice.

I know I will play Elden Ring Nightreign, but not in its current state

Elden Ring Nightreign was one of the games I most looked forward to this year. It’s such a shame that the game has been released in a pretty terrible condition, but not in the way you’d expect.

While most AAA releases launch with game-breaking bugs or in unfinished states, Elden Ring Nightreign plays well, looks great, and doesn’t have any game-breaking performance issues. It just lacks basic quality-of-life features that are no-brainers in today’s gaming environment, which is what deters me and thousands of other FromSoft fans from shelling out the $40 it asks for.