Elden Ring Nightreign retains much of its predecessors, but also says goodbye to an iconic messaging system that has been a part of some of FromSoftware's most popular games.
The only trailer for Elden Ring Nightreign had a lot of familiar images. The lands in between. Some returning enemies. The bosses were straight out of Dark Souls, like the Nameless King. But it also introduced just as many completely new things, from a three-player co-op mode to an entirely new structure that will play out over three days of gameplay.
However, those differences extend to some fan-favorite features. “You can still see other players' ghosts, but the ability to leave messages has been removed,” Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki told Agency Japan, according to machine translation. In games like Dark Souls, you could leave little messages on the ground that would then appear in other players' games.
So why is the feature being removed if it's so beloved? Because Nightreign has players fight in rounds that take approximately 40 minutes to complete, leaving little time for anything other than attacking enemies. Ishizaki has talked before about how Elden Ring Nightreign is essentially a “short RPG” that condenses what FromSoft does best into faster multiplayer rounds. That new structure also means that downed enemies won't revive mid-match, even when you stop at a graceful spot, to keep things moving.
I'll miss seeing notes from other players, whether they're tricking me into jumping to my death, leaving trolling messages, or legitimately trying to help me beat a challenge. But I suppose you'll have two other players' voices in your ear all the time, as long as you play co-op, so it's not a big loss.
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