Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware's upcoming boss rush-slash-roguelike multiplayer title, recently got a May 30 release date alongside the chance for some hands-on previews. PCG's Morgan Park reckons that it feels like some sort of huge mod project, for good and ill, but is "damn fun" if you can put some of the usual expectations of this gaming lineage aside.
It ain't Elden Ring 2, that's for sure, but a much simpler and more streamlined experience: And as a spinoff, the asking price is an unexpectedly reasonable $40 (you know Bandai Namco could've charged whatever it wanted for this). But that may not be the only price you end up paying. Elden Ring Neightreign's release date came with a Steam page, which initially contained the following at the bottom of the game's description:
"Additional DLC—Additional playable characters and bosses."
That line has now been removed, but seems a fairly straightforward slip-up and confirmation that there will be more Elden Ring Neightreign to come.
I'm probably going to sound a bit fanboy here, but this can only be good news. FromSoftware's track record with DLC and expansions is frankly outstanding, and over time the studio has only become more ambitious: My personal favourite remains Bloodborne's The Old Hunters, but there's no denying that Elden Ring's own Shadow of the Erdtree was truly epic in scope and a fitting capstone on a magnificent game.
Admittedly this description makes Nightreign's future DLC sound much smaller in scope than that, and no doubt it will be, but in a game constructed around character builds and boss fights, don't expect FromSoftware to just be content knocking out the usual, but using the DLC to invert and change-up the vanilla experience.
Elden Ring Nightreign arrives on May 30, and we already know a lot about it. "Nightreign will be an interesting litmus test of why people come to Souls games," reckons Morgan. "If it's all about swinging big swords and dodge-rolling away from impossibly hard bosses, Nightreign is gonna be a feast. But if it's From's quieter moments that stick with you—exchanges with weird NPCs, taking careful steps deeper into a vast fortress, contemplating The Lands Between's cryptic questlines—well, Nightreign ain't got time for any of that."
