It’s only been a week since Elden Ring: Nightreign‘s new hard mode was added to the multiplayer roguelike, and FromSoftware is already patching in some relief after even the most stalwart fans found themselves brutally beaten down. The mode has five depths, with the goal being to eventually complete enough successful runs to reach the deepest and most difficult one. Now, however, players will have the option to arbitrarily boot themselves back up to upper levels so they can stop dying and actually have fun again.
Depth 1 is straightforward enough. While some harder enemies and new item debuffs force players to adapt to the game in new ways, most were able to make short work of it. Then came Depth 2. For my team it was like hitting a brick wall, but others successfully made it to Depth 3. Past that, the game basically becomes a no-hit run mode in disguise. Within a few days some fans were already begging for an option to play on the lower difficulties again just for fun. With a shockingly quick turnaround, FromSoftware has now obliged.
An update that went live today adds “a new feature to voluntarily decrease your Depth ranking by one level.” It also gives loss protection to players at lower Depths, so that your first loss on Depth 3, 4, or 5 won’t immediately lose you points and kick you back to the previous one. This protection even applies if you’re returning to Depth 3 or 4 for the dozenth time. This is mostly for players at the final Depths who lose more points from a loss than they earn for each win.
“Lets go voluntary derank,” one player wrote on the subreddit. “This is based,” wrote another. “But we really just need more bosses.”
The new system allows more casual players the option to enjoy the mechanics in the new mode without having to run something they just keep dying in. At the same time, some players are wondering why FromSoftware doesn’t just nuke the whole ranking up system altogether and just let players choose which Depth they want to play on from the jump. Some fans were also hoping for a true “endless” mode, which was rumored based on original datamines for the Deep of Night update but which appear to have been based on a mistranslation.
Deep of Night is cool overall, but the progression system has been a bit of a bust. It’s also not a replacement for new bosses, maps, or random events during runs. The new difficulty mode will need more tweaks if it’s going to keep Elden Ring: Nightreign in the multiplayer rotation for a lot of current players, especially with so many other big games coming out this fall. But in the meantime, at least everyone can go back and farm the broken Deep Relics they need from easier Depths.