Games

Elden Ring Nightreign is here, and after selling 2 million copies in its first day and becoming developer FromSoftware’s second-biggest launch on Steam, the dust is starting to settle, giving rise to thousands of player impressions.

This is the studio’s first multiplayer, co-op only title, so there were bound to be teething issues, but what many didn’t count on is just how outdated – and often confusing – many aspects of the game are.

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This all started with the whole discussion about the lack of single-player, as well as duos support. In the first instance, FromSoftware is actually going to implement a few changes in a patch set to arrive this week that should make things a bit more manageable for solo players. Though no official duos support has been announced, modders already have solutions.

Away from all that, playing the game the way it was intended exposes a host of problems players haven’t had to contend with in years, not to mention a lot of missing features that have become the standard in the last decade in online games.

Each character in the game has their own quest, which players need to do if they want to grow that particular character. Players quickly discovered, however, that when you start a quest, you’re placed into a matchmaking pool with other players who are also doing their quests.

This sounds good in theory, but the problem is that matchmaking takes a lot longer when you want the next Expedition to be the one where you do your character quest. The game does not communicate this clearly to players, but even in the run itself, it’s hard for other players on the team to realise that one team has a quest that they’re going for.

You can always try to attempt those quest runs solo, but as we’ve established, Nightreign is not kind to solo players. There’s also an issue that players have run into where they’d sometimes finish the quest, but not get the quest item needed to advance to the next step. The running theory is that when multiple members of the team want the same item, only one of them will be able to get it.

A miasma of troubles. | Image credit: FromSoftware

Players also have various problems with the lack of basic features most modern multiplayer games offer. There’s no option to abandon a run as a full team, for instance. No way to vote to end a run early, or really any way to leave outside of, well, quitting.

Unfortunately, quitting before the Expedition is finished comes with its own penalties, something that was likely added as a way to disincentivise players from dropping out and abandoning their teammates.

Even setting aside the fact that, in this style of roguelite game, bad runs are inevitable, there’s also the issue of the way the game announces server-wide maintenance – or more accurately, how it does not.

The start screen does not currently indicate when maintenance is about to start in order to warn players not to jump into an Expedition. While the game will flash that warning 10 minutes ahead of time for players, it only shows up fpr those already in the middle of a run, meaning they either need to get as much as they can done, or leave. And, as we just explained, there is no option to gracefully end the run.

These and a few others are all issues that really hamper the experience for many, especially those used to more modern, non-FromSoft games. If you’re pushing through regardless, our Elden Ring Nightreign guide will make for a faithful companion. We recently ranked all Nightlords in the game, and published a Revenant build guide.

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