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Elden Ring Nightreign had a huge first night on PC. It’s already FromSoftware’s second-biggest launch ever on Steam. But the multiplayer spin-off of the 2022 hit open-world RPG is also already getting hammered by user reviews as fans complain about the lack of onboarding, poor communication tools, and the need to play with friends to have any real shot at surviving the challenging boss fights.

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Officially out today on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, Elden Ring Nightreign went live on PC last night at around 6:00 p.m. ET. The latest release from the Dark Souls team immediately sprang up the Steam charts to reach over 300,000 concurrent players. That made it the fourth-biggest game on Valve’s storefront and the second-biggest FromSoftware launch on PC behind Elden Ring. Its namesake and its $40 price point clearly did the experimental multiplayer spin-off some favors.

But it didn’t take players long to realize that Nightreign is very much not Elden Ring. Unlike its slow, plodding predecessor, the spin-off is a battle royale-influenced loot race in which sessions see an entire Soulsborne experience condensed into just 45 minutes. It takes some getting used to, and players are already coming to grips with Nightreign’s notable hostility to explaining itself, even for a FromSoftware game. And while it does allow for offline solo play, its steep difficulty curve—more of a right angle really—heavily rewards group play and coordination.

“If you don’t have 2 other friends to play with in voice chat, don’t waste your time,” wrote Steam user Hishamm. “Game is Elden Ring, but 3p, and the solo queue is abysmal.” “Gameplay itself seems fun but I can’t possible leave a positive review if a game released in 2025 has no way to communicate in a coop game (neither voice nor text chat),” wrote Lynni. “Impossible to make progress without voice chat,” wrote Vahit Horoz. “If you have 3 friends you can talk to and play regularly, you will have a great time, the connection is smooth, the map is full of events and the game loop is very interesting.”

The game currently has a Steam rating of 65 percent, making it the lowest-scored FromSoftware release on the platform outside of Dark Souls III’s Ashes of Ariandel DLC. The reviews are full of complaints about the lack of duos (you have to either play alone or with a three-stack) and how matchmaking with strangers often leads to people randomly running around the map without coordinating, a task made harder by the lack of communication tools outside of pings and emotes. I think that might even out in the days and weeks ahead as players learn the basics of the randomized Nightreign map and how much more efficient you are together than split up, but the lack of modern multiplayer features is a real issue.

Screenshot: Valve / Kotaku

Prior to launch, director Junya Ishizaki told IGN that duos support wasn’t planned any time soon. “We are trying to cater to a fun experience with three people,” he said. “So making sure the experience is fun at its core with a group of three, but it also doesn’t collapse if it’s a solo player as well … in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well.”

It’s also unclear if FromSoftware is planning to dial back the difficulty for solo players in an upcoming patch. Nightlord bosses are practically impossible at the moment for all but the most experienced and hardcore Elden Ring loners. A mysterious day-one patch alluded to balance changes and other improvements, but didn’t spell out exactly what those changes are. If FromSoftware does decide to dial things back a bit, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s made one of its games easier. The studio quickly made Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss much easier when it kicked everyone’s ass last summer. We’ll see if Nightreign eventually takes mercy on players without friends as well.

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