Elden Ring Nightreign‘s final Everdark Sovereign arrived last week and die-hard fans are ready for a new challenge. FromSoftware hasn’t officially revealed what’s coming to the multiplayer roguelite spin-off next, but that hasn’t stopped some players from diving into the secret new ranked mode that was added to the game’s files earlier this month and discovering what’s there for themselves.
A reference to The Deep of Night was first discovered in Nightreign by dataminers shortly after its Duos update arrived in late July. Other details hidden in the files suggested it was an endless mode with skill-based matchmaking that would give hardcore players a new challenge to overcome. It would even add slots to their existing vessel so new types of relics could be added to help them with these tougher runs, it seemed.
Weeks later, some players have been taking advantage of mods to try The Deep of Night out for themselves, even as publisher Bandai Namco remains silent about what it has planned for Nightreign‘s future. It can only be played on PC solo on a separate save file and play is limited to the first round. But that hasn’t dissuaded the game’s sweatiest Nightfarers from dipping their tarnished toes into this new version of Limveld.
While some mods unlock the mode itself, others unlock the new Deep relics for purchase from the signboard. People have been uploading their expeditions to YouTube, showing some of the new gear exclusive to The Deep of Night and their unique trade-offs. Unlike regular loot found during runs, each piece of gear in the Deep comes with additional debuffs to add to the difficulty. A Sentry’s Torch, for example, might improve lightning damage negation and boost damage negation from getting hit, but also dramatically raise the damage you take from being out in the Night’s Tide storm which, as someone who frequently spends half of the run out there, would be an instant death sentence for me.
Enemies are also way tankier in general. Rats in the starting camp will take three hits to kill instead of two. Some enemies also look like contaminated versions of themselves. Otherwise, it’s mostly the same game people have been playing for months, at least in the first round. Deep of Night runs thus far haven’t revealed any new weapons or secrets, though that could change if players survive into the later rounds or manage to get their rank high enough to unlock access to things not currently referenced in the datamined files.
We won’t know for sure until FromSoftware makes the mode official. That could come as early as this week or sometime later in September if it decides to wait until the last batch of Everdark Sovereigns have cycled through a second time. According to datamined leaks, there are also new character classes coming to Nightreign at some point. Whether they will be part of a free update or a paid DLC is unclear. The game’s biggest fans remain hungry for anything new the developers can throw at them. Hopefully, that ends up being sooner than later.