Elden Ring Nightreign: release date window, trailers, gameplay, and more

It’s time to rise once again, Tarnished. If you thought your adventures in the world of Elden Ring were over after completing the DLC, FromSoftware has a surprise for you with an upcoming video game. Elden Ring Nightreign came as a shock when it made its debut at The Game Awards 2024, and since then, it has rivaled Ghost of Yotei and GTA 6 for the title of the most anticipated upcoming PlayStation 5 game. However, this isn’t exactly an Elden Ring 2. Elden Ring Nightreign will be the most unique game from the studio yet, despite its familiar name. Feel free to summon our help in learning everything you need to know about Elden Ring Nightreign.

This is just another amazing upcoming Xbox Series X game and upcoming PC game, but sadly isn’t on the exciting list of upcoming Switch games.

Release date window

For now, Elden Ring Nightreign is scheduled to arive sometime in 2025. FromSoftware is unusually quick in its development, but considering it only just launched the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC in the summer of 2024, we would expect at least a year between releases.

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Platforms

Because it is built off the same bones as Elden Ring, Elden Ring Nightreign will be available on all the same platforms. That includes PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Trailers

We got our introduction to Elden Ring Nightreign during The Game Awards 2024 with a full gameplay trailer. We see the familiar, yet unique landscape of the game, which is called Limveld and is a parallel world to Limgrave from the base game. We follow a character running from a closing blue magical circle as a narrator speaks. They inform us that our “seekers of redemption” have been brought together by some unknown force.

The narration goes on with multiple speakers, but is as cryptic and impossible to fully interpret at this point, as you would expect from a FromSoftware game. However, given the nature of the game (which we will dive into in the next section), we suspect the story will play an even smaller role in Elden Ring Nightreign than is typical.

Gameplay

This is where Elden Ring Nightreign might turn some hardcore fans off. Instead of being a traditional action RPG like Elden Ring or Dark Souls, this game is a three-player co-op roguelite experience at its core. You will each pick one set character class and set out into a world filled with random enemies, locations, bosses, and loot. There’s also an encroaching barrier similar to a battle royal game. Don’t let that trick you, though. Elden Ring Nightreign has no PvP elements at all and is only PvE. If you and your team have managed to survive until the zone is at its smallest, you will face one final boss that you chose before starting and need to overcome to win.

The four classes we know of so far are:

Wylder: an armored night with a longsword.

Duchess: a dexterous rogue with a dagger.

Guardia: a tanky soldier with heavy weapons.

Recluse: the mage of the group.

There will reportedly be eight classes to choose from, but for now, those are all we know about for sure. This means you won’t be creating your own character and building them up as you see fit. Instead, each one will have its own set of weapons, abilities, and an ultimate. For example, we see Wylder use a grappling hook to grab enemies or pull themself around the environment. It appears as though all characters will be able to glide on magical birds to get around, and there is even some parkour, with characters running up walls.

When it comes to the actual fighting, everything in Elden Ring Nightreign so far looks to be essentially the same as in Elden Ring. You will still need to manage stamina, dodge, and use your heavy and light attacks. Movement speed is greatly increased, while Torrent is gone and fall damage has been removed.

The trailer showed a lot of returning enemies and bosses, but not just from Elden Ring. Fans of prior FromSoftware games might spot a few interesting bosses that appear to be pulled right out of those other games.

What we still need to see is how, if at all, your progress in one run will carry into future attempts.

Preorder

You can’t preorder Elden Ring Nightreign quite yet, but you can add it to your wish list. There will also be a network test on PS5 and Xbox Series X in February that you can sign up for starting on January 10.