Elden Ring Nightreign: How to Unlock The Secret Nightfarer Characters

CNET

29-05-2025

Elden Ring Nightreign's new Nightfarer class system is an easy way for players to pick out a familiar character archetype and jump into battle. Each comes with passive and active skills to suit many playstyles and help round out the game's three-player squads.
Creating a strong team composition is just as important as speedrunning bosses and collecting runes, flasks and other upgrades during the three-day expeditions. You'll want to mix-and-match damage dealers, tanks and supporting roles while also ensuring you have melee, ranged and elemental damage options.
Newer players might gravitate toward more forgiving Nightfarer options, such as Wylder, Guardian and Ironeye. But the six Nightfarers available to you when you first start Nightreign aren't the only player classes in the game.
Here's how to unlock the two secret Nightfarer classes in Elden Ring Nightreign.
If you receive this relic after an expedition, you'll be able to unlock the first secret Nightfarer.
Screenshot by David Lumb/CNET
How to unlock the Duchess
The first Nightfarer you'll have a chance to unlock is the Duchess. Once you finish your first Tricephalos expedition, you'll be rewarded with a special green relic -- the Old Pocketwatch. You don't actually have to defeat Gladius in order to obtain the relic, but you do have to complete a full run in order to claim your rewards.
This relic imparts decent buffs on any Nightfarer that you're running with a dexterity-based build, but it also doubles as the key item that unlocks the first secret Elden Ring Nightreign class.
Once the Old Pocketwatch is in your possession, approach the Priestess in the Roundtable Hold. Her normal dialogue options give some background on what the Nightfarers are doing here and why the fight against the Nightlord is so important. Now, she'll ask about your new relic, and present you with a choice of whether or not to hand it over to her.
Even if you've slotted the Old Pocketwatch relic into your build, you have nothing to fear by handing it over to the Priestess. You'll retain the relic and it you can still equip it on any of your playable Nightfarers.
When the Priestess is handed the relic, a short cutscene plays where she drops her shroud and reveals that she has been the Duchess all along. She vows to stop standing on the sidelines and join the fight, and with that you'll unlock Nightreign's seventh playable Nightfarer.
The Duchess wears a Dark Souls Firekeeper mask, but her overall aesthetic is much more Bloodborne-y.
Screenshot by Tyler Graham/CNET
What is the Duchess' role in a team?
The Duchess is a dexterous attacker who can flit in and out of battle to keep up the pressure. She doesn't have high poise, defense or health, but she can hold an enemy's attention and easily evade their attacks. The Duchess greatly benefits from weapons like fists, daggers and curved swords, though any weapons with powerful lunge attacks will feel right at home in this Nightfarer's arsenal.
The Duchess' passive ability lets her expend less stamina when attacking and dodging, allowing her to stay in the battle longer before taking a tactical reprieve. Her class ability, Restage, rewinds time and inflicts additional damage against enemies who have been wounded in the past few seconds. Her ultimate ability, Finale, shrouds the Duchess and any nearby teammates from enemies during a fight, allowing the team to heal up and prepare attacks with long wind up times. The effects of Finale instantly wear off on any person who attacks an enemy (or gets hit by a stray attack themselves).
After you unlock the Duchess, a new item will be available in the Jar Bazaar.
Screenshot by David Lumb/CNET
How to unlock the Revenant
You'll need another key item in order to unlock the Revenant, the eighth and final playable Nightfarer. Luckily, this item becomes available as soon as you unlock the Duchess -- it's nestled down toward the bottom of the Jar Bazaar.
The Besmirched Frame will cost you 1,500 Murk and, just like the Old Pocketwatch, it's a relic you can use in your Nightfarers' builds. Once you've obtained this item, a Lost Phantom will spawn in the east hallway of the Roundtable Hold. This NPC will be denoted by a girl's portrait on your map -- there will be an exclamation point icon by the portrait's head.
Approach this phantom and interact with the girl. You'll be warped to the plateau where you fought the Margit the Fell Omen in Nightreign's tutorial, but this time a unique boss will be waiting for you.
Taking on the Night Idol is much easier once you defeat her summons, but you'll still have to avoid some of the spells she slings.
Screenshot by Tyler Graham/CNET
The Night Idol is an easy boss fight, but there are a couple of enemies you'll have to micromanage. She has three spirit summons she fields against you: Helen, an agile page that will quickly press the attack; Frederick, a bulky cook who swings slowly but delivers devastating blows; and Sebastian, a massive skeleton who can't move but has deadly melee attacks and magic beams.
Focusing on these spirit summons is imperative, because they don't come back once they're defeated. You can beat this boss with any Nightfarer, but I found it was easiest with Ironeye. You can use your bow to zone out the summons, peppering them with arrows until they fall, and then move in on the Night Idol boss using your action skills.
Once the Night Idol is defeated, you'll be transported back to the Roundtable Hold and informed that you've unlocked the Revenant, the last of the Nightfarers missing from the roster.
The Revenant is a doll, like Ranni the Witch. She commands spirits to enact her will.
Screenshot by Tyler Graham/CNET
What is the Revenant's role in a team?
The Revenant is one of the more magically inclined player classes in Elden Ring Nightreign, which means that she's a high risk, high reward character to use. The Revenant has a high focus point (or mana) pool and can take advantage of sorceries and incantations alike, though her stat spread favors spells from Seals and Dragon Communions. What this character lacks in defense, though, she makes up for in utility that allows her to shift focus away from herself and her teammates.
The Revenant's passive ability has a chance to spawn spirit summons of non-boss enemies that she deals final blows to. This combines well with her class ability, Summon Spirit, which allows her to call Helen, Frederick or Sebastian (the same summons from the Lost Girl boss fight) to the battlefield. The Revenant's summons add an element of chaos to Nightreign's battles, and often pull enemy aggression away from players. It's much easier to get in the thick of the fight and mete out some damage when there's a small army marching on a boss.
When the fight is turning against her, the Revenant's powerful ultimate ability makes herself and her allies briefly immortal. The Immortal March ability applies to other players as well as the Revenant's spirit summons, making it a real Swiss army knife of an ability -- if you really want to squeeze the most value out of it, you can activate it when your teammates are knocked down to instantly revive them. If you've got a spirit summon active, it'll use its own ultimate ability, but it can't swing a fight nearly as well as picking up your fallen squadmates.
The Revenant is fragile, but she provides more effective health to her tankier teammates -- and levels the playing field by bringing more allies into the fight.