
SEGA Previews 'Swordsmith Village Arc' in Upcoming ‘Demon Slayer: Hinokami Chronicles 2' Game
Summary
SEGAhas dropped a new trailer for theDemon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2, its second fighting action-adventure from theDemon Slayerfranchise co-developed withCyberConnect2 Co., Ltdand Arc System Works.
This new trailer centers on the 'Swordsmith Village Arc', a pivotal storyline in the game's Story Mode, offering fans a glimpse into the updated gameplay and new characters. The video also provides insight into the character-driven narrative, immersive environments and intense action sequences, reinforcing the game's commitment to faithfully recreating theDemon Slayeranime experience.
Pre-orders are available in three editions. Each edition comes with a pre-order bonus that grants players early access to two additional characters before the game's official launch. Priced at around $70 USD, the Deluxe Edition includes six additional character unlock keys, a VS Mode System Voice set featuring Upper Rank Demons, as well as three exclusive battle attire costumes. Meanwhile, the Standard Edition, priced at $60 USD, offers the base game and two Kimetsu Academy character unlock keys. Also retailing for $60 USD, the Physical Edition includes a limited-time launch bonus featuring Muichiro Tokito and Mitsuri Kanroji as unlockable characters.
Ahead of its August 5, 2025 release in North America and Europe, the game has officially opened pre-orders on Nintendo Switch. The highly anticipated sequel will also launch on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Steam, expanding its availability across multiple platforms.
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CNET
5 hours ago
- CNET
Elden Ring Nightreign is a Drag to Play Solo. Here's Why It's Way Better With Friends
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But there are still key pieces of the design here that create extra friction for the solo experience, and it takes a lot of extra effort to work around that. If you're extremely good at FromSoftware's usual dark fantasy action RPGs, you'll probably excel here. But if you're an average player, you'll quickly run into these problems. If you wish to stand a fighting chance in Elden Ring Nightreign, you need to work together as a coordinated squad. Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNET Elden Ring Nightreign revolves heavily around team composition I'm used to having many different tools in my arsenal when I'm approaching an Elden Ring boss. Even when I specialize my character for a strength build, I can depend on the Wondrous Physick and spirit summons to help me power through a tough battle. In Nightreign, each individual player has far fewer tools at their disposal. You have your wits, your weapon, any items and arts of war you stumbled upon and your Nightfarer abilities. 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From the moment you land on day one to the end of night two, it's speedrunning time. Every round involves an anxiety-inducing calculus of balancing your leveling and your looting: By the time you face the Nightlord (the final boss of an expedition) in night three, you want to be at least level 12 and have a good mix of weapons, passive buffs and extra healing flasks. This is tough enough in multiplayer, where runes are distributed to every nearby member of the team regardless of who struck the final blow on an enemy and bosses are more easily staggered and dealt with between three Nightfarers. Navigating the map's randomized locations requires a lot of game knowledge and team unity. Taking Nightreign's expeditions on alone is a different story entirely. You're in charge of personally farming every rune you need to level up while still making your way to enough churches to stock up on healing flasks. Getting bogged down in boss fights for too long is a delayed death sentence, because you're wasting your most valuable resource: time. Still, you need the valuable weapons and passive buffs that boss enemies drop, so you'll have to beat down some of the tougher enemies you stumble across. The most powerful buffs of all are located in the game's Shifting Earth events that change a portion of the map during each run. These can be volcano-like craters or misty, hidden cities that house some of the hardest bosses and most valuable loot in the game, but you'll almost never be able to take these on by yourself before the circle closes in around you. I'm confident that I could overcome many of the challenges in Elden Ring Nightreign solo, given enough chances and time. But the clock was so against me that I never felt that I had the time to get strong enough. The game simply moves too quickly for me to be playing alone, and I think many other solo players will likely feel the same way. If you want to build a powerful team to take on the epic action RPG challenges that FromSoftware is lauded for, then you'll feel right at home with Elden Ring Nightreign. If you're a casual player looking for a good solo experience, I reckon you'll have to wait for another Souls game entirely (and you'll probably want to skip upcoming Switch 2 exclusive FromSoftware game The Duskbloods, too, which looks like it could inherit a lot of Nightreigns' multiplayer gameplay).

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Digital Trends
a day ago
- Digital Trends
Elden Ring: Nightreign: how to play with friends
The major factor that sets Elden Ring: Nightreign apart from the base game is that it is designed to be a co-op experience. Instead of a long, primarily solo RPG adventure, you and two companions will rush through Limveld slaying bosses, getting loot, and hopefully surviving all three nights. While you could try your luck matchmaking with random players, your best bet at success is to get a group of friends together. FromSoftware games have notoriously obtuse matchmaking systems, and sadly, Elden Ring: Nightreign isn't much better. Here's how to play with your friends. Recommended Videos Difficulty Easy Duration 10 minutes What You Need Complete the tutorial How to play with friends in Elden Ring: Nightreign After beating the tutorial (or more likely dying), you will appear at the Roundtable Hold. This acts as your hub between runs and is where you set up matchmaking. Before explaining how to start a party, you should know that Elden Ring: Nightreign is not a cross-platform game. This means that, no matter what, you can't form a party with someone on a different platform than the one you are on. You also need to pay attention to which boss you're targeting on your run. Besides just limiting which people you randomly matchmake with, anyone you want to team up with also needs to have that same boss selected. Then there's the matter of the world state. Based on different events we won't spoil, your world state can change in multiple ways called Shifting Earth. This further fragments who you can match with because two players with different world states cannot team up. There are also eight different expedition playlists to further dilute the matchmaking pools. If the stars have aligned and you and your friends have the same world state, boss selected, and are on the same platform, here's how to party up. Step 1: Approach the Table of Lost Grace and select Commence Expedition. Step 2: Hit the right bumper to view Matchmaking Settings. Step 3: Either select Invite Members to invite players directly from your friends list or go Under *Multiplayer Password and enter a unique password. Step 4: Send that password to your friends. The only final note we need to make is one you likely already know. Nightreign can only be played solo or in groups of three, with no options for duos. If you set a password and only invite one friend, that third slot will be randomly filled before you can start the game.