Latest news with #FromSoftware
Forbes
38 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Elden Ring Nightreign' Is Already Being Patched To Be Easier
Elden Ring Nightreign The launch of Elden Ring Nightreign has resulted in all manner of takes about FromSoftware's adventure into a multiplayer-only co-op game. In many ways, it's a lot more punishing than the original Elden Ring and its Souls games, given mechanics like losing levels and tanking entire, lengthy runs on death. Many may say that's part of the fun, and while that may be true, even FromSoft thinks Nightreign may be pushing the limit a little too much. The developer has announced Patch 1.02, set to be released next week, which will make two changes to make things a little easier, especially for solo players. The runes thing is self-explanatory, as runs will now be more rewarding. The auto-revive for solo players on Night Lords is to combat the intense difficulties of those fights where a single wrong move can be death. So now it's…two wrong moves. Though Night Lords are hardly the only bosses that pose an extreme challenge for solo players. Elden Ring Nightreign It's not a blanket difficulty nerf, which I think most players of the game probably would not want. There are certainly mainly complaints about how hard the game is, but even if it's tougher than other FromSoft titles, I think there's a crowd that wants that. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder However, there are other significant additions players are hoping to see other than what's being offered here. FromSoft has actually apologized for the lack of duos in the game, meaning it's impossible to play with just one other friend, and that should be in development for a later update. The other issues, a lack of in-game comms past pinging and the inability to crossplay with friends, seem harder to overcome and if they were addressed, would take a long time to implement. The lack of comms especially, text or voice, seems bizarre in a wholly co-op game, and results in silent runs with random teammates you have no way to coherently strategize with, and you just have to hope everyone is on the same page. Despite being multiplayer, Elden Ring Nightreign is not a live game. It will not be pumping out content or seasons or things like that. But it will release fixes, updates and features over time. It's good they're starting off quickly here in just week one. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
CNET
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Elden Ring Nightreign is a Drag to Play Solo. Here's Why It's Way Better With Friends
I've never been one to bristle at calling in help while playing one of FromSoftware's Souls games. I stalked the night all by myself in Bloodborne, but I played through Elden Ring with my best friend using the Seamless Co-Op mod -- only after I explored the game alone, the way I prefer it. While I don't have any qualms with calling for help or using spirit summons (as far as I'm concerned, these are tools in my arsenal to level the playing field), I do enjoy trying to take on the game all by myself the first time around, slaying massive enemies and making epic discoveries by my lonesome. So I embarked on my first Elden Ring Nightreign expedition alone with steely resolve, readying myself to charge into battle as the defense-oriented Guardian class (called Nightfarers in the game). I collected enough runes to get to level five, survived until nighttime and was promptly kicked straight back to the lobby when a duo of Demi-Human bosses passed through a cloud of miasma and beat the stuffing out of me. This became a bit of a trend while playing solo -- I never reached the end of an expedition by myself. I know I'm afflicted with what is colloquially known as a skill issue, and that's what led me to struggle so much with Nightreign's solo experience. As a matter of fact, I was so soured by my single-player runs that I didn't even think I liked Nightreign until I got a chance to queue into a multiplayer lobby. Though once I got my posse together, I quickly fell in love with the game. Thankfully, players may not suffer quite as much playing solo thanks to a day-one patch that looks to buff players going it alone, according to Eurogamer. 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. Some of these abilities are useful by themselves, like Ironeye's dagger slash that gives him multiple precious invincibility frames (as well as bonus damage on the affected enemy) and Duchess' time rewind that stacks up tons of damage instances at once. But most abilities require a team to capitalize on them in order to feel truly effective. Ironeye's ultimate ability is timely to set up, but it does massive poise damage, staggering an enemy for a melee character to follow up with a critical hit. When I played by myself, I found that each role I committed to floundered without support from other people. The Guardian tanked hits but wouldn't have the stamina to follow-up with big damage. As Ironeye, I was under constant melee pressure, preventing me from consistently peppering my opponents with ranged damage. The Wylder might be the best all-rounder of the Nightfarers, especially with his one-time death-escaping passive, but there were still situations where I wished I had other players to chip away at the boss from far away while I dodged around its feet. Nightreign feels like a smooth and natural experience when you plan ahead and cover other people's weaknesses. I had the most luck when I played the ranged Ironeye and matched up with another CNET reviewer and a Bandai Namco employee who played as a tank and a melee attacker respectively, allowing me to stagger bosses by firing arrows at their weak spots from afar. If you're ever rooted in one place, you're frittering your precious time away. Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNET Speed is key -- and you go slower alone Unlike the leisurely pace you can take in previous FromSoftware games, there's no time to take in the grandeur of Nightreign's version of The Lands Between. 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).
Tom's Guide
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
I thought Elden Ring Nightreign was a flop at first — here's the one thing that made me love it
Elden Ring Nightreign is a game of highs and lows. After more than 20 hours played, and every major boss (known as Nightlords) vanished, it's provided me with some of the best co-op moments I've ever had in gaming, but also some of the most tedious, frustrating and just plain unfun multiplayer sessions I've ever endured. My experience can be neatly categorized into runs that offered pure joy and ones that were, frankly, an unmitigated disaster. But it's not because of a skill issue (even if I am an average Souls player, at best), but rather because I started by relying on 'random' companions rather than pulling together a squad. If you're not aware, Elden Ring Nightreign is a new multiplayer-focused spin-off from 2022's smash hit, and very challenging, Elden Ring. It sees you and two online companions attempt to survive across three days in a procedurally generated mishmash of the base game's map. It's a highly streamlined take on the Elden Ring gameplay loop, and that proves to be a lot of fun, but you need to get just the right conditions to see the game's true potential. Elden Ring Nightregin is a new co-op spin on the best-selling RPG. It combines roguelite and Battle Royale elements and drops you and two companions on an ever-shifting map as you look to survive three days and take on an uber-powerful boss. You have the choice of playing as one of eight unique characters, each with their own playstyle and unique abilities. Plus, for those who enjoy tough encounters, Elden Ring Nightreign offers some of the most difficult bosses developer FromSoftware has ever made. In my first two hours of Elden Ring' Nightreign I made one crucial mistake: I opted to group up with fellow Nightfairers via the game's online matchmaking system. Essentially, I was teamed up with 'random' players from around the globe. I didn't know these players personally, and beyond placing pins on the game's rapidly shrinking maps (the closing circle mechanic from battle royale games like Fortnite is shamelessly cribbed), we had no means of communicating. In a tough game like this, communication is key. In these initial runs, my companions and I just didn't have the means to coordinate properly. Instead, we bumbled around the map, often traveling in opposite directions, and failing to synergize our ability to take down the game's toughest bosses. This led to spectacularly unsuccessful runs that were significantly more frustrating than fun. On a couple of attempts, we did manage to stumble our way to the final boss of a run, but the odds of actually beating these powerful foes were virtually nil. We wiped in seconds. At this point, after a couple of hours of play, I was genuinely thinking that Elden Ring Nightreign was a huge misstep from developer FromSoftware, a studio with an insane hit rate. I briefly considered whether it was even worth persisting with my playthrough. But I'm glad that was just a fleeting thought. Things dramatically changed when I did the thing I probably should have done from the start: Grouped up with some friends and industry peers. Getting a three-man squad together, that included TG's own Ryan Epps (who reviewed Elden Ring Nightreign), took my experience from largely frustrating to remarkably fun. Suddenly, runs became an intense race against the constantly ticking clock as my companions and I strategized on the fly to craft the most efficient path through the game's shifting world. We became obsessed with figuring out the quickest way to acquire runes (Which allow you to level up your chosen character), loot high-powered weapons and still have enough time remaining to visit every church we could find, as these provide health-restoring flasks. Battling bosses also became not just significantly easier, but seriously enjoyable as well. We could devise a plan, coordinate our special abilities, and call out when our oversized combatant was about to deploy a devastating chain of attacks that required us to leap out of the way. I was also able to consistently reach the final boss of each stage and start bringing them down. Even when the repetitive nature of each run became a little monotonous, just having friendly teammates to goof around with kept me hooked and eager to keep playing more. During a highly memorable encounter with one of the game's toughest Nightlords, my squad managed to bring the beast down with each of us having just a sliver of health left after three failed attempts. It was in this real fist-pumping moment that I got to see Elden Ring Nightreign at its very best. There's an adage in gaming that any multiplayer game is better played with friends, but Elden Ring Nightreign takes this idea to a whole new level. If you're on the fence about picking up the game, I strongly suggest you only cough up your cash if you can convince at least two other friends to join you on your journey. Trying to play this brutal game via online matchmaking, or god-forbidden, solo is a recipe for a bad time. It's just not worth the headache. Under the right conditions, when you have a team of (at least vaguely) competent players all communicating, Elden Ring Nightreign is truly something special. But be warned, if the conditions of play are anything less than optimal, the entire structure falls apart and becomes miserable. Nevertheless, it's a good sign that I went from considering dropping the game after a few hours, to 20 hours later, having beaten every single boss Nightreign could throw at me, yet I remain eager to jump in again to keep getting that intoxicating adrenaline rush that only a FromSoftware game can provide. However, I won't be making the same mistake twice, and unless I can pull together a posse each time I want to dive into Elden Ring Nightreign's pretty unique brand of co-op action, I'll opt to play something else instead.
Digital Trends
a day ago
- Entertainment
- 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.
CNET
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Elden Ring Nightreign Patch 1.02 Aims to Fix Brutal Solo Difficulty
Elden Ring Nightreign is officially out, and a lot of players are having a tough time with the game. As a team-based game, players are having trouble finding a good party to take down the Nightlord. While solo play is possible, it's currently too difficult -- although that appears to be changing soon. Developer FromSoftware sent a tweet on Friday via the official Elden Ring account about the upcoming changes in patch 1.02. It includes two big changes that will immensely help solo runs: automatic revival and more runes. In Elden Ring Nightreign, players are dropped on the island of Limveld to survive for three in-game days to take on the Nightlord. The task is tough enough for a team, but the difficulty ramps up when playing solo, as the bosses are still a chore, as they're meant to be beaten by three players. Automatic revival is a one-time revive for solo players to take down the bosses, and it will help tremendously. Boss battles are tough solo, so being able to revive yourself will make the fights more manageable. Gaining more runes will also be a big help. Runes act both as the currency and experience points in Elden Ring Nightreign. The more you have, the higher level you can obtain, and players need to be the right level to properly defeat a boss, otherwise, they're too weak to do any damage and not survive any hits. Read more: Elden Ring Nightreign Beginner's Guide: The Essentials for Not Getting Wrecked in the First 5 Minutes Patch 1.02 for Elden Ring Nightreign will come out sometime next week. It will also add some other fixes to the game, along with improving solo play. Patch 1.01 went into effect on Thursday, right before the game's early access launch. FromSoftware didn't provide many details about the changes made in that update, but some players did say they noticed solo runs were slightly easier. Elden Ring Nightreign is available now for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One consoles for $40. Owning the original Elden Ring is not required to play this game.
