Latest news with #JunyaIshizaki
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
"We didn't start off by saying, 'let's aim to build a roguelike'": Elden Ring Nightreign director says FromSoftware wasn't really aiming for a roguelike feel, it just kind of happened
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Elden Ring Nightreign offers a unique roguelike twist on the Souls genre we all know and love, but it turns out that the devs at FromSoftware didn't set out with that exact term in mind when they began creating it. Asked about whether the term "roguelike" came up a lot internally when speaking in an interview with GamesRadar+, Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki tells us that while "a lot of our team members and developers are familiar with these games and how they work," he doesn't "feel like they are an axis for how we base these projects and how we branch out the gameplay ideas." Rather, this came after "a lot of feeling out the gameplay and the structure." Ishizaki explains: "We didn't start off by saying, 'let's aim to build a roguelike,' or something, a game that features a lot of random elements. It's not necessarily a jumping off point for the game design, is what I'm trying to say. It was more the result of a lot of feeling out the gameplay and the structure, and figuring out what the best solution to a certain problem was or what made sense in terms of where that particular gameplay element was headed at the time. "So these are, again, quite serendipitous elements, but they are more answers or solutions to problems than actual game design templates or axes, if you will." Regardless, the final result sees Nightreign as a refreshing take on FromSoftware's brutal action RPG formula. In fact, producer Yasuhiro Kitao recently acknowledged that it has "some peculiar aspects," and is thankful that so many fans have already "bravely jumped into this world." While you're here, be sure to check out our Elden Ring Nightreign review, as well as our roundup of other upcoming new games for 2025.
CNET
2 days ago
- Business
- CNET
Elden Ring Nightreign Director Interview Part Two: Why There's No Poison Swamp and Future DLC
Elden Ring and its DLC Shadow of the Erdtree have been phenomenal successes for FromSoftware, which enabled the studio to grow beyond its devoted but niche following to explode into the mainstream. Its spinoff, Elden Ring Nightreign, takes a different approach with a co-op multiplayer focus and repeatable run-based gameplay. Nightreign is a bold direction for the studio, which had found success with dark fantasy single-player adventures like Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series of games. Most of its hits were directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the Souls formula of tough third-person combat games. The new multiplayer game, Nightreign, builds on Elden Ring's success by remixing its elements into a new gameplay format of fast-paced action. Fitting this new direction, Nightreign is the directing debut of Junya Ishizaki, who had worked on many earlier FromSoftware titles and been the combat director on Elden Ring. Over video chat, CNET got to talk with Ishizaki about his thoughts on Nightreign and many other topics. In part one of our interview, we discussed how things changed over the course of the game's development, from dropping fall damage to collapsing multiple maps into the final one we see today. And, yes, how he solo'd every boss in the game. In part two below, we chat about Ishizaki's favorite Nightfarer class to play and least favorite boss, as well as DLC info and what FromSoftware learned that it'll carry into future games (like, potentially, the Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods coming next year). Of course, we also had to ask the poison swamp question. Woods infested with scarlet rot are the closest you'll get to a poison swamp in Nightreign. Screenshot by David Lumb/CNET David Lumb: I feel like I need to ask about the absence of another element that's been present in many other FromSoftware games: Where's Nightreign's poison swamp? Junya Ishizaki: I think the main reason is that this is not a Miyazaki title so that could be one explanation. Jokes aside, I think it's just a serendipitous factor of game development and what goes into the idea process and what comes out. So who knows what could happen in the future with Nightreign? DL: Considering Elden Ring, Bloodborne and two of the three Dark Souls titles are Miyazaki games, what makes Nightreign an Ishizaki game? JI: I think one of the aspects that not necessarily sets me apart from Miyazaki, but that I like to think of as my specialty, is that I like to prioritize the "game feel" more than a lot of things -- these detailed and fine-tuned things, like what happens when a player falls from a height and hits the ground? How is this supposed to feel? And how does this translate into good-feeling gameplay and into player comfort? So as you know, Nightreign doesn't feature any fall damage but there are ways the characters behave when they hit the floor from various heights and what you can do to counteract that. So these are areas that I like to look at -- the relationship between player and controls and how that translates to game feel. Hidetaka Miyazaki, director of Elden Ring and other FromSoftware games, at CNET's 2024 interview alongside the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. David Lumb/CNET DL: This is a question I asked Miyazaki-san last year when the Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, came out: Of all the FromSoftware games you've worked on, which is your favorite child? JI: That's a tough question. I've worked on Dark Souls 1, 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, of course. I think I'd say the project I have the most memories with is the original Dark Souls. This is the first project I was involved in at FromSoftware and it was my first foray into serious game development, learning the game systems and architecture and every aspect of what goes into these games at this company and what we wanted to convey to the user through gameplay. Learning all of this was extremely valuable to me. Of course, I was new at the time so I was very earnest in helping to make it succeed. DL: During my runs in Nightreign, I ran into memorable Dark Souls bosses like the Gaping Dragon. How did you choose which of the Dark Souls series' many bosses to include? JI: From a gameplay perspective and our sense of, first of all, would they be a good fit for the world and structure of Nightreign. It's the same for the bosses that appear from Elden Ring's world as well. Whether they fit and use the base boss battle format of Elden Ring, we wanted to make sure that they adapt to Nightreign's framework and gameplay as well, and add to that in order to make the experience fresh. Gladius (shown above) and the other eight Nightlords were created for Nightreign. Other bosses, found in the field and appearing at the end of the first two days, are from Elden Ring and Dark Souls games. Bandai Namco DL: Speaking in terms of crossovers, it's great to see Dark Souls bosses in Nightreign, as well as some character costume skins that look straight out of Bloodborne. When are we going to see the Armored Core crossover? JI: We have a very high level of respect for the games that other directors and other creators in the company have created and we never wanted this to feel like a random grab bag kind of approach. We have very fond memories of each of these titles and there was very careful selection that went on in order to choose the right fits and what we felt could be interesting for Nightreign. We didn't want this to feel like too lighthearted of an effort -- we wanted it to feel like there was some love and care and respect put into it. As to the question of an Armored Core or mecha crossover … who knows? It's very difficult to say right now what the future could hold for the company. I think if someone was so inclined, they could approach a crossover of worlds in such a way. But right now, there's really no hint of that. DL: Now I need to know more about how you've played your own game. What's your favorite Nightfarer class? And what's your least favorite boss? JI: I'd have to say my favorite Nightfarer, from a character perspective, is probably the Guardian. I like to feel like I'm protecting the team and that I'm a strong anchor, very unyielding in my approach to any enemy that I've come up against. But he also has some cool aspects to him. He doesn't feel like a full-fledged tank, he feels a little more flexible than that. The Duchess is a powerful and fragile but nimble fighter who pours on damage in fights. Bandai Namco/Screenshot by CNET In terms of pure gameplay, I like the Duchess. She's really quick, fun to dodge with, uses teammates' attacks effectively and, I think, she's very intuitive for me to play. She's the kind of character I would choose in another game. I can really immerse myself in the gameplay without worrying too much about what's going on. As for my least favorite boss fight, obviously I love all boss fights equally [laughs]. The one I have most trouble with is Fulgore, sort of a centaur type character missing one arm. That one really requires me to keep on my toes and keep focused. That's a tricky one for me. DL: Interesting, he definitely wiped the floor with me when I went against him -- and I appreciated how tough he was without seeming unfair. Broadly speaking, have players responded to the game as you expected or surprised you? JI: The overall response to the network test and to the cycle of the game has been incredibly strong. I'm really glad to see all the feedback we've been getting and we have a lot of great points to learn from and to examine in terms of balancing the game's difficulty, bringing up the highs and tweaking the lows up until release. Personally, I love playing multiplayer games and being part of that community discussion, so seeing this take off with Nightreign, seeing what players thought was [overpowered] or what was meta or what's going to be the new meta when a new character is released -- this was really fun to see. This really made me glad to see these kinds of divisive opinions and discussion. I can't wait to see everyone play it at launch. DL: Great segue -- what is the future of Nightreign? Does that include more content beyond the announced DLC? JI: For future content, we have the already-announced DLC, which we're currently underway on developing. The content for that will be focused on mainly new playable characters and new boss encounters, so please look forward to that. And then of course, beyond that, we can't say definitely right now but we will be continuing to support the game with patches and updates according to what we see from player data and player tendencies. So sticking tight to the game and watching for balance changes that need to be made and generally supporting the game as we have done with our previous titles. Elden Ring Nightreign launched on May 30 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.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Elden Ring Nightreign's Massive Steam Launch Tarnished by 'Mixed' User Reviews Over Lack of Duos Co-Op, Voice Chat
Elden Ring Nightreign has enjoyed a massive launch on Steam, but the excitement was tarnished by a 'mixed' user review rating. FromSoftware's co-op spin-off saw an incredible 313,593 peak concurrent users on Steam overnight, enough to make Elden Ring Nightreign one of the most-played games on Valve's platform. But it also came with a number of negative reviews (67% of the reviews are positive so far), most of which point out Elden Ring Nightreign's lack of duos, or two-player co-op, and voice chat. Elden Ring Nightreign drops players into the shifting lands of Limveld, exploring and fighting for survival either solo or in groups of three. There is no way to play two-player co-op. As explained in IGN's Elden Ring Nightreign review: "Let's get the most important caveat out of the way first: if you are hoping to tackle Nightreign entirely solo, and are anything less than a hardcore Elden Ring player that actively seeks out ways to make that already difficult game even more challenging, Nightreign isn't for you. Yes, there is technically a single-player option, but it is so poorly balanced that I would be shocked if it isn't patched and adjusted within the first month of release. And this is coming from someone who lives and breathes these types of games." We've got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you're wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters. In IGN's interview with Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki, the Nightreign lead developer discussed the choice to lean on solos and trios as the core experience options. When asked why there's no option for a pair of players to drop in together without a matchmade third player, Ishizaki said it was overlooked. "The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we're very sorry about that," said Ishizaki. "As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it's at the core of Nightreign. "Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I'm just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start," Ishizaki continued. "And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well." This means that if you're playing with just your favorite duos partner, you have to accept a random third into your game. Playing trios is very much what Elden Ring Nightreign is built some players are unhappy with the situation. 'Elden Ring co-op, but not really,' reads one negative Steam review. 'You need three people, two isn't allowed. And why? Because. How can something like this happen? I'm deeply disappointed and thought about a refund.' 'No duo option, had random people join to just run off and do their own thing,' reads another negative review. 'Let me duo with my mate…' 'If you don't have two other friends to play with in voice chat, don't waste your time,' another negative review said. 'Game is Elden Ring, but 3p, and the solo queue is abysmal (queuing up to play with randoms). Without VC it's super hard to coordinate where to go, where chests/consumables are, trying to drop items for teammates, etc. Even though I really love Elden Ring and roguelites in general as well as Nightreign's syle of gameplay, I wouldn't see myself ever playing this game again without friends in VC, or if 1p experience wasn't as hard as a 'level 1 Elden Ring any% speedrun.' 'I think no matter how good you are at the game, it doesn't matter if you're bad at teamwork, especially in an environment where communicating is close to nonexistent (pins in a punishing fast-paced PvE game isn't it lol).' The voice chat issue keeps cropping up. Here's another negative review: 'Impossible to make progress without voice chat. If you have three friends you can talk to and play regularly, you will have a great time, the connection is smooth, the map is full of events and the game loop is very interesting. 'However I am a 41-year-old man and I don't have friends to regularly play this with, let alone two others (you need three people to go in as a team, two won't work either). 'Even if they bring voice chat in the game (I'm not sure how there isn't one at the moment) you won't really enjoy this as much as if you were trying to fight with buddies, as your responsiveness with randoms will affect how you feel about your game a lot. 'Playing it solo queue with randoms is hard, it's hard to communicate, it's hard to share items, it's hard to discuss tactics or decide on the next area to farm, it's just hard. 'TL;DR, if you don't have two more friends you can group up with regularly, it's not fun.' As Ishizaki suggested in our interview, duos is something FromSoftware may add to Elden Ring Nightreign in the future. Until then, you're faced with solo or three-player only. Ahead of the launch of Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware warned PC gamers that they may experience framerate drops if they're using "the latest graphics cards." In a vague note to fans included with Elden Ring Nightreigh's day-one patch notes, FromSoftware said it was investigating the cause, and suggested those affected drop the graphics settings down from the default "High" to "Medium" or "Low" and lowering the screen resolution, as well as installing the latest drivers for your graphics card. Check out these crucial Elden Ring Nightreign tips and tricks we put together from the network test — and keep an eye on the IGN Nightreign wiki for plenty more guides when the game launches. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ or confidentially at wyp100@
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What Elden Ring Nightreign's First-Time Director Learned from Miyazaki
The first developer name that comes to your mind when I say "Souls" series is very likely Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of the Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Bloodborne, and of course, Elden Ring. But Nightreign marks the second time in the series the director baton is being passed to another: Junya Ishizaki. During my visit to FromSoftware's office in Japan, I got to sit down to talk with Ishizaki-san about what it's like sitting in the director's chair, dig into some of the more unique design decisions Nightreign brings to the table, and learn a little more about the origins of this Elden Ring spin-off. In a previous interview you had said that you brought the idea for Nightreign to Miyazaki-san who gave you the green light. Was the initial pitch for Nightreign close to what was ultimately made or did anything change between the conception and the execution of the idea? Junya Ishizaki - Director of Elden Ring: Nightreign: The general concept we planned didn't change a great deal from what we initially pitched to Miyazaki, but during the course of development we've had a lot of input from other staff, ideas and concerns and all that sort of thing, which we've managed to take and incorporate into the game in exciting ways that kind of went beyond the initial concept. So talking about some of that feedback, you guys had a Closed Network Test. Can you talk a little bit about how that helped you inform development for Nightreign and what lessons you learned from people playing the test? Of course, game balance was a large part of it. Balancing and tweaking the game difficulty is always a large challenge when it comes to these games, along with responding to user feedback and incorporating that into the game as well. So we're continuing to look at that, but it was generally interesting to see player behavior, and get some good feedback from how players played the game and interacted with the systems. And also there's a lot of new rules and a lot of new systems in this new game design of Nightreign. So it was important to see how players gave us feedback to that and how we could make the onboarding process and explain those new systems better for them when the game comes out. Can you talk about what it's been like jumping into the director's seat for this project? And did you get any advice from Miyazaki in terms of how to approach directing a video game? As director, my feeling was essentially: I've just got to do this, I've got to put my all into it. It was me who brought the initial idea forward, so it's obviously something I wanted to do, but I realized that I would need the resolve to see it through to completion or see it through to the end. In terms of advice from Miyazaki — well this wasn't just from Miyazaki but other directors at From — the one that stuck with me and etched into my mind was that a director shouldn't hold back. So, on the day-to-day process of making games, something that maybe I would've given a pass to would not get through so easily as director. I'd have to be a bit more critical, put a bit more discipline on myself to really take a good look at these things and decide the best way forward for the whole project. Going back to that previous interview, you had said before that you can only play Nightreign either as a solo player or in a group of three. If you play in a group of two, then it matchmakes the third person. Can you talk a little bit about why there's no option for just a pair of players to drop into a match together? The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we're very sorry about that. As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it's at the core of Nightreign. Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I'm just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start. And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well. Talking a little bit about that solo experience, can you explain how the game scales down the difficulty? Are there any unique things that happen when you're playing as a solo player versus playing in a squad? Seeing as this game is built around three players, we understand the concerns of those solo players, but essentially a lot of the time in Nightreign you will be acting and behaving on your own. Even in a group as three, you'll be going off and challenging different areas of the map and collecting different things before you accumulate together at the boss fight. So solo play is generally encouraged and is a natural part of the game loop, but also in general for those solo players — and this might be something that's difficult to notice in multiplayer — but the activeness and aggressiveness of enemies towards any one single player has been adjusted so that you don't find yourself in any unreasonable multi-foe fights. And just generally, when you're playing single player, the parameters adjust dynamically depending on the number of players in that session. So we hope that this will alleviate that feeling somewhat. Of course there are no revives when you're solo, there are no teammates to revive you, so it is definitely a more challenging thing for the player to face. But we have also incorporated a self-revive feature which is possible to discover around the map just to allow them some more chances to continue that learning of the patterns and learning of the bosses without having to restart all over again. Switching gears a bit to the story of Nightreign, can you set the stage and talk about how this game fits into Elden Ring's lore? Nightreign shares essentially the base setting and the world of Elden Ring, but it's played out on a different stage so to speak. So there's this concept called the Night Lord, which is a sort of abstract phenomenon or calamity that has befallen the lands between in this alternate timeline and much like a real-life calamity, it's something that it's not done by design or intention, it's just something that has occurred naturally and it's befallen the lands between and it needed some sort of opposition. It needs something to oppose it and that opposition comes in the form of the Nightfarers who are these warriors who are entrusted with the fate of opposing and defeating the Nightlord and putting a stop to this terrible calamity. One of the things that I got to find out while I've been here is the way the story plays out over the course of a variety of remembrances. Can you talk a little bit about the decision to make the story of Nightreign come out through these individual character storylines versus a more traditional style of telling the story with a beginning, middle, and end? So as mentioned just now of course we have this phenomenon called the Night Lord and this calamity has brought these Nightfaring warriors together for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy of defeating the Night Lord. So these are different characters from different times and different cultures who have been brought together to face this calamity, but that's not their sole objective. They each have their own aims and their own motivations and their own anguishes that they are grappling with. We hope that players will enjoy exploring and unraveling each of these aspects, unraveling more of their character backstories and find some attachment to each character. This time of course, players aren't creating their own character, so we hopefully have incorporated a lot of elements that give them a lot of character and give them a lot of room to explore and find their favorites among them. Obviously, this was designed as a co-op PVE kind of experience, but PVP has always been a big part of the FromSoft RPG lineage. Was PVP ever something that was considered like having your squad being able to invade another squad's world or anything like that? From the start, PVP was not something that we very actively considered for Nightreign. We wanted it to be a co-op multiplayer experience at its core and we found that as we developed these character actions and these unique abilities for each character, balancing them and tweaking them around PVP as well proved to be very… Not only very difficult, but took away from those ideas and that scope that we'd established for each of these characters. So we really wanted the focus to be on PVE and on co-op, and so we knew where our priorities were. So no, we didn't consider PVP in Nightreign. Kind of drilling into the whole balance aspect, can you talk about how strict your approach to balancing has been and how the approach differs from something more single-player focused like base Elden Ring that also has those PVP elements? For more solo play oriented games such as Elden Ring, of course we're taking a lot of things into account such as the stages, how the enemies are laid out and designed, the wide breadth of player builds and equipment as well. So this time the approach is a little bit different and we are trying to cater to a fun experience with three people. So making sure the experience is fun at its core with a group of three, but it also doesn't collapse if it's a solo player as well. So combined with the new character actions that we brought in for each of the Nightfarers and for each of these new bosses, for example Gladius, I believe you faced yesterday or today's session, these are bosses as well that have been tuned and balanced for party play, for solo, for three play co-op. So this was an important aspect of the balancing approach for Nightreign. Speaking of those bosses, it seems like the difficulty of the bosses compared to something like Elden Ring has kind of jumped up — the bosses deal a lot more damage, they take a lot more hits, presumably being balanced because due to the nature of having three players in a squad. Did you have an idea in mind of what might be too difficult for base Elden Ring, but just right for Nightreign? So with the general rule set of Nightreign being this, or rather, the structure being this three day/night cycle, we wanted the boss fight at the end, this culmination of everything, to reflect the player, what they've learned and what they've established during that time. So this was an important aspect of the balance. You don't get a lot of room to breathe maybe that you do in Elden Ring where you have a lot of time to build up and go back to a boss. But instead you have this quite comparatively strict structure with the three days and nights to prepare. And so that was an important aspect of balancing these bosses. They are supposed to be very imposing, and challenging, and fearsome when you face them, but after some time and some learning and some observation, you'll be able to defeat them at the end of this three day and night cycle. So that was a large part of it was creating that balance between the structure and that culminates in a fun and exciting boss fight itself.A big aspect of FromSoft's prior games is the post-game: New Game Plus, and other post-game challenges that await you even after you complete the game. Does Nightreign have something like that waiting for players after they defeat the eight Nightlords? We have incorporated some post-game or end-game features for players once they've gone through all of the Nightlords. I first want to stress that to get to that point, we feel that there is enough content there to satisfy users in general, so to get through each of those Nightlords and use each of these characters and experiment with the game as a whole. But beyond that, you have the unlocking relics, new relic rites to experiment even more with the character builds. You have these elements that you will be accumulating as you proceed through the game, such as the relics and the character stories and scenarios, but there's no time limit on these at all. There's no limit to how much the player can explore and how long they take. So we hope that these elements will give them a little extra bump to go past the end game and explore a bit more of what the game has to offer. Did you ever consider making Nightreign a free-to-play game instead of it being a premium priced experience? And can you talk a little bit about the decision to put a price tag on it when so much of the competition in the multiplayer space is free-to-play these days? Free-to-play was one consideration, but given the time and the budget and the workforce that we had and the ideas that we were developing with our staff that we were cultivating, we felt that the best course of action for Nightreign was to release it as a non-full price but also not full play title. So we hope that there's enough content there that justifies this purchase and that players will get to experience everything it has to offer. And finally, is there anything that you're really happy about and are particularly proud of with regards to what you accomplished with Nightreign? It's a bit of a broad summary, but I'm just generally pleased that we managed to take this game from its initial concept to its implementation and develop it as in terms of the vision that I initially had from that three day and night structure to the way that players come together and sort of converge in this condensed RPG system and to fight against that boss together, this was a strong idea that I had and I knew that it would go well that if we could implement it properly and I know that games are, when they take shape, it's a bit of a miracle in itself, so I'm extremely thankful to the team and I'm extremely pleased that we managed to realize this concept to its completion. So yes, that's definitely something I'm very proud of. [Editor's Note: This article previously mentioned that this was the first time that the baton of director had been passed from Hidetaka Miyazaki to another. It has been corrected to mention that it's actually the second time, with Yui Tanimura and Tomohiro Shibuya co-directing Dark Souls 2. We apologize for the error.] Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
Engadget
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Elden Ring Nightreign's next patch will make gameplay easier for solo players
Just a day after its release, FromSoftware announced a crucial patch for Elden Ring Nightreign players who prefer to solo queue. The game's developer posted on X that Patch 1.02 will be released next week, delivering some bug fixes and "improvements for solo expeditions." More specifically, FromSoftware will add the effect of 'Automatic Revival Upon Defeat' that allows a self-revival once per night boss battle for solo expeditions. Players will also get more runes, which should provide a more balanced gaming experience when venturing alone. This news of this patch follows several criticisms of the game being poorly optimized when playing solo, versus in a party of three as it was designed for. FromSoftware's titles have a reputation for being difficult, but early reviews pointed out that Nightreign offers poor scaling with certain mechanics, abilities and boss fights that cater towards a full party. Despite the millions of copies sold on the first day, Nightreign holds a "mixed" Steam user review rating thanks to the solo queue issues, along with a lack of communication tools, cross-platform play and less replayability than other Souls titles. For FromSoftware, Elden Ring Nightreign represents a stylistic shift into the roguelike genre based on its best-selling predecessor and it might still be working out some of the kinks. The game's director, Junya Ishizaki, told IGN in an interview that jumping into an expedition as a duo was 'overlooked during development' but is something that the developer is looking at and considering for post-launch support. Some players are also having issues with matchmaking itself, where FromSoftware recommends restarting the process to get into an expedition. As for rebalancing for solo play, FromSoftware said that more details about this upcoming patch will come next week.
