Elden Ring co-op spin-off Nightreign has some very unexpected gimmicks-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Elden Ring: Nightreign – it looks like FromSoftware’s spacebar is stuck (Bandai Namco)

There’s a new Elden Ring due out next year but it’s not sequel and it may not even be a role-player, based on the first enigmatic trailer.

Only a few days ago developer FromSoftware claimed that there were no plans for Elden Ring 2 and yet they also insisted that the franchise would continue, even though there’s not going to be any more DLC.

Many took this to be a reference to some kind of movie or TV project, which has previously been hinted at, but what they were actually referring to was a new standalone game due out in 2025: Elden Ring: Nightreign.

As you’d expect from the series, it’s not entirely clear what’s going on, but it looks like From is taking some inspiration from Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, in that the game seems to be reusing the same open world environment to create a new game, but with new gameplay mechanics.

The most telling part of the game’s reveal, at The Game Awards on Friday night, is that it was described as a ‘co-op action adventure’, rather than an action role-playing game.

That doesn’t necessarily mean there are no role-playing elements at all but the annoucement refers to controlling characters with ‘different personalities’, which may imply you’re controlling pre-made protagonists rather than those you create from scratch yourself.

Elden Ring, and most other From games, have always had a co-op element but they’ve never allowed you to play the whole game with friends – with allied characters usually represented as luminous ghosts.

You can clearly see that’s not the case in the trailer, where everyone appears as a tangible part of the game world, so we’re going to guess that means they’re there all the time, even though it’s also something you can still play solo.

You can also see new abilities, with a magic bird you can hang onto and glide with being used multiple times to get around. Characters also seem to be able to run on walls and generally appear to be more acrobatic than in the original.

Is Elden Ring: Nightreign a roguelike?

The annoucement clarifies that Nightreign ‘retains some of the enemies, weapons, and other elements of Elden Ring’ but that it has been ‘reconstructed with a completely different game design’ and features a ‘condensed’ version of the original game map.

It’s not entirely clear but the important change to the overall gameplay seems to be that the world ‘reshuffles’ between each game session, which involves a ‘three day-and-night cycle’, with the map shrinking each day until you face a boss at the end.

‘For those who fall in defeat; unsuccessful runs will grant players relics to allow them to customise and upgrade their characters tailored to their personal play styles,’ reads the annoucement. In other words, Nightreign is a roguelike or at least something very similar.

For story purposes the game takes place in a ‘parallel universe’, but you can clearly see Malenia and Melina, so that’ll probably be an excuse to include most fan favourite characters, regardless of their fate in the main game.

Weeeee! (Bandai Namco)

When will Elden Ring: Nightreign be released?

Night Raven will be out in 2025, but FromSoftware has provided any indication of exactly when. That implies it’s not going to be particularly early in the year and it’s very unlikely it’ll mirror the February release date of Elden Ring itself.

You can never tell with FromSoftware but if it was going to be out that soon they would surely have mentioned it, not least because publisher Bandai Namco will want that sweet, sweet pre-order money.

Since the original was cross-gen, Nightreign will also be released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, as well as Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Elden Ring: Nightreign seems to be a roguelike (Bandai Namco)

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