Rambling about Elden Ring: Nightreign

Well that was a pleasant surprise wasn’t it? Admittedly it was spoiled a little bit for me when I saw a rumours roundup that had “Elden Ring Monster Hunter” which admittedly I wrote off as fake. Turns out it was real in some capacity but the real thing is so much better.

So the game is a rogue like, taking place in an alternate version of Limgrave by the name of Limveld. Every night the Night encroaches forcing the player to fight a boss, eventually leading to a fight against one of the Night lords. I love the concept and I love that there are 8 different classes to choose from. It’s going to be interesting seeing how different each of them will play.

Lore behind the Setting

I believe the story follows a timeline where the Nox weren’t banished. In lore, the Nox were banished underground due to their great betrayal. I subscribe to the theory that this betrayal was the injuring of Metyr, Mother of Fingers. The evidence as follows:

- Metyr is the daughter of the Greater Will

- Metyr has a large looking slash wound on her chest

- The Nox’s treasure is a weapon called ‘The Fingerslayer Blade’

- Ranni uses this weapon to kill her own Fingers

So in this timeline, either the Nox never attempted to kill Metyr or perhaps they were successful, allowing for the rise of the Night Lord.

There’s plenty of area for lore expansion even if this story is parallel to Elden Ring. They share the same history, all the way up until the Shattering. As a quick aside, The Shattering and The Shattering War are sometimes referred to as one event or a series of events – Catalyst and Consequence. Regardless if the timeline is the same then the following events occur:

- Marika becomes a God

- War against the Fire Giants and Godfrey’s banishment, Tarnished on the Long March

- Leyndell/Liurnia war

- Messmer’s Crusade in the Land of Shadow

- The Night of the Black Knives – the death of Godwyn’s Soul and Ranni’s body

- Marika shatters the Elden Ring, is imprisoned in the Erdtree.

- The Shattering War – Rykard is consumed by the Serpent, Radahn and Malenia’s battle ruins the Caelid Wilds, Mohg is entranced to kidnap Miquella

If the shattering war didn’t happen, then all the major players are in motion still – Rykard isn’t a snake yet, Radahn isn’t afflicted with Scarlet Rot and by extension the Swamp of Aeonia is fine. Malenia is still up and about and Miquella might be in his cocoon still, unless Mohg has gotten him. All that being said, they may not touch upon any of this.

What do we know then? Well for one we’re not Tarnished or the Tarnished from Elden Ring – The Tarnished weren’t summoned back by Grace Post Shattering War. This means no Melina and no Torrent. We are referred to as a ‘Nightfarer’ and I think we’re just normal people (Save for you know, the Goat and Eagle people), so not Tarnished. We still use Sites of Grace as we weren’t once stripped of Grace but perhaps we are unique in this timeline of encroaching Night

Old Embers Return. In an evolution of the timey-wimey nonsense of the Souls games, the power of the Night is bringing back bosses from the Dark Souls universe – so far we’ve seen the Centipede Demon of Dark Souls 1, the Duke’s Dear Freja of Dark Souls 2 and the Nameless King of Dark Souls 3, all of which will have new moves at their disposal and I imagine will have that patented Elden Ring delay on attacks to shake off any muscle memory.

The Night Lord…s. While the trailer seemed to imply the presence of a singular Nightlord but from what has been reported by outlets who got to try the game early, each of the final 8 bosses are considered to be ‘Night Lord’ so. There is a titular one that they’ve not yet revealed, the one alluded to in an item description of Elden Ring - the Nox Lord of Night but we do know of one.

Bosses

There’s a few new and returning bosses we can talk about, excluding the aforementioned Dark Souls:

Demi Human Queen and Demi Human Swordsman

A Classic big and small combo. Don’t need Ornstein and Smough when these two are here. I’d wager these are Night 1 Bosses, a lone player isn’t going to have much trouble with these let alone a team of 3. Maybe a couple swordsmen and the queen. However I wouldn’t want them to do have 3 of every boss just for the sake.

Tree Sentinel and Carian(?) Knights

Given the fact there’s no Torrent and the player has Sekiro esque running speed, it’s going to be very amusing to run literal rings around enemies like the Tree Sentinel. If it’s actually Carian Knights accompanying him, that’s quite interesting lore wise – echoing the Union of Gold and the Moon as seen with Radagon and Renalla’s Marriage.

Gravity Maw Dragon?

Maybe not a boss, it’s got similar vibes to how things like the Grafted Scion was shown pre-release for Elden Ring. Either way it looks funky, curious to know what the lore is. I think I can see the kind of purple of gravity magic, it doesn’t look like it’s coming from one of the players. Unrelated but It’s interesting that the player breaks their friend out of a grab attack, perhaps that’s new to Nightreign.

Margit, the Fell Omen

He’s back… You can say what you want about Margit but you can’t deny he’s persistant. Margit isn’t going to be an end of night boss, instead he will appear randomly to hunt the player down as they explore. It’d be hilarious if he could intrude on boss fights but he’ll be probably just be an overworld threat which is fine by me.

Erdtree Shaman

I’ll be honest, I’ve got no idea what I’m looking at here. It seems like Nightreign is bringing in different races like the Eagle man amongst the Nightfarers. This guy is a goat that looks both like the Bell Bearings the player collects as well as a Basilisk . The many eyes are spread across the body but holy magic is being cast. I’m taking a stab and dubbing him Erdtree Shaman - a last resort of the Erdtree and Golden Order. Probably way off though, he might not even be a boss or even enemy.

There’s been One Night Lord confirmed and another speculated…

Tricelphus/Gladius

Tricelphus is the three headed red wolf that uses the chain whip that we see at the end of the trailer. When it splits into three beings, perhaps at phase transition, one of the wolves goes by the name Gladius. Maybe they all do?

I’ve described them as Red Wolves but they do look a wee bit different to the various Red Wolf enemies and bosses seen in the game. The fire affinity they all have is the first major change given that the others are sorcery and sometimes holy based.

This was the Night Lord presented to Journalists at the preview event and seems to be the first of 8 in the game.

Misbegotten King(?)

No footage of this one sadly, only a picture. They also don’t have a name but given the bestial like appearance and the giant sword they wield having Radagon’s Rune on it, I believe this creature to be some sort of Misbegotten (The filename for the Leonine Misbegotten’s are Children of Radagon). Obvious comparisons can also be made to the centaur incantation that Crucible Knight Devonia can cast in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC but I think we’re definitely more on the Misbegotten side of things rather than Crucible. The final thing linking this figure to Radagon and therefore the Misbegotten is the missing left arm, same as Radagon himself.

Godwyn??? Gloam Eyed Queen???

Don’t let the flame die out, I say. The timeline seems to confirm that even here Maliketh beats the Gloam Eyed Queen, but if the Night Lord can bring bosses from other games then why not revive a fan favourite lore character. Godwyn too has a chance, perhaps the Night has had an adverse affect on his corpse giving it new life. The developers have room to play around here.

Scrapped Concepts mayhaps?

Eagle eyed fans noticed that the model for Tricelphus bares a strong similarity to the rig of a scrapped Bloodborne boss, the ‘Great One Beast’ as it was dubbed by fans. Bloodborne bosses proper are off the table thanks to Sony ownership (Demon’s Souls too, probably Sekiro as well for different reasons) but perhaps the scrapped ones are fair game. Personally I’d like to see the Cainhurst Knight or the Waking World Moon Presence brought back for new designs.

Vs Other Nightfarers

For each run you play as one of the 8 possible Nightfarers. I’d be willing to guess that the other 7 (or 5 in full three player co-op) could appear as a boss fight. FromSoftware have wanted to do this concept since Oscar in Dark Souls 1 and this might finally be their chance to execute the idea.

Concerns about the Game

Due to its nature of a roguelike, death means restart. That’s fine, that’s just the nature. Co-op players can revive each other but solo players might not have the equivalent. Boss run backs are bad but imagine having to do a 40 minute run to get one shot by a boss. Again this is standard for Roguelikes but I do wonder how it will translate to Souls style gameplay.

Like I say, it’s all just rambling at the minute. I can’t wait to see what comes from the game. The network test starts late January so hopefully there’s plenty of interesting information there. Roll on 2025 for more Elden Ring goodness.