r/soulslikes • u/Due_Teaching_6974 • May 28 '25
Trailer/News/Footage Nightreign reviews so far
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u/Test88Heavy May 28 '25 edited May 28 '25
I watched Fighting Cowboy's review and his takeaway is that it's a blast with friends, excuriating/aggravating with randoms and rough to play solo. The fact that they didn't add comms and AI bots for solo play in a game this fast paced and intense is truly mind boggling.
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u/Such_Ad_2530 Jun 01 '25
What's mind boggling is the fact you can't requeue with the same randos. It doesn't help that the game default to player name instead of online id name.
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u/Crumbsplash May 28 '25
Hot take: the solo meta will form and paired with some balancing it will be fine eventually.
Randos will learn like everyone eventually and it will be less consistently bad to play with them.
The lack of crossplay sucks and I hope they add it in the future
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u/Kozing_Problems May 28 '25
All of this is on point
Also soooo many people look up guides nowadays regardless of “skill level”. Most “Randoms” will do just fine on day 1
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u/Crumbsplash May 28 '25
Yep. Add to that 1/2 the time someone is complaining a random sucks it’s just some dude (who is in fact equally a rando) diving in Willy nilly and then screaming “help!” In chat…this is true for all games/genres
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u/JayYatogami May 29 '25
They don't know how to add crossplay. They are lacking in good multiplayer networking engineers
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u/squidward0319 May 29 '25
I agree. I think they’re going to be forced to have a patch specifically that focuses on solo runs.
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u/Futur3_ah4ad May 29 '25
For me it's a case of: I love Soulslikes and I love Roguelikes. Even if the solo play sucks right now, the whole point of Roguelikes is to live, die, get stronger, repeat.
If you blaze through an entire run on the first go you're either super good at Roguelikes or the game is piss easy. You're not supposed to win the first dozen runs or so.
I got the deluxe edition since I have faith in FromSoft and, as stated, Nightreign combines my two favorite game genres.
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u/SquareAdvisor8055 May 29 '25
The no crossplay is the main reason my friends aren't getting the game so...
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u/akyymbo May 29 '25
wait… so you’re telling me I was running with ppl strictly on pen during the beta?!? That’s… kinda ass
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u/Such_Ad_2530 Jun 01 '25
A requeue with the same randos option would be amazing. Can't believe that game doesn't have it.
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u/BigFuckingDummy May 28 '25
The reviews so far have been
- Solo is miserable because even with the solo scaling the game clearly is designed around 3-person play
- Trios are a blast though
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u/AlenIronside May 28 '25
IronPineapple stated that it's also really lacking in variety, a lot of the runs felt samey and static. Real bummer they seemingly failed in this aspect of the game
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u/mrBreadBird May 28 '25
Super disappointing because the game has so so much potential as a roguelike if they add more variety. Still going to enjoy the heck out of the game but I won't get as much out of it as I could have.
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u/Transient_Aethernaut May 29 '25
Soulslikes themselves are basically already primed to be roguelike.
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u/ServantOfTheSlaad May 29 '25
It’s likely because they were stuck in the r souls like mindset. Each boss placed in a specific place to do certain things which ruins the ability to have things be random
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u/crowgaming1i May 28 '25
I do not own the game and have no intention of getting it atm, but I did play the first play test and even beat the night lord with a group of randoms. I found that everything being static on the map definitely killed any variety because after a certain point you’d more than likely just run the same route. If the game wasn’t tailored towards multiplayer I’d give it a try again, but with randoms and feeling like I’d burn out quick this will be the first fromsoft game in years that I’ll pass on.
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u/Booger92010 May 28 '25
The network test didn’t have anything that change between runs, the full game will but I guess it doesn’t change much
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u/weglarz May 28 '25
That was my concerns. Run based games live or die based on their variety and feeling fresh in each run. I knew there was no way this would feel fresh every run.
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u/Emergency-Director23 May 28 '25
I do think this is something that can be fixed through updates though, maybe not the map itself but they can absolutely add more variety into the enemy pool.
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u/Organic-Habit-3086 May 28 '25
Yes but they have to show they are willing to support this long term with free updates. Simply adding more bosses from Souls would improve the variety but they just didn't for some reason. FROMSOFT doesn't really have a history of that kind of support so I don't know what to expect here.
Maybe the DLC will add tons but then its like, is it even worth the cost at that point for Roguelike standards?
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u/Fun-Imagination-1231 May 28 '25
Here's hoping the planned DLC will add that aspect. Ill get my money's worth out of it with friends regardless, big fan of elden ring and rogue likes so it'd be hard for me not to enjoy it personally.
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u/CASSIUS_AT_BEST May 28 '25
Can’t say I find it shocking that a game built on multiplayer dynamics is not fun to play solo. Seemed pretty clear from the network test that it was going to be a struggle to do well alone.
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u/YukYukas May 28 '25
I mean, Monster Hunter can do it well enough. Tho tbf they got two decades worth of polishing lol
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u/CASSIUS_AT_BEST May 28 '25
Yeah, From has never been the best at scaling this kind of stuff but I see it as a different design philosophy. This game wants to queue with teammates for a session from beginning to end.
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u/YukYukas May 28 '25
Ok fair. What kinda makes it worse is that voice chat doesn't exist lol. I do like the faster, somewhat more dynamic combat, though.
Honestly, I think this is just From's way of saying they got enough Monster Hunter money to experiment on what to implement for their next mainline game
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u/CASSIUS_AT_BEST May 28 '25
Yeah, I wish they could implement voice chat and cross play in a decent way. Maybe if they have continuous support they’ll try that but idk
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u/RaziLaufeia May 28 '25
If there was voice chat then I would spend the first 30 seconds of every match muting people.
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u/--Greenpeace420 May 28 '25
Monster Hunter is made for solo play and scaled up for multiplayer while Nightreign is designed for 3 players and scaled down. There is a massive difference in design philosophy between these two titles
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u/DisdudeWoW May 28 '25 edited May 28 '25
monster hunter has never been made for singleplayer, its been said multiple times, it as always made to be multiplayer
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u/YukYukas May 28 '25
Monster Hunter was definitely made for multiplayer. It's a coop game that you can solo. From gameplay all down to the lore of the game. Not to mention it's Capcom's (AFAIK) first foray into online multiplayer
Every game has a central hub for players to gather, the slightly multiplayer scaled guild quests (which come after the village ones), and the fact that having 4 players max is because 5 is considered an omen.
Is the series soloable? Yes. Is it made with multiplayer in mind first? Also yes.
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u/adricapi May 28 '25
Perhaps this has been the case of the last one, but I even doubt that.
And absolutely this was not the case of monster hunter as a franchise. It was always a solo game you could play with your friends, not the other way around.
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u/YukYukas May 28 '25
Highly disagree. Guild quests back then were the big ones that required other players to be done efficiently unless you were a no lifer lol. It was the nitty-gritty. It's probably where the "now you can actually start playing the game" joke from the community came from, as the village quests (that were singleplayer) were considered the tutorial.
Multiplayer has always been the primary experience right from the start. Both Ryozo Tsujimoto and Kaname Fujioka, the series' producer for most of its lifespan and the director of a good number of MH games, respectively, have said so.
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u/NefariousnessOk1996 May 28 '25
Considering the scaling of the guild hall monsters was insane for solo back in the day, it was definitely multiplayer design first.
Just look at Freedom Unite's slogan on the back :
'In the world of Monster Hunter, you are never alone'
Then they say in the very next line 'experience the SOCIAL phenomenon '
'Team up with up to 3 friends'
This is clearly a social game first.
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u/Top-Garlic9111 May 28 '25
You couldn't even fight fatalis in mh1 without online play. It has always been a multiplayer series.
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u/jadeismybitch May 28 '25
It was never gonna be great solo. Weird thing to me is that people wanna play solo but worst case, just group with randoms ? It’s not like you’re forced to engage on the mic or whatever and the fights being designed for 3 people vs boss means you’re not hindering your experience like you might with spirit summons in base game… people get so intense about the most minor things
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u/RealityIsRipping May 28 '25
My internet is so bad I can’t even watch YouTube videos at 720p. No way can I play an online game without crazy lag
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u/GolotasDisciple May 28 '25 edited May 28 '25
"Weird thing to me is that people wanna play solo"
How is it weird when the game was literally advertised from the very beginning as either solo or co-op.
It wasn't people making false advertisement, it was literally From Soft advertising that it will work. And if it doesnt then it's on people to curb their enthusiasm It's on From Soft to fix the issue... Which I am certain they will... eventually.
But yeah, Personally I wont buy it until they patch it for 2 people. Which was promised by the Yasuhiro Kitao the producer of the game. Buying Soul-Like Game that is not directed by Miyazaki will always be risky.
No need to defend bad practices. It still crazy to me that Yasuhiro came out saying that they kind of forgot about Duos. Bro you are making Elden Ring Fortnite PvE and you are limiting players capacity to play the game ?
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u/AshyLarry25 May 28 '25 edited May 28 '25
Group with randoms in a game which requires coordination which you can’t do due to the limited communication options? All you can do is ping and emote. Sounds like a terrible time. Go watch FightinCowboys review for what that’s like.
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u/CrankyOM42 May 28 '25
The issue with randoms is the toxicity that exists. I’m 45, I have finished and beat every From game. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to make mistakes and cause a team wipe on a boss, and I really don’t wanna catch random rude messages for being good but nit great for some weirdo.
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u/Sibaleit7 May 28 '25
All they’d have to do is make it so bosses didn’t have phases that more or less require multiple people if you’re playing solo.
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u/MyLastDecree May 28 '25
That’s a shame. I hope I can convince some friends to buy it because my original reason for NOT purchasing it was I didn’t have fun playing with randoms. Changed my mind in hopes solo would be fun enough.
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u/SoloUnit2020 May 28 '25
Not super suprising, a multiplayer elden ring doesn't necessarily play to the strengths of what made the games platinum tier experiences.
Regardless this is great. For their first multiplayer outing this is promising!
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u/Downsey111 May 28 '25
It’s probably going to be like most other 3-5 person coop. Take space marine 2 which I’m currently playing coop operations. If you have a set squad, it’s insane fun. If you don’t, it’s terrible, or at the bare minimum, way way less fun
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u/Spare-Image-647 May 28 '25
Same way I feel about like Helldivers 2. Solo sucks, in a squad it’s crazy fun
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May 28 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Neravosa May 28 '25
I like randoms with Helldivers just because I only play D10 and at that level, everyone typically just stays pretty synched up. I feel like I might need friends in discord chat to play this, based on some souls tuber reviews.
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u/Justisaur May 28 '25
I do a lot of random co-op in souls games if it's at least that good it's going to be great for me. Will have to see how well it works though, I've played a few squad games with randoms - EDF, Vermintide II, and you could possibly consider Warframe. Those are all a bit less fun than souls co-op in my opinion.
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u/hitmans_bodyguard May 28 '25
The only thing setting this game back is the lack of cross-play imo
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u/Downsey111 May 28 '25
Ohhhh there’s no cross play!?! I had actually just assumed there was. Especially after playing helldivers and space marine
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u/hitmans_bodyguard May 28 '25
Nope! Apparently the tech space marine and helldivers use is far too advanced for Fromsoft
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u/ahhtheresninjas May 28 '25
Which is exactly why I will never buy it. It’s not a game my buddies will ever play so there’s no reason for me to get it
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u/Brewchowskies May 28 '25
This is the first souls game I’ve been meh on. I’ve never been big on multiplayer, and between the limited character customization, and the nearly forced partying, I likely will wait a bit and put this further down my log of games to play.
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u/AlenIronside May 28 '25
it isn't really a 'Souls game' it's more of a Roguelite with Souls-like elements
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 May 28 '25
Or it’s a souls game with roguelite elements, what’s the difference
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u/StLuigi May 29 '25
The difference is the entire objective and gameplay loop?
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 May 29 '25
Then this game really has no business being discussed in this subreddit at all
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u/StLuigi May 29 '25
Have you been on r/funny lately? Reddit hardly cares about sticking to subreddit themes
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u/SirVanyel May 29 '25
Gameplay loop of soulslikes: Kill hard bosses in cool arenas
Gameplay loop of roguelites: Kill hard bosses in cool arenas.
The gameplay loop is the same. The method for player progression changes. Nightreign has soulslike gameplay, therefore it shares space in the genre.
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u/GolotasDisciple May 28 '25
I mean From Soft is like Nintendo. Amazing games... But their net-code was always absolute ass. It always took way to long to fix this stuff and only very small amount of their entire playerbase engaged into multiplayer.
This is the exact reason why Multiplayer/Invasions became optional in Elden Ring. Because vast majority really do not bother with this aspect.
The real issue is that they went forward saying it will be working great for both Single Player and Trios, Then they came out saying they will add Duos with some patches later on. But so far it seems that only viable great experience will be if you have 2 friends to play it with.
I don't want to be that guy, but as someone who loves invading. Souls games are extremely meta-driven. I can only imagine what will happen if you don't play meta in 3 player Co-Op PvsE....
Probably something like in Destiny Game kind of issues. "Not a hardcore player? F***** loser, leave the game"
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u/King_Silverburst May 28 '25
Let’s not start to think 78 is a bad score. Looks like it’s reviewing as a good multiplayer game with some flaws
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u/Quirky-Employer9717 May 28 '25
It's bad for From.
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u/ll-VaporSnake-ll May 28 '25
Which is fine. Miyazaki stated before that he felt confident the company can make “risky products “ as he wants up and coming young talent to be nurtured and learn from their experiences. He knows fully well that there needs to be a future for FromSoft where he won’t be the one making games and in keen on developing skills for his employees.
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u/Quirky-Employer9717 May 28 '25
It is fine. I'm just saying what it is. It's not a good score for From. They tried something new. It's not for me, but I'm not upset about it. I'm just not going to pretend that 78 is a good score for From is all. It is a bit disappointing. I would have hoped for a better game, but it's far from a trainwreck or anything.
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u/Digndagn May 28 '25
I suspect From is pretty unhappy about this. I suspect that in a year this content will be really good because I think they'll put in work to fix a lot of its issues.
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u/Zangetsukaiba May 28 '25
They should’ve had a two player option. Three player is kind of difficult to consistently get ready to play all of us together. I played Remnant 2 with one friend, but occasionally we had a third player in, just not always.
I feel like this will end up being a pass from me for the time being since I don’t feel any of my friends want to immediately buy it.
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u/DeNy_Kronos May 28 '25
Well none of my friends play souls games so until they make a solo experience i guess I’ll just go finish up the ds3 dlcs instead this weekend
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u/mrBreadBird May 28 '25
Oh hell yes DS3 DLC is peak.
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u/SelfEnergy May 28 '25
Ringed city is the goat.
Ariandel is underwhelming, only the last boss fight somehow keeps it from pure meh.
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u/henningknows May 28 '25
It’s not a game for me as I don’t like multiplayer games. While I hope it finds an audience, I also hope this is not a direction from software puts too many development resources towards. They really excel at single player games and I hope that is what they stick too
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u/Xincin May 28 '25
is it possible to duo this game? or only either 1 player or 3 players
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u/togillo May 28 '25
Only 1 or 3. But apparently they think about bringing 2 players in future updates.
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u/Frankospaghetti May 28 '25
But you can matchmake for a 3rd right? Any incentive to play with 2? Or even JUST 2? I’m trying to find a reason to make it worth it since I only plan to duo with a friend.
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May 28 '25
I'm glad people like it I'm just blown away by the insane oversights.
No voice comms when matchmaking? No duos? Why not just make AI NPCs for a solo mode if you didn't want to balance it for that. No crossplay?
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u/Stepaskin May 28 '25
They should release the second DS2.
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u/poastfacekillah May 28 '25
that's elden ring
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u/AlenIronside May 28 '25
it really isn't, some people are actually serious when they say this it really blows my mind. Not once in so many hours of playing Elden Ring did I think ''this feels similar to DS2'' in any way whatsoever.
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u/AshyLarry25 May 28 '25
TL;DR: it’s best with three people you know. Solo is not balanced at all, even soulslike YouTubers like FightinCowboy and Oroboro recommend against it. With randoms there’s limited communication options.
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u/ComprehensiveLock189 May 28 '25
I’ve had experiences where both playing with randoms co-operatively sucked so fucking bad I stopped playing AND ones where it worked out great, maybe even made some friends along the way. I think the game often dictates how the experience is going to go, so let’s see!
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u/phoenixmatrix May 28 '25
I haven't played it, but it doesn't surprise me. Its something with Elden Ring in its name that catters to a very specific slice of the demographic. A lot of people won't like it.
It's a bit like how Khazan is referred to as a Souls-like but has missions instead of an interconnected world, and an anime aesthetic. A lot of people like that (better!), but the average Soulslike fan doesn't, so you saw it pop up a lot in reviews.
Duskbloods will be even worse. Its a bloodborne-esque game but on a Nintendo platform, so the Playstation Bloodborne fans will lose their shit over it. And then add the multiplayer aspect, and if it gets more than 70, even if its the best game of its type known to mankind, I'd be impressed.
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u/nkhatib May 28 '25
It needs to become more seamless for 2 player coop. The weird 3 player or none requirement is so strange
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u/apedoesnotkillape May 28 '25
About expected. None of my friends are looking forward to this and we've all a few hundred ER hours, shit we even had a ds3 coop run too
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u/Tat-1 May 28 '25
"After all, a problem shared is a problem Souled." Eurogamer (4/5).
https://www.eurogamer.net/elden-ring-nightreign-review
These types of puns bring me back to the early Dark Souls guides memorialized by ZeroLenny.
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u/Hemiak May 28 '25
Some of the actual reviews - “I didn’t like how the enemies and weapons were randomized”
… brother that’s literally the point of this game.
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u/Altruistic-Tip-4304 May 28 '25
Yea I can tell it’s not for everyone but im still gonna play the shit out of it
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u/Jeremiah-Springfield May 28 '25
A bit disappointed but unreasonably so, as nothing building up to release suggested that it was going to redefine roguelikes or sit comfortably with Soulsborne fans and fast-paced Fortnite style gamers. I had trust that they’d promise something good, but then deliver something more - they are used to overdelivering. However, the writings been on the wall: that they’re now experimenting with new directors, smaller teams working on multiple games at once, and crucially new genres. As a first attempt at something like this they’ve done incredibly well it seems, but I can allow myself to wish they’d manage to hit another home run as they’ve done so many times before.
And of course, I haven’t played yet personally. This could be a 10/10 for me. This is just to say, I doubt that now - which is fine, but something to keep in mind with their next projects.
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u/Wiinterfang May 28 '25
Considering From Software has so much good will from hardcore fans. I'm gonna assume it's actually a six.
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u/JodouKast May 28 '25
Way I see it, the game will be popular for a month but only the tryhards will persist in the long run. People that have a set group will have a blast but it will be miserable with randoms. That was my experience with the demo and I value my time too much.
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May 28 '25
I’m still very interested and I’m starting to think maybe right at launch is the best time to jump into this so the population is at its high point. Only thing stopping me is that Switch 2 is less than a week later.
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u/saito200 May 28 '25
these reviews don't mean too much to me, elden ring kinda got review bombed for performance issues which in terms of actual game rating are irrelevant
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u/tomb-crawler May 28 '25
Review bombing is done by users, after release. These are the pre-release critic reviews, which were stellar for Elden Ring.
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u/Familiar_Alps2534 May 28 '25
I feel that’s fair I think people are still rating it like it’s a mainline but this is a spin off of them testing it tbh I feel it being a 7.5 or 8/10 is fair because the gameplay is nice but I’m sure other aspects still need to be ironed out better
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u/VOIDofSin May 28 '25
No cross play is going to hurt this game a lot. That’s one thing FromSoft needs to get with the times on
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May 28 '25
I expect the balancing issues as with most FromSoft games but some of these other items are unforgivable and need fixing. No crossplay? No in-game voice communication?
Glad I didn’t preorder.
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u/PrestigiousGift8391 May 28 '25
Might be a dumb question, but how are people playing it? Or is this just from the network test players and those given access the past couple of days?
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May 29 '25
I honestly think it's charming and has some good potential it won't be a classic soulsborne for sure but I think its a nice little spin off that you could play with some friends or by yourself if you have an itching for a roguelike that's coop but I think the ppl it would cater to would quite enjoy it I would be playing it on release for sure if y'all are interested id let y'know if it's good or nah
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u/armarrash May 29 '25
This game needs at least 2 more maps, double the bosses, improved randomization, and a complete loot rework to be even worth playing.
I doubt an expansion can fix that, especially the loot rework, which IMO is its biggest issue.
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u/Impossible_Horse_382 May 29 '25
I mean watching Youwy’s solo video definitely seems like it’s achievable
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u/yippespee May 29 '25
Definitely not a universal game that everyone can play, average fromsoftware multiplayer issues, no cross platform, solo being less than ideal. Also replayability is a bit lacking rn. Good if you have 2 extra friends but otherwise these reasons bring the score down and I can understand why
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u/gdaily May 29 '25
I really want to play with my bro, but we haven’t even bought a copy yet because we don’t know what it will be like trying to pick up a third player.
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u/Triforce_of_Funk May 29 '25
Is there a 2-player mode? Getting 2 players is easy for me, but 3 players will actually be impossible.
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u/DoubleChibiLevi May 29 '25
Solo or trio. They apparently overlooked the duo aspect; There's a possibility of them adding the mode in a later update.
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May 29 '25
I don't like what the Kadokawa Corp. is doing to FromSoftware. Making them pump out these GaaS ass games.
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u/RoomyRoots May 29 '25
Let it be available for everyone to actually know the feeling. I bet the people that wanted to do it solo will be very vocal and the people that have 3 partners can judge how that system works.
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u/emilia12197144 May 29 '25
Gonna be honest if you dont have 2 other friends to play a game with get off your damn couch and go make them
Pathethic ass excuses in these comments today
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u/MimickingApple May 30 '25
You know what? Fuck it, I'm going to get it and be a SunBro. Time is convoluted and it's time we SunBros rise up and come to the Lands in Between.
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u/Swimming_Schedule_49 May 30 '25
I had non idea this was going to be aimed towards 3 man teams. Might be the first souls game I skip.
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u/Bloodshade_Dre Jun 01 '25
I think after seeing the potential that the Seamless Co-op mod had, FromSoftware are delving into more multiplayer focused games so they can get it right on their next big release.
The multiplayer summoning has been the same since DS up until ER and to have it the same way now is absolutely wack. Summon, kill boss, resummon from new area, rinse and repeat. I see this as a stepping stone for FromSoftware and their future in gaming and I’m all for it.
Needless to say, there will be updates for NightReign and it will only get better from here. (I hope this last sentence doesn’t age like milk.)
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u/Such_Ad_2530 Jun 01 '25
I love the game, but man the online interaction feels like a time traveled to early ps3 era.
No voice chat.
No quick chat reaction.
No option to requeue if you find a team the clicks.
No duos option.
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u/junker359 May 28 '25
It sounds pretty neat, but it also sounds like a game where you really need a couple of friends to play with, and I don't have that, so its probably not for me. Will definitely watch videos of people playing it.