Elden Ring Nightreign Will Not Include one of the Souls Series’ Beloved Online Feature

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Let’s be clear - Elden Ring Nightreign is not coming in to fully deliver the experience found in Elden Ring and its latest expansion even, it’s mainly a multiplayer-focused offering that aims to deliver a nice twist to those who love playing with others in this world. One of the biggest changes is the absence of the Souls series most beloved feature that has been a staple for FromSoftware’s winning series, the ability to leave messages for other players to find in the world.

Elden Ring Nightreign players won’t be able to leave messages

This is a major change for the developer that has made the soulslike formula popular. The ability to leave messages for players to find started in the very first soulslike, Demon Souls. This feature was popular and remains unique to this day as this message can serve as a tool to assist players with dangers or secrets or play tricks to players believing the information, leaving them either dead or at a disadvantage for trusting what they’ve read. It’s a great feature that encourages unique experiences, allowing players to interact online without necessarily being present.

Why the removal? There’s a good reason.

Director Junya Ishizaki talked to IGN Japan and said that players can “still see the ghosts of other players, but the ability to leave messages has been removed. The reason we removed the message feature is that in this game, where each session is about 40 minutes long, there is no time to write your own message, and no time to read messages written by others.”

Nightreign is a multiplayer-only game, a game where you enter matches with other players, take on bosses, improve your gear, and eventually stay long enough to reach the end of a session as when you die you don’t respawn. This is more of a roguelike experience than a traditional soulslike. It's a standalone spinoff that could be a night twist for those that love co-op play.

Elden Ring Nightreign was announced during the 2024 Game Awards.

Elden Ring Nightreign will launch in 2025 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation n4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam. 

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