Polygon.com / 12.07.25

After 160 hours of Nightreign, I can never go back to Elden Ring

Ive played 500 hours of Elden Ring. Ive beaten every boss, explored every invisible door, collected every rare armament. If I had to pick one favorite, generation-defining game above all others it would definitely be the base game and its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.  But 160 hours into Nightreign, FromSoftwares multiplayer spinoff that launched at the end of May, I know that theres no way I could ever go back to the original open-world game anymore. Nightreign changed everything.  Nightreign is the brainchild of Junya Ishizaki, the developer who oversaw combat on Elden Ring. Ishizaki wanted to create a game with a different flow than that of Elden Ring, which is how FromSoftware arrived at Nightreigns peculiar design proposition: What if Elden Ring but make it Fortnite meets Monster Hunter?  The drama of just barely reviving a player on their third wheel when no one has any flasks left is a shot of pure dopamine. A team of three sets upon an expedition where the eventual goal i...
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