Elden Ring Nightreign duos mode should have been the perfect update, but it's lacking both the challenge and the chaos that make the base game so good

Elden Ring Nightreign's lack of duos support at launch was, for many, one of the game's biggest failings. It was apparently such a significant oversight that FromSoftware walked back its decision to focus purely on solos and trios within days of launch, and managed to incorporate a whole new mode within just a couple of months. But despite being a prime candidate for heading to Limveld in a party of two, Nightreign's duos mode has entirely failed to hold my attention.

I was, perhaps, one of the lucky few when it came to Nightreign's release. Among my gaming friends, only three of us play soulslikes with any form of regularity, meaning we could ensure regular three-player runs without anyone else feeling left out. We dived straight into Nightreign, and although certain bosses pushed us towards classes we'd really rather not play, we've been gradually making our way through the lineup ever since.

With a couple of bosses still on our list, it might be fair to suggest we seem to be struggling through Nightreign. While I'll happily admit that one or two bosses have given us a run for our money, it's rare that we've been caught up on a specific fight for more than a handful of attempts. The real hindrance is scheduling – even with three players whaling on its bosses, Nightreign feels like a bit of an ordeal, and as such it's rare that we attempt multiple runs back to back. That's to say nothing of the various holidays that have interrupted our summer – with a dedicated trio on board, only a single absentee means that Nightreign is entirely off the table.

Two's a crowd

Over the years, I've played enough online multiplayer games to know that I'm no longer particularly interested in pulling in a random extra player. I've also played enough dedicated two-player experiences to know that it's much easier to get one friend to play a game with you than to corral multiple people at once. With those factors in mind, duos should have been the perfect addition to Nightreign – a way to ensure we could maintain a full roster in the voice chat, even if one of our traditional trio was away.

As it turns out, however, that's really not been the case. I tried duos a single, solitary time, before deciding that it really wasn't for me. Even a run that made it all the way to the final boss arena felt limp compared to a trios equivalent – we meandered from encounter to encounter with none of the urgency that made a three-player run seem so much fun by comparison.

What Nightreign lacks in actual difficulty, it makes up for in a need for efficiency. Just as in Elden Ring, few bosses can really stand up to the combined whaling-on that multiple characters can dish out at once. Granted, in Nightreign, FromSoft has given several of its bosses some extra area-of-effect to deal with those pesky characters who are further away from the pointy end of a spear or claw, but the challenge is still less about actually being mechanically able to beat the boss and more about making sure you're powerful enough to face it.

Three's company

With trios, that makes for a game where you want to make sure you're using every second as efficiently as possible, splitting up to take on certain groups of enemies before coming together to dispatch bigger foes as quickly as you can. It's about farming up souls fast, and moving from place to place to seek out greater and greater rewards for that final fight. With duos, there's the feeling that you're doing the exact same thing, just worse. You can't split up as efficiently, you can't synergize multiple effects against a major boss, you can't even really strategize in a way that's quite as interesting. One of my favorite parts of trickier final boss fights was juggling aggro across an entire arena, but when there's only two of you that's a much less interesting game to play.

Clearly, some of this argument falls down in the face of Nightreign's solo mode. Clearly, if you're playing by yourself, there's no strategy or synergy to play with, no way to make your team more efficient - it's all down to you. But that adds a sense of challenge that's more in keeping with the traditional Dark Souls or Elden Ring format, and forces you to entirely reconsider how you're going to tackle Nightreign's biggest challenges.

Multi-character bosses like Tricephalos or Sentient Pest are an entirely different proposition when you're playing solo compared to when you're playing in a full team, but by contrast it's hard to escape the feeling that you're playing the game wrong when a boss splits into three against a pair of foes instead of a trio. Throw in the tools that FromSoft has given specifically to give solo players an edge (but which aren't available in duos), and it's impossible to shake the feeling that this isn't really an intended way to play. It's a capitulation, and it feels like it.

I'm conscious that I'm only afforded the option to be this picky thanks to having the good fortune to have precisely two friends who are FromSoft fans.For the majority, the lack of duos support has been a genuine roadblock, especially if you're not keen to play with randoms. But I wish that Nightreign's duos mode felt like it was actually a bespoke addition to the game, rather than an ever-so-slightly less enjoyable way to partake in the intended experience. As it stands, it's a mode that has nothing to offer me, and I don't know if I'm ever likely to return.

My least favorite Elden Ring Nightreign character just became one of my top choices by stopping a collapsing universe with a sword.