Junya Ishizaki is, understandably, a little nervous. After working at FromSoftware as a combat and level designer since the original Dark Souls, he's made his directorial debut with Elden Ring Nightreign, an off-the-walls spinoff of the studio's open-world masterwork, distilled and almost kitbashed into a session-based, three-player boss gauntlet. It's a weird one – about as quick-and-dirty as game development gets at this level – but exciting. "Personally," Ishizaki tells me over a Zoom call from Japan (via interpreter), "I feel confident about this game that we've made."
When I speak with him ahead of launch, Ishizaki seems contemplative. I ask him to walk me through the very beginnings of this game, which he's been thinking about since development on Dark Souls 3. Elden Ring, in all its hugeness, gave him the foothold he needed. He never thought he'd be the one directing it, let alone that FromSoftware boss and Souls maestro Hidetaka Miyazaki would specifically push for him to take the reins.
A new challenge
"To have that opportunity finally presented to me, I was frankly very excited, and I couldn't believe that this opportunity had finally come," he says. "So it was extremely exciting, but at the same time, of course, you feel, wow, is this really happening? Is this really something I'm going to do? Is this really something I can do? So again, mixed portions of excitement and nerves, but I'm extremely honored and happy to have been given that chance."
Ishizaki says he'd love to direct again, especially now that he's gotten more of a feel for the role. At the start, he thought he might have "full control" over everything as director. He soon realized yet again that "games these days are way too big in scope, and it quickly became important to me to suppress my own emotions and ego and take input from all sorts of parts of the team and project." He reflects on the "fork in the road" of the game's pacey three-day structure, which prompted "some concerns" within the studio at first, and it seems he's also been feeling out how to find what a game "wants to be."
"From conception to finding the idea of what the game wants to be and what I feel it should be, there are a lot of difficulties, and there's a lot of points you have to overcome in order to accept that," he says. "You have to go into these things being prepared to explain your ideas to the team and to sort of overcome these difficulties. But during that process, there come these moments where you find something that just feels pure fun, and you just have to try to lock into that. It's an ongoing process that occurs every day.
"Every day you try to find something new and something fun to lock into, something that's giving you that idea and that motivation to keep going. So this is kind of how I feel the process went with Nightreign, and we'll see how it pans out for a future project."
More multiplayer
FromSoftware, it seems, has locked onto something new. Nightreign gained new meaning after the reveal of The Duskbloods, the studio's Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive PvPvE title due in 2026. Another multiplayer-focused game, so soon? Some fans, who are specifically here after the studio's string of single-player triumphs, were perplexed or concerned.
Ishizaki, an outspoken fan of multiplayer, reiterates what Miyazaki said previously: FromSoftware isn't changing its DNA by dabbling more in multiplayer. Nightreign is an extension of the studio's design philosophy, not a rejection of it.
"Of course, I can't personally speak to what FromSoftware as a company might make in the future," he begins, "but in terms of the types of experiences we're all aiming to create, we're always looking to make something valuable in our games, something that feels worthwhile to play, that you come away from it and feel satisfied like that was a good use of your time. And I think that's the crux of what makes our titles and what we keep in mind with everything we develop.
I am sure there's still many things that we're looking to challenge and experiment with
Junya Ishizaki
"We've had these two titles, Nightreign and the recently announced Duskbloods, with multiplayer at their core. But that's not necessarily to say that we are leaning in that specific direction going forward. I think this is simply a result of ideas and interests taking shape in the company across various departments and various titles. I think there's a little bit of serendipity involved there. But personally, I feel that multiplayer is a very interesting aspect to explore, and I think users will find that both these titles are very different and something else to enjoy along with our back catalog."
Despite reusing many assets, even Nightreign is meaningfully different. It treats Elden Ring "as a base," Ishizaki reckons, but you don't need to play the original game before diving in here. "We feel that the gameplay is a key part of Nightreign that differentiates it from Elden Ring, as well as our other previous Soulslike titles," he says. "If you're familiar with Elden Ring, you might have some preconceptions going in and some ideas of what to expect, but it's ultimately a very different experience, and we're excited for new players to jump in and make this their first FromSoft game."
What's next
Especially after the sky-high success of Elden Ring, which just recently topped 30 million copies sold, there was a reasonable expectation that FromSoftware would double down. It felt like the capstone of Souls games, and clearly this kind of game can soar. Surely there are more coming. And there are, surely, more coming; Nightreign and The Duskbloods just come first. Ishizaki says "I am sure there's still many things that we're looking to challenge and experiment with in future. So we look forward to the continued support and blessings of players and media alike."
"This is a condensed RPG," Ishizaki concludes. "There's a short time span in which a lot of exhilarating and dramatic events can happen. We wanted this to be the focus of Nightreign, to create these dramatic and dynamic play sessions, and to have all of these emotions and these peaks and troughs occur during any one single session. This was a challenge for us to make in this short time span, as well. But we hope that users will appreciate this new challenge and appreciate this new game flow with Nightreign. We're really looking forward to it."
Our Elden Ring Nightreign review arrived alongside dozens of others calling it a well-executed idea held back by a punishing solo experience. The scores are pretty good across the board. Nightreign has settled as the lowest-rated FromSoft game in several years, but that ain't bad for an experimental project competing with some of the most acclaimed games in the industry.
After playing an early build of Nightreign, I'm personally excited for launch today, May 29. (Our Elden Ring Nightreign live coverage has all the unfurling details in one place.) Assuming the servers hold – Ishizaki laughs out loud when I ask about plans for worst-case scenarios, but says they've prepped all they can for the launch rush – the multiplayer buff, the peerless fun multiplier of playing with friends, could bump this game up a notch provided you've got buddies to spare. There's always matchmaking if you don't. And FromSoftware has largely made the same type of game for over a decade, so I'm thrilled to see it step outside the box a little, even if the box is still comfortably in The Lands Between.
Elden Ring Nightreign release time – FromSoftware's new co-op roguelike is almost here.
