There are a few things you can count on in a FromSoftware game: inscrutable lore, lots of dying, and a swamp. There's always a swamp, and though late to the party, Elden Ring Nightreign is no exception. New DLC The Forsaken Hollows has brought on some swampy marshland, and even the devs are in the joke at this point.
Wandering around Limveld post-The Forsaken Hollows, you'll notice some muddy, toxic areas that'll poison you or inflict several other status ailments. These parts of the map are as tricksy as Blighttown or Valley of Defilement, and should be treated with caution. The team is conscious of FromSoft's reputation here, but it really is just a quirk of how they design games.
"We're definitely aware of the [swamp] meme," Junya Ishizaki, Nightreign's director, tells GameSpot. "It's not like there's a rule or any sort of policy here where it's like we have to have a swamp in there, but it always seems to be [that before you realize] someone's come up with the idea, it's already sort of in there, and it's just sort of taken a life of its own."
To be fair, these toxified marshes do tend to be quite different from one another. The Ashina Depths in Sekiro are a separate mutation to BloodBorne's Nightmare Frontier, and they're a contrast again to Farron Keep in Dark Souls 3. There are tropes - frustrating enemies and some truly annoying heath-draining side-effects - but they do feel distinct from one another.
"The main game for Nightreign did not have a swamp, so I do see what you mean now, having it added after the fact with the DLC," Ishiazaki adds. "But yeah, it's definitely one of those things that [it] always just seems like [our game] ends up with a swamp. Even if there's not a specific rule like, 'Oh yeah, we have to put that in there,' [that's] just always how it kind of ends up."
The Forsaken Hollows comes out December 4, bringing two new Nightfarers with which to trudge through Limveld's newfound murky depths.
