My first time playing as the Elden Ring Nightreign's Executor went badly. They're definitely not one of the simpler Elden Ring Nightreign characters, with a built-in katana that can't be used while sprinting, as well as the option to morph into some sort of wereweasel to varying degrees of success. And after playing with more straightforward characters for a while, switching to the Nightreign ronin was a jarring experience, to say the least. I'd draw my cursed blade, ready to duel some villainous knight, only for a lackey's projectile to catch me in the back of the head and knock me off guard. I'd transform into the mighty king of the water voles, only for my enormous bulk to make me a giant target for everything around me.
So it was all going horribly, and I was all ready to abandon this edgelord among edgelords. But then somebody walked by as I was trying to parry a pile of slime to disastrous results, and made a casual comment. "Oh – so it's like Sekiro?"
Yes, it is
Elden Ring Nightreign review: "An uncharacteristically frantic and fast-paced ride that boils down the core Elden Ring experience"
At that moment, something clicked. On some level I'd always understood that the Executor was an homage to FromSoft's samurai sim, in the same way that the Elden Ring Nightreign Duchess class feels like a callback to Bloodborne, but perhaps it was more than merely being visual. I started to adjust my thinking accordingly: Stop playing this like it's Nightreign. Stop being aggressive, stop trying to outpace your foes. Try to channel Shadows Die Twice. Counter, dodge, parry. Big emphasis on that last one.
Still learning the ropes, I nonetheless found myself carried by competent teammates to the game's final boss, a lanky killer from a slasher film and a celestial event trying to meet each other halfway. Reality began to shatter against his blades and panic threatened to overtake me, but I hunkered down and simply continued doing what I'd been doing before: parry. After all, that solved basically everything in Sekiro, so let's assume it solves everything now… Right?
But the last of the Nightreign bosses has this move where he basically tears the universe in half. That's barely an exaggeration: the sky is rent in twain as though a black hole had just punched through from the fifth dimension, a spectacle beyond comprehension, and a wave of raw cosmic power sweeping from that yawning abyss that annihilates everything in its path like a nuclear bl- oh, I just parried it.
I almost didn't believe it had happened at first, that I'd effectively deflected a collapsing star with a flick of my wrist while both my allies were punted into the horizon. But it had happened, it worked, and from that point on, I had to seriously reappraise the apparent black sheep of the Nightfarers.
The Executor is by no means perfect, or even the best of the different Nightreign classes, but I urge those among you who didn't care for the character at first to give him another shot. While there's a few too many bosses that clearly weren't designed with his unique systems in mind, there's a whole different game found within his Cursed Blade ability, to say nothing of rampaging around as an ugly kaiju when enemy numbers threaten to overwhelm you.
More importantly, there's something rich in the idea of FromSoftware folding in whole new gameplay styles with their new Nightfarers, not just evoking different builds we remember from Elden Ring. With new characters on the way with DLC, I'd love to see the studio push the boat out and throw in something like a playable mech to stomp around the Lands Between, in true Armored Core style.
No, it doesn't make sense, but neither did the Duke's Dear Freya and Nameless King showing up. Sometimes you have to put fun ahead of logic. Otherwise, how could you ever hope to deflect a supernova?
Find out our deeper thoughts in our Elden Ring Nightreign review!
