As we explained in our Elden Ring Nightreign preview, FromSoftware's upcoming roguelike-infused PvE gauntlet generally follows a specific structure. Drop into the world, scrounge around for gear and Runes during the day, and fight bosses at night. This goes on for two in-game days, or about 35 to 45 minutes, and then you fight a big boss. Variance is introduced through primarily a randomized map layout and an unpredictable boss lineup.
That said, the funniest and most unpredictable bits are probably the random events you'll encounter out in the world, and after witnessing just two of them, I'm desperate to see what other absurdities FromSoftware has prepared. I was only able to spend a few hours with the network test version of Elden Ring Nightreign, but I did speak to a representative from publisher Bandai Namco and they confirmed that there are many more random events in the full game.
These can pop up at seemingly any time. On day one of an early session, a black hole opened and a storm of the same giant ants from Elden Ring's claustrophobic caverns suddenly swarmed us. There must've been at least 15 of these things, crawling and flying and spitting acid all over our once-tranquil field. It was like some unseen game master had reached into his bag of tricks, grabbed a fistful of bugs, and chucked it at our face just to scare us like a playground prankster.
The random event that my group encountered on day two of another session was even better. Morgott, the boss of Elden Ring's Leyndell, teleported in hungry for blood. Something similar happens in Elden Ring itself: a phantom of Margit will ambush you in the war-torn outskirts of Leyndell. But this was not Margit. It was Morgott himself – a boss with a lot more health, and a much more dangerous move set.
Morgott actually invaded us twice, and I remember hearing that he could show up as a night boss if he doesn't invade you during the day, though I never saw this myself. We killed him the first time, but the second time around he killed one of my partners. I revived them and they were surprised to find that they'd been branded with a curse mark. It turns out that invader Morgott, like a cautious extraction shooter veteran, will dip out if he gets a kill and his victim will be debuffed, seemingly for the rest of the session. Apparently it's similar to the hug debuff from Elden Ring, but with fewer hugs and more murder.
I'm reminded of the game that started all of this: Demon's Souls. People talk about how punishing the Souls games are – and rightly so – but way back on the PS3, dying in Demon's Souls directly increased the difficulty of the game. If you died in body form, you'd respawn in soul form – gutting your max health and tarnishing the world itself, strengthening the enemies you'd encounter. If your world tendency got low enough, souped-up black phantoms would start to appear. In other words, dying would make it easier to die going forward, at least until you could clean the world up, usually by killing a main boss.
That's the vibe I'm getting from this Morgott curse, and I do so love to see FromSoftware at its most vicious. I can't wait to find out what other random events Nightreign has up its sleeve, even if that will probably mean getting my head shoved in a bucket of crabs.
The first Elden Ring Nightreign network test "has ended" after a few disastrous hours, and "an additional network test is being considered" to make up for it.
