The brilliance of FromSoftware’s Souls series rests on the games’ way of guiding players. They shape the player by providing a series of challenges that are essential to progress in the game. However, with Elden Ring Nightreign’s complete shift to cooperative play and systematic repetition of runs, players are becoming unaware of what makes Souls games the way they are. Souls games encourage careful planning, exploration, slowly learning the mechanics, and gradually making the difficulty second nature to you. Elden Ring Nightreign enforces the exact opposites. It rushes everything you do and forces you to play on its terms instead of you discovering ways to approach encounters. Not to mention the two other players who can cover your mistakes.
Dark Souls teaches players to watch foes carefully and learn from previous mistakes. Death is not game over, but a necessary step to learn, and it is ever-present as you grow as a player. Nightreign’s timer means that every mistake counts, and death means a waste of a run. Success comes from quick and efficient teamwork over individual growth. In some way, it is fun, but it lacks what made previous titles special. It is called Elden Ring, but it is far from how Elden Ring and other Souls games work.
The Loss of Environmental Storytelling
FromSoftware excels at storytelling. It is not surprising that hundreds of YouTube videos revolve around the game's lore. The appeal stems from the story not coming from explicit cutscenes or journal logs. The story is told through item descriptions, the architecture of the areas in the game, and the environment itself. The game does not explicitly say the exact interpretation, but it is always up to players to fill up the holes in the lore and interpret the story the way they want it to be. Nightreign players, including new FromSoftware game players, would recognize the references from Elden Ring, but they would not be able to realize what they mean and what their significance is in the game. Since Nightreign requires speed to succeed, even if environmental storytelling is present, players would not be able to afford to appreciate it, as they are not the focus of the game.
It is well known to be a spin-off of a very successful game. However, with its repetition of runs and the quick game sessions, it strays from what the previous titles had established up until Elden Ring. Exploration to discover the unknown is not as satisfying as exploration for the acquisition of weapons to use. If you are a new player, you will be used to going through a castle expecting a legendary weapon to make yourself powerful, instead of going through a forest so you can get a secret ending. That is why players should experience how FromSoftware crafts these areas into storybooks before going to the fast-paced environment of Nightreign.
Co-op Dependency
Souls games have had co-op since the very beginning, though this is not the core feature of these games. It is an option to make the game less difficult, but it is not essential for victory, and depending on who you ask, it is way more rewarding to beat these games solo. Of course, there is a demand for co-op. Mods such as Seamless Co-op prove that. Nightreign, however, is almost unplayable without it. The struggle against overwhelming odds that the previous games established is thrown away as players cover each other's weaknesses. It is almost unnecessary to learn enemy movesets by themselves, and dying repeatedly, as someone else may hold aggro for them.
In the previous games, those bosses that people really enjoy are boss fights that require individual skill, and that's what makes the bosses themselves memorable. Manus, Nameless King, Orphan of Kos, Isshin the Sword Saint, these are bosses that won’t allow you to summon other players, but they happen to be in the later parts of the game to remind you how far you’ve come as a player once you defeat them. These moments of individual triumph are what make these bosses and games so special. Yes, beating Libra as a team is fun, but imagine how satisfying it would be if you did it entirely alone.
The Right Path Forward
The Souls series is popular for a reason. The perfect way to experience them is to play them, of course. Demon Souls, Dark Souls Trilogy, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring are all games that provide good ways to start diving into Souls games. Find peace in isolation, decode stories woven into the world itself, then relish conquering hurdles by getting better at the game. Grasp the core ideas first, and after that, dive into the unique styles. This is why these games are fun.
Nightreign delivers fun with friends, a mix of wild teamwork and replayability, alongside an easier start for players. Though enjoying it most requires knowing what makes that experience significant. Nightreign is mostly not for the beginners of the series, not because it is less difficult than the Souls games have to be, but because new players would miss out on a decade of perfecting a formula of game development. Nightreign would not exist anyway without Dark Souls, so it is smart to experience them first. You would not watch Spider-Man: No Way Home without watching Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man first, right?
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