Elden Ring: Nightreign
I keep wondering — why is there always drama around difficulty every time a new Souls game drops?
First of all, let’s talk about the foundation of the game. In my opinion, this game makes zero sense to play in single-player.
Some bosses are blatantly designed for multiplayer — not necessarily because of how hard they are, but because of their structure: multiple AOE phases, enemy duplications, multi-target fights, and so on.
It’s clearly a multiplayer experience.
And that’s fine — I actually bought this game intending to play online, not solo.
And the gameplay loop? I absolutely love it.
It’s like an entire Souls playthrough condensed into a single hour.
It feels like Elden Ring on caffeine — incredibly fast-paced because of the timer, and you’re constantly debating your choices:
"Do I go here or there?" "Is this boss worth fighting?" "Should I take the Church of Marika route?" "What gear do I keep?"
That whole decision-making aspect is awesome, and I’m really into it.
So, what’s the problem?
Two things, mainly.
First, the matchmaking.
Someone had the brilliant idea to separate matchmaking pools for players doing Remembrances.
I don’t know whose genius decision that was, but it makes Remembrance matchmaking tedious as hell.
Granted, those missions are optional unless you want to fully complete the game, so whatever — I can live with that.
The real issue is... the balancing.
To everyone who complained about Shadow of the Erdtree being too hard — I’d love to see you try playing Nightreign in its current state.
You have no idea.
And I was one of the people who said Shadow of the Erdtree was mostly well-balanced, aside from a few rough spots.
But Nightreign? LMAO.
Now, the upside is that — at least for me — it’s not especially frustrating.
Why? Because reaching the boss on day three takes about an hour of gameplay, so you spend a good amount of time exploring and doing stuff instead of just dying over and over.
But... I can’t progress.
And let’s be clear — I’m not the only one. Tons of players are stuck.
I’ve put 10 hours into it and have only beaten two main bosses.
Just two.
It’s ridiculous. And if you thought co-op made the game easier — think again.
Bosses have HP in the billions, and their poise doesn’t break even if you pray in Aramaic.
According to some players from the Network Test, everything got heavily buffed because some idiot complained that the game was “too easy” during the beta.
Great job, morons.
These are issues FromSoftware could fix. Both are patchable.
They’ve already announced a patch to increase rune drops — but honestly? I don’t need more runes.
What I need is less tanky bosses.
I really hope they do something, because the gameplay is genuinely excellent. It’s such a cool online experience, and I’m really enjoying it...
...but I just can’t move past these bosses. LMAO.