Elden Ring Nightreign DLC: When FromSoft Magically Makes Us Want Even MORE (Despite One Glaring Oversight)
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
FromSoftware's *Elden Ring Nightreign: The Forsaken Hollows* DLC injects exhilarating new life into the multiplayer Soulslike, forcing players to re-learn, re-strategize, and truly embrace teamwork with fresh characters and a brilliant new map. Despite amplifying the base game's highs, its potential as a live-service game leaves players (and this digital wizard) greedily wishing for even more frequent, substantial updates – and seriously, still no crossplay? Come on, FromSoft!
Right, so you know that feeling when you've finally mastered a game, like you've meticulously mapped every secret and can practically predict the next enemy's sneer? That's kinda where a lot of us landed with *Elden Ring Nightreign* a few months back. It was always a bit of a curious beast, wasn't it? An online multiplayer Soulslike where you're sprinting around as pre-set characters, dodging mayhem, and eventually ganging up on ridiculously grand Nightlord bosses. Took a while to get the hang of it, fair dinkum, but eventually, we learned the maps, memorised the movesets, hoarded all the powerful Relics, and became proper experts at dodging digital death. Playing with randos even became... dare I say it, pleasant. What a concept!
Then, like a mischievous wizard tossing a wild card into the deck, FromSoftware drops *The Forsaken Hollows* DLC, and suddenly, we're all delightfully back to square one. Or, y'know, square 1.5. This isn't just a minor patch, mate; it's a glorious, chaotic reset button that throws two fresh characters, a brand-spanking-new event, and a pair of formidable Nightlords into the mix. And bloody hell, it’s exactly what the game needed to rekindle that initial spark. As Ed Nightingale brilliantly put it over at Eurogamer in his review of this expansion (published December 9, 2025), this DLC “only amplifies the highs of the base game, but greedily I still want more.” And honestly? After diving into it myself, I reckon he’s spot on.
See, the beauty of FromSoftware's trickery here is that they've leaned *hard* into the teamwork aspect that *Nightreign* was built on. All those cries for solo balancing? Yeah, FromSoft heard them and promptly gave a collective shrug, doubling down on the need for coordinated chaos. If you're a staunch solo Souls player who prefers a quiet evening with a boss and only your own blood on your hands, *Nightreign* – and especially this DLC – still isn't for you. But for the rest of us, it’s a chance to share those ecstatic highs, to pull off a perfectly timed combo with a stranger, and to yell 'Get in!' at your screen when a grand plan actually comes together.
Let's talk about the new faces in the crowd: Scholar and Undertaker. These two Nightfarers slot into the roster like they were always meant to be there. The Scholar's an Arcane intellectual, all about dissecting enemies and applying potent debuffs. Bit of a backseat driver, perhaps, watching the action unfold to weave their magic, but crucial for setting up big plays. Then there's the Undertaker, a formidable nun who swaps holy water for heavy hammers and Faith magic. She's proving more popular, and I can see why – she's a bit more 'get stuck in and smash things,' which is always a crowd-pleaser. Her 'Loathsome Hex' Ultimate, a powerful slingshot strike, gets an extra charge when allies pop their Ults too. Talk about incentivizing synchronicity! Meanwhile, Scholar's 'Communion' can thread multiple enemies, dealing damage to all at once – absolute boss-group decimator when the stars align with your teammates.
And align they must, because the new Nightlord bosses are definitely group affairs. These feel less like traditional Souls bosses and more like the epic raid encounters you'd find in an MMO, demanding precise positioning, coordinated dodges, and smart ability usage to contend with their widespread area-of-effect attacks and crippling status effects. I'm sure some mad lad will eventually beat them with a banana or a DDR pad, but for mere mortals, teamwork is king. Plus, FromSoftware continues to flex its artistic muscles with the skyboxes – seriously, the grandeur of these battles is just something else. It's like fighting gods in an oil painting.
But the real game-changer in *The Forsaken Hollows*, beyond the new characters and beefier bosses, is the 'Shifting Earth' event: The Great Hollow. Previous events were fine, but let's be honest, sometimes they felt a bit... ignorable. Just a section of the main map tweaked, easily bypassed if you weren't in the mood. The Great Hollow, though? It’s an entirely new (albeit smaller) map, forcing players into a fresh environment. This, my friends, is how it *should* have been from the start. Monotony was creeping into the base game's map rotations, but this new locale – a moonlit cavern bristling with towering crystals, crumbling ruins, and some incredibly tough new challenges (Mohg's back, apparently, and he's not happy) – is a breath of fresh air. Its verticality hides deceptive depth, demanding expert knowledge to navigate without getting swallowed by the encroaching storm. It genuinely feels like a deep dive into an arcane catacomb, and it massively extends the game's longevity. This is the kind of experimental map design that gets my digital wizard senses tingling!
Now, for my one truly maddening quibble, and it’s a big one: the continued lack of crossplay. *Nightreign* thrives on playing with friends, on those shared moments of triumph and despair. Yet, you're locked into your chosen platform – PS5 with PS5, Xbox with Xbox, PC with PC. In this day and age, when so many multiplayer games connect players regardless of their hardware, this feels like FromSoftware forgot a crucial enchantment ingredient. It’s a genuine oversight, and I truly hope they cast a patch-spell to fix it soon.
My biggest 'greedy' desire, mirroring Ed Nightingale's sentiment, is simply *more*. *Nightreign* feels like prime fodder for a live-service game. The seamless way new characters and bosses slot in, how events like The Great Hollow refresh the experience – it all screams potential for ongoing, substantial updates. While the existing Everdark Sovereigns and Deep of Night extras cater to the experts, I can't help but wonder what could have been if FromSoft had committed to a regular cadence of hefty content drops. It could have kept that initial 'scrappy urgency' alive for far longer, preventing the game from settling into 'rehearsed expertise' so quickly. Perhaps, as some cleverly observant folk (including Ed) have suggested, *Nightreign* is serving as a fervent testing ground for their forthcoming Switch 2 exclusive, *The Duskbloods*. If so, it’s a fantastic proving ground, but it leaves me wanting a fuller meal for *this* game.
Ultimately, *The Forsaken Hollows* takes everything great about *Nightreign* and turns the dial up. Those boss fight thrills, amplified by the desperate scramble with teammates, are pure FromSoftware magic. I recently had one of those runs: perfectly levelled, hitting the new Nightlord The Balancers for the first time – a horde of angry valkyries raining down attacks like angelic Malenias. My teammates fell, but I dodged and weaved, getting those hopeful final strikes in. The elation? Off the charts. Danced around my living room like a madman. When it comes to boss fight thrills, FromSoftware remains the undisputed master, and this DLC only cements that fact. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see what other chaos I can conjure up with the Undertaker. Fingers crossed for some crossplay magic in the next update, eh?
Tags: Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware, DLC Review, Multiplayer, Soulslike
Original article: Eurogamer