Elden Ring Nightreign will get “additional playable characters and bosses” via DLC, according to an entry on the game’s Steam page. This isn’t massively surprising, given that Nightreign is a multiplayer-focussed spin-off featuring preset Nightfarer heroes rather than custom RPG characters, as in vanilla Elden Ring. It also supports the idea that Nightreign is the foundation for a From Software Connected Universe of sorts, with characters and antagonists from the original Elden Ring, Dark Souls trilogy, Sekiro and Bloodborne reappearing in Nightreign via the Mystic Nexus of Monetisation.
The Steam page mention of DLC has since been removed, but not fast enough to evade the watchful harpies of Parsimonious Gamer. The now-deleted entry didn’t specify which characters or bosses, but it seems overwhelmingly likely that there will be some familiar faces. We already know that Nightreign features a few bosses from previous From Software games, including the first Dark Souls’ Centipede Demon and Dark Souls 3‘s dragon-riding solar warrior the Nameless King.
Speaking to Gamespot, From Software game director Junya Ishizaki has explained the return of Nameless King and other stalwarts as reflecting the need for variety in a battle royale-flavoured bossrush experience that thrives on creative match-ups. “We needed a lot to add to this mix, so we wanted to leverage what we deemed appropriate from our previous titles,” he told the site, going on to note that “our players have a lot of affection for these characters” and that From are being careful to ground things in lore and ensure the bosses “make sense within the atmosphere and vibe of Elden Ring Nightreign”.
I don’t doubt Ishizaki’s sincerity when he adds that “from a personal standpoint, I thought it’d be kind of fun”, and I don’t want to get too picky with the wording of an answer that presumably came via translator, but “leverage” is a word you tend to hear from publishers looking to squeeze more cash out of their established fictional worlds. If Nightreign finds an audience, I expect there will be plenty more leveraging. In this regard, From are of course following in the footsteps of modders, who’ve been porting bosses between games for yonks and even making them fight each other Salty Bet-style.
There are definitely some old From characters I’d love to see in Nightreign. It’s interesting to consider how they might be adapted to the game’s quickfire open world multiplayer format. Bloodborne’s sorrowful cosmic being Ebrietas, for example, although that’s partly because I didn’t have the heart to attack her in the original game. Sekiro’s many Headless varmints.
Ultimately, though, I’m less interested in which characters might return than in how From Software might justify their presence at the level of environmental storytelling and backstory. While it’s an angle I’ve overegged in the past, From’s tales of overthrowing corrupted kings and being corrupted in the process can easily be read as a mythologisation of the pitfalls of prolonging a narrative franchise, stretching out stories till they become boneless and dissatisfying, and reviving characters who should have died or retired several iterations ago.
In Dark Souls 3, for example, there is a cannibalistic monster who fights using the half-eaten husk of a character from the original game. It’s interesting to place that act of regurgitation against what we know of Nightreign’s update plans, which seem heavily informed by the undead philosophies of live service games. I wonder if the new game will end up being one big metaphor for seasonal update entropy?