Death comes for everyone in Elden Ring Nightreign. FromSofware’s experimental combination of Fortnite meets roguelike is built on a foundation that’s already notoriously difficult, so you can expect to see ‘YOU DIED’ often. Some deaths are worse than others, though.
Every time you begin an expedition in Nightreign, your trio begins at level 1. You then have to quickly defeat mobs, find gear, and level up before the storm closes in and a major boss appears on the map. If you die, you’ll eventually respawn and have a chance to recollect the Runes you dropped in your last life — but you’ll be knocked down one level. It’s an understandable compromise that is arguably more lenient than what you might find in a typical roguelike, where death means completely starting over. But since things move quickly in Nightreign, being the first in your group to die can start a cycle of pain that’s sometimes impossible to bounce back from.
You barely have time to level up at all, so losing a level is a huge setback. The chances of catching back up are slim, which turns the player who dies first into the biggest liability on the team during combat encounters. The poor sod who dies first usually becomes the person who will lose all their HP the fastest in all other scenarios, which could potentially mean falling back even further.
In the overworld map, level discrepancies are a little easier to deal with. Teammates have a small window to revive their pals without penalty, and most mobs can be dispensed quickly enough to safely do so. If you’re playing as Ironeye, you can even revive from afar without much danger. Where things really get dicey are bosses, which are designed to be tough even if you’re at full power. End of day bosses in particular appear in an area that is closed off from the rest of the map, so you can’t retreat back into safety. In those cases, your teammates might be too busy trying to stay alive to be able to help you anyway.
I’ve had a couple of embarrassing runs that just kept getting worse and worse due to this gameplay framework. In one unfortunate instance, I was running toward a church in search of an extra flask charge. The fastest way there was by taking a spirit stream up a mountain, which was located near a tree spirit boss. I sauntered forward, confident that I could outrun the boss as I would any other baddie. What I didn’t expect was that the bastard could interrupt the animation that vaulted me up, thereby preventing me from leaving entirely. In one fell swoop, the woodsy worm took me into his maw and killed me.
My teammates were nearby and dutifully sprung into action. But Nighreign requires that you hit someone multiple times before they’ll revive, and I had fallen right under the boss. There was no way to get to me without being in the direct line of fire of the enemy, and no one was playing a ranged character. Seconds later, all three of us were crawling on the ground, gasping our last breaths. Nightreign doesn’t have voice chat or any way to communicate with your team, so I could only imagine everyone else’s disappointment that we’d gone out in such an anti-climactic way.
If one good thing has come out of all of this, is that it’s motivated me to play better to try and avoid dying as much as possible. But Nightreign is a tough game. Everyone will eventually die. I’m just hoping I’m not the first person to fall under — and I feel bad for whoever dies first.