During a recent successful expedition in Elden Ring Nightreign, wherein my fellow Nightfarers and I took down the Everdark Sovereign version of Adel Baron of Night, I had a realization: FromSoftware isn’t giving me enough space to properly thank my fellow Limveld adventurers. (Or to say sorry to them, if necessary.)
And “Vic,” a Raider who dealt the killing blow to Adel, deserved ample thanks. He’d dispatched the Baron of Night solo, while an Ironeye and I laid on the ground, near-death on our bellies, whipped by the winds of Adel’s vortex, acting as a two-person audience to Vic’s patience and prowess in combat.
After Vic had cracked the Gaping Jaw wide open with his giant hammer, Ironeye and I rose to our feet, we dusted ourselves off, and I quickly whipped out my Prattling Pete to say a raspy “Thank you.” Vic did a little dance, I did a little bow, but we only had mere seconds to express our gratitude for each other. This scant downtime after an expedition needs to be fixed, now that FromSoft has solved duos mode. (It feels not unlike trying to watch credits on a streaming service, then fighting to grab the remote before I run out of time and am pushed to immediately watch a second movie or move onto the subsequent episode.)
Elden Ring Nightreign is built with anonymity and a lack of direct connection in mind. By design, I can’t voice chat with the strangers I matchmake with on expeditions, nor do we have much time to communicate to each other beyond “go here” markers on the game’s map. Nightreign is built for speed; everyone’s just scrambling to get to the next Great Enemy, to the next church, or to the meat of a Shifting Earth event.
But having just 10 more seconds after an expedition, successful or otherwise, would be a nice wind down after 40 minutes of frenzied gameplay. I want to do the silly gestures that I paid hard-earned Murk for! With my anonymous buds!
I’m fortunate that on this website, I have a public venue to say “Thanks” to Vic the Raider, wherever you are. But I also want to have that opportunity in-game, especially since I also sometimes feel the need to apologize to my fellow Nightfarers.
While post-game celebrations — I prefer to do a rapid 1080º spin to show my appreciation — after a win are possible in Nightreign, failing an expedition offers no window to say “Sorry” and “Thank you for your service, soldier.” Earlier this week, I was matched with a Wylder and a Recluse as we took on Heolstor the Nightlord. Again, after some admittedly sloppy play on my part, Wylder and I went down, leaving our capable Recluse to fend for herself with the boss at about 20% health. She did an excellent job, whittling Heolstor down to less than 5% of his second-phase health. She almost pulled it off, and I never got to thank her for that valiant effort. If we had a post-lobby screen to send kudos, or to apologize for letting her down, I’d feel so much better. And if in that post-expedition, post-failure moment, the anonymous Recluse wanted to scold me for putting overly aggressive pressure on Heolstor, I’d be OK with that. That’s harsh but fair feedback.
When it comes to future quality-of-life changes for Elden Ring Nightreign, things like better Relics sorting are great — but I’d really appreciate it if FromSoft considered adding a little postgame downtime. I have some people I’d like to thank.