It’s been a long time coming, but duos is descending on Elden Ring Nightreign at the end of this month alongside a handful of neat quality of life changes. There’s a new trailer showcasing the two-player mode, but I want to call attention to a small moment within that footage that playfully pokes fun at the way diehard Nightreign fans approach the game. It only lasts a few seconds, but that’s enough time for FromSoftware to make its point.
Around the 34 second mark, we can see a Revenant standing by an imp statue seal. She motions the other player forward, and the Executor walks into the frame only to be completely useless. The animation that happens when you try and use an item without anything actually equipped plays, and then the trailer moves on to show more of its actual subject.
What’s funny about this is that of late, something called the ‘evergaol meta’ has taken over Elden Ring Nightreign. Basically, there are relics that permanently increase your damage every time you defeat an Evergaol — and the damage stacks. There can be up to eight active Evergaols, so with some efficient routing, you can rack up a ton of damage very quickly. Some relics start you off with a Stoneword key, but the community has also figured out many of the best places to farm the item as well. The result is that most matches I’ve played over the summer have seen at least someone on the team running an Evergaol build, if not the entire party.
But the upshot of all of this is that knowledge around Evergaols has also drastically reduced the ways people approach the game. It’s become so pervasive that some players are now sick of not just seeing it, but using it altogether. Here’s one player a couple of weeks ago describing the issue in a highly upvoted Reddit thread:
I try to play initial attack up. My evergaol setup deals more damage. I try to play grease items. My evergaol setup deals more damage. I try to play stance breaking. My evergaol setup deals more damage. I want to play Duchess. Her best setup has evergaols. I want to play Guardian, Recluse. They both want evergaols.
This might make it sound like people have optimized the joy out of Nightreign, but the situation is a little more complicated than that. Players are aware that Evergaols are good, but that doesn’t mean that anyone equipping the necessary relics will magically perform better. Some people will open up an Evergoal immediately after landing, before they’ve cleared out the initial camp that can level you up. While many Evergaols are doable at a low level, even the most basic enemies can kill you at level one. Attempting to take on an Evergaol at level one is complete folly, but it happens all the time anyway. Once I had a team who, upon spawning, ran straight to the Evergoal only for everyone to die within seconds of opening it. Despite being responsible for the wipe, both of my teammates summarily left.
Perhaps the most hilarious consequence of the Evergaol meta is what transpires during the duos footage. You’ll get people who are so used to the established meta that the first thing they’ll ping is an Evergaol on the map. Everyone will dutifully run to the area of interest. Then, it turns out, no one has a damn key. Someone will eventually take the lead and point us in a new direction, but it takes a while before anyone realizes that you wasted precious time only to not be able to open the prison. I’m guilty as charged, but in my defense, I wasn’t aware I had changed my loadout between matches. RIP.
At least I’ve never stooped to fighting my teammates over where to go next by highlighting an Evergaol over and over until everyone is annoyed enough to follow the pointer.
The mini skit with the Executor in the duos trailer captures this humiliation well, which I thought was a fun nod by FromSoftware toward its fans. The trailer is full of tiny winks like this, too.
“I love how connected Fromsoft is with their community,” reads one YouTube comment on the trailer. “Little things like Ironeye shooting the seal for Recluse at 0:29 because her spells can’t reach that high, is something you’d know only if you played the game.“