Summary
When you boot upElden Ring Nightreign, you’re in for a very different experience than the game that inspired it. Shifting away from massive worlds and going at your own pace, Nightreign traps in you an ever-encroaching circle that closes on you each night to pit you off against a random boss, all to reach the final Nightlord.
Those changes mean you have to forget a bunch of the muscle memory that came before. This is something different, and you have to treat it as such. That means early on, you’ll be making a lot of mistakes until you learn better. It’s not your fault though, and by reading our tips, you’ll know exactly what you should be avoiding, too.
10Not Gathering Enough Flasks
You Really Do Need The Healing
Unlike the original Elden Ring, you only have a single type of Flask, and that is the one that restores your HP. No FP, so you have to manage that much more carefully. However, that also means that you have to gather more Flasks over the course of your run, with them resetting back to three at the beginning of every match.
While they shouldn’t be the only thing you’re looking out for, you really do need to include at least a few Churches in your path. Beating the boss of the second night will grant you another Flask, but you’d be under a lot of pressure to defeat a Nightlord with just four of them. So boost those numbers up a bit.
9Spending Too Much Time At A Sorcerer’s Rise
Do You Even Need Magic?
There are a lot of Landmarks in Nightreign, all with unique sets of enemies, rewards, and items you can find there.Sorcerer’s Rises are some of the most uniquewith guaranteed rare items within packed with potent magic. Except getting into them isn’t quite that simple. There are no enemies, so you need to solve a puzzle instead.
And that puzzle changes a lot. Sometimes you must find a glyph to destroy, other times there will be a moving tree you need to catch, and plenty more. And it won’t always be obvious, either. So dedicate a bit of time, but accept when you’re stumped. One reward really isn’t worth giving up precious time in the day.
8Never Defeating Enough Enemies
Bosses Just Aren’t Enough
In Nightreign, you start every expedition at level one, and can raise that to a maximum of level 15. Unlike the original Elden Ring, every level here is precious, granting you higher stats with increased HP, FP, and Stamina, as well as increasing the damage all of your weapons deal. It’s a big deal, so you’ll want a lot of Runes.
If you follow a strong path and defeat lots of bosses, you should easily be able to reach level 12 or so, but even regular enemies can drop plenty of Runes. You’ll be furious at yourself if you reach the Nightlord and you’re only a few thousand Runes short of another level. So don’t just ignore non-boss enemies.
The Castle is a great area for farming Runes, packed with strong enemies and plentiful Runes.
7Forgetting To Gather Smithing Stones
You Gotta Sharpen Up!
In Nightreign, weapons come in a variety of rarities. Early weapons will be grey, Common. This is followed by blue Uncommon items, then purple Rare items, and finally yellow Legendary items. Legendary items can only be found dropped as-is, or upgraded through the Crater Shifting Earth event. However,any other weapon can be brought all the way up to Rare.
There are two types of Smithing Stones here, numbered one and two. Smithing Stone [1] will upgrade a Common weapon to Uncommon, and a Smithing Stone [2] will bring an Uncommon weapon up to Rare. So please, take the time to explore mines and defeat the enemies inside them for a guaranteed Smithing Stone [2], they will really make a big difference.
6Not Setting Up Relic Rites
Don’t Turn A Roguelite Into A Roguelike
In most regards, Nightreign is a Roguelike. There is next to nothing retained across runs besides story progress. Levels, weapons, Flasks and everything else is reset. However, each run also ends with you getting a bunch of Relics that can be put into a vessel to create a Relic Rite. These give you effects that extend across the whole match, and can make a significant difference early especially.
However, with how inundated you get with them, it’s easy to forget to ever update them. Make sure you check in on your Relics every now and then to make sure they’re as efficient as can be, and sell those old ones you don’t need for plenty of Murk. And be extra careful not to change your vessel while checking out other ones and leaving it empty.
5Running Out Of The Circle
I Promise It’s Not Worth It
One of the signature features of Nightreign is the circle that closes as the day advances, pitting you against a boss at the end of the day. You can exist outside of this ring, though your HP will slowly start draining and any Sites of Grace you pass wil no longer heal you.
They will, however, still refill your Flasks, so use them liberally to heal while outside.
It can be very tempting to step outside the ring to pick up an item from a nearby area, take away that last sliver of HP from an enemy, or pick up the Runes you dropped. But I promise you, it is never worth the risk of ruining an entire ruin. If it is only your first day, then just go the following day. Nothing changes between days, so any dropped items or damaged enemies will remain the same.
4Remembering Character Scaling Exists
Nightfarers Are More Than Just Fancy Skills
Every Nightfarer in Nightreign is unique. They come with three custom skills, and even have a unique moveset with the category of weapon they specialise in. It can be easy then to get caught up in this visual aspects without ever realising each character has a custom scaling for weapons and how their stats improve with additional levels.
For example, Executor has an S scaling in Arcane, making Bleed builds incredibly viable. Revenant is equally talented in both Faith and Intelligence, letting her wield any form of magic she wants. Duchess even has a high scaling in Intelligence, letting her operate both up-close and at range. You can check out these stats from the Visual Codex.
3Fighting World Bosses Too Soon
Come Again Another Day
The majority of Landmarks in Nightreign come with bosses you can fight, which then drops some great items and spawns a new Site of Grace. This will be the guaranteed enemies you can find, though there will often also be world bosses you can encounter, roaming the wilds in no set locations.
They give a massive amount of Runes and great drops, though they are also strong. Very strong. Strong enough that the average team would not be able to suffer any mistakes fighting them on the first day. This extends past just being able to beat them though. Even if you slowly whittle them away, you’ll have wasted time you could have used on other locations, and fought this world boss when you were stronger.
2Challenging Shifting Earth Events Too Late
It’ll Take A Day
After you defeat your first Nightlord, you will be introduced toShifting Earth events. While these are active, a large chunk of Limveld is changed to a brand-new location packed with unique enemies and a special objective to be achieved. This changes based on the event in question, but they all share a commonality - they take a really long time.
It can be tempting to ignore a Shfiting Earth for a long time, thinking they are too large and daunting, only to go to them after the circle closes a bit to center them. The thing is, unlike other parts of Limveld, Shifting Earth locations are meant to be viewed as a single locale, and that means travelling across all of it to reach the objective. And that means you need to dedictae most of a day to it, not your final few minutes.
1Not Using Pins
And Don’t Forget To Respond!
Despite Nightreign being a fully multiplayer-focused adventure, it lacks some standard multiplayer features. No chat, no parties, and plenty other missing aspects. So how does it promote cooperative play instead? Through pins. WHen in the map, you may drop a pin anywhere which will be shown to your allies. This is a critical tool in planning your journey, especially with random players.
However, what many often miss, is that you can affirm someone’s pin, too. By looking at it, you can hold on the right stick to also place your marker there to confirm you agree with it. Even better, this doesn’t remove your own pin, so you can still leave your own as a reminder while agreeing to follow someone else’s.
