Elden Ring Nightreign Channels the Spirit of a Forgotten God of War Game
This past weekend saw the first round of network tests for Elden Ring Nightreign, the upcoming standalone multiplayer game spun out of FromSoftware’s magnum opus. Unlike last year’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, Nightreign resembles Elden Ring in name and appearance only, trading its parent game’s open world structure for a streamlined survival format in which three-player teams have to drop into gradually shrinking maps to fight off groups of enemies and increasingly challenging bosses. It’s a design that undoubtedly suggests the developers were inspired by the hugely popular Fortnite – unsurprising, considering Epic’s battle royale has been enjoyed by no less than 200 million players this month alone.
But Nightreign bears an even greater resemblance to another game, one not nearly as famous and much more disliked: 2013’s God of War: Ascension. And that’s a good thing.
Released between 2010’s God of War 3 and 2018’s Norse-flavored God of War reboot, Ascension was a prequel set before the original Greek mythology trilogy that followed Kratos as he tried to break his oath with his soon-to-be-predecessor, Aries. Unable to live up to the initial trilogy’s epic finale, and fueling desire to shake up a tried-and-tested formula, God of War: Ascension quickly became known as the black sheep of the franchise. A half-decent appetizer to an amazing main course.
It’s an understandable reputation, but also unfair. Although Kratos’ confrontation with the Furies in Ascension obviously didn’t reach the same heights as his five-stage fight with Zeus, this divisive prequel still had some truly jaw-dropping set-pieces, including the Prison of the Damned, a labyrinthine dungeon carved into the skin and bones of an immobilized, 100-armed giant. But, more importantly, Ascension also deserves credit for trying something the franchise had not done before, and hasn’t since: multiplayer.
As you make your way through the Prison of the Damned in Ascension’s story, you encounter a chained up NPC who lets out a premature “You saved me!” before being crushed by the level’s boss. Open up the multiplayer mode after reaching this point in the campaign and you’ll find this same NPC is now your player character. Having been teleported to Olympus seconds before your demise, you must pledge allegiance to one of four gods – Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, or Aries – each of whom will provide you with unique weapons, armor pieces, and magic attacks. These are the tools with which you wage war across five different multiplayer modes, four of which are competitive PvP.
The fifth mode, Trial of the Gods, is cooperative PvE. And also basically Elden Ring Nightreign.
Gameplay previews of Nightreign posted ahead of the network tests by prominent “Soulsborne” YouTubers like VaatiyVidya and Iron Pineapple, as well IGN’s own coverage, have revealed the similarities between FromSoftware’s latest and live service games like Fortnite. Much like those games, Nightreign offers a cocktail of randomized loot, resource management, and environmental hazards that damage a player’s health and limit their area of movement, making runs more challenging as they go on. Nightreign even pays homage to one of Fortnite’s most iconic images, having players drop into the level from the sky, taxied by spirit birds to a position of their choosing.
You won’t find any “where are we dropping?” action in God of War: Ascension, but go beyond Nightreign’s battle royale-like surface and you’ll find much more common ground. Both Nightreign and Ascension’s Trial of the Gods mode are co-op experiences where teams of two or more face increasingly tougher foes. Both grant players the unexpected but welcome opportunity to take on bosses from previous games, be they Hercules from God of War 3 or the Nameless King from Dark Souls 3. Both have a countdown (although Ascension’s can be paused by defeating enemies) and both take place on maps that are either small or shrinking. And both are multiplayer games developed by studios known for their well-crafted single-player experiences, and were made without oversight from their series’ creators; Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on an as of yet unknown project, while the directors of the original God of War trilogy – David Jaffe, Cory Barlog, and Stig Asmussen – had all left Sony Santa Monica at the time of Ascension’s creation to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
Above all, Nightreign appears to evoke the same response from players as Ascension’s Trial of the Gods did. Those who participated in FromSoftware’s network test invariably describe their runs as a frantic and exhilarating race against the clock. In contrast to the comparatively cozy vibes of the base game, where players are able to tackle every scenario in a variety of ways, using a variety of weapons and abilities and taking all the time they need, Nightreign forces players to act on instinct by picking up the pace and limiting their resources – constraints that, in VaatiVidya’s words, were “made in the name of speed and efficiency.” To make up for the absence of Torrent, for instance, players now channel their inner spirit horse, being able to run faster and jump higher.
Ascension’s multiplayer also adjusted its single player blueprint for the sake of tighter pacing, and even used similar techniques to those adopted by Nightreign: it increased the player’s run speed, extended their jumps, automated parkour, and provided them with a grapple attack they could use to pull objects towards them (a mechanic also used by Nightreign’s Wylder character). New moves like this are a lifesaver, because while the combat isn’t too difficult on its own – what with the franchise being a power fantasy and all – Trial of the Gods throws so many enemies at you that every second counts. As a result, you and your teammate find yourselves sprinting around like hungry wolves, or terminators, or, well, Kratoses, hacking and slashing your way through armies without calculated ruthlessness.
Nightreign’s resemblance to Ascension is unexpected not only because much of the latter has been forgotten, but also because the Soulslike genre Elden Ring is part of essentially started out as God of War’s complete antithesis. Where one lets you pretend to be a warrior so powerful he can kill literal gods, the other turns you into a nameless, accursed undead for whom even regular enemies pose a considerable challenge. One rarely shows its game over screen, the other beats you over the head with it until you start crying, laughing, and crying again.
Yet this challenge, so utterly rage-inducing in FromSoftware’s earlier games, has gradually decreased in recent years as fans “got good” and developers provided them with better weapons and spells, culminating in the numerous game-breaking builds that have been put together since Elden Ring launched. Without access to these builds, Nightreign promises to reintroduce a degree of challenge. At the same time, those that have indeed gotten good will be able to enjoy the same thing God of War: Ascension offered: the chance to feel like a vengeful Spartan short on time.
Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more
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