I tried out some of Elden Ring Nightreign’s player-made shortcuts for the Crater event and all I got was fried in lava

Elden Ring Nightreign doesn’t just have brutal bosses with the aim of a sniper and the fury of Zeus, it also has, at times, a map that tries to kill you. And I’m not just talking about the storm.

Occasionally there’ll be Shifting Earth events. These start popping up after you defeat the first Nightlord Gladius, Beast of Night (Tricephalos). When they occur, parts of the map will transform in different ways, which can affect your chance of success in a run, depending on how you face this new challenge.

The best Shifting Earth, the one that trumps all else in my humble opinion, is the Crater Event. This sees a massive crack in the centre of the map open up, with lava bubbling at the bottom and massive explosions shaking the fabric of Limgrave.

The reward waiting for players who manage to reach the bottom is a special smithing table, which lets players turn any one of their weapons into a legendary weapon. But with only limited time, numerous bosses waiting for you on the way down, and a massive Magma Wyrm ready to cut you in half, it can be a pretty tricky event to complete.

The solution to this? Yeeting yourself off a nearby cliff and praying you land on a rock and don’t just drown in the rivers of lava.

For those playing as Ironyeye, this is made slightly easier by his skill which lets him lunge forward. YouTuber eldencafor shared a shortcut which sees Ironeye jump off the cliff on the side of the Church near two Thorn Sorcerers. You need to have a quick cooldown on your skill, or have a relic that grants +1 skill use, as you need to lunge twice to make it to solid ground. But for those of us without a lunge and a bow, there’s another, more deadly, way of getting to the bottom.

If you go to the flight tree located at the north of the crater (near where the second-day boss usually spawns) catch an eagle over the lava pit, and then jump off just before it crosses over land, you can make it to the Magma Wyrm boss if you keep falling forward.

Now let me warn anyone who attempts this, my friends and I did this in a moment of panic and weakness when we realised there wouldn’t be enough time to reach the bottom of the Crater by going the usual route. There’s also a lot that can go wrong.

If you mistime the drop, you either land on the cliff near the Black Blade Kindred or fall straight into the lava. Also, if you accidentally hit R3, the eagle will just drop you into the abyss. The first time we attempted this, one of my friends had an eagle drop him dead in the middle of the Crater despite him apparently not touching anything, this then freaked my other teammate out—who tried to bail and also fell into the lava, which then confused me, and believe it or not? Straight into the lava I went.

Since then I’ve managed to pull this little trick off, but I did so with randoms, which ended up causing the same amount of chaos as my teammates couldn’t figure out how I went from the cliff edge down to the bottom of the other side of the Crater.

So for now, I think the only Crater skip I’ll be sticking to is this relatively easy and safe one shared by That-Communication48 which takes you to the fog wall by the Fire Monks and Fire Prelate. It’ll shave off a few minutes and you’ll still get some levels and a weapon after defeating these guys, so it’s not a total waste of precious seconds. I could also just learn how to manage my time better, but this is a good backup.