Elden Ring Nightreign is dead, but modders are dabbing on its corpse, with one porting an entire Dark Souls 2 DLC zone as a playable map

Modder Doneda has released a particularly funky and exciting mod for elden Ring Nightreign, porting Dark Souls 2’s Frozen Eleum Loyce and Frigid Outskirts as a standalone map. They also have a trailer up for the project on YouTube. Doneda’s a bit of a Dark Souls 2 expert⁠—they previously restored the remains of a cut sewers map to the sequel for demonstration purposes.

Gun to my head, I think the Brume Tower is my favorite DS2 level, but Eleum Loyce still feels like a dear old friend. I enjoyed base DS2 more than most, but the Lost Crowns DLCs were on a whole different level. Other FromSoft DLCs may be better in a vacuum (Old Hunters, Shadow of the Erdtree), but there has never been a more staggering, exhilarating leap in quality between one of the studio’s games and its corresponding expansion.

While Brume Tower may be my beautiful baby, it just wouldn’t fit in Nightreign like Eleum Loyce does: The wide open Outskirts and walled city can mimic the mini open world of Limveld in a way the twisty, narrow Brume Tower couldn’t manage. My favorite detail is that it looks like the night two circle narrows down on the underground chaos arena where you fight the Burnt Ivory King, a fun and creative recontextualizing of the level’s original flow.

Doneda’s new map is already available for download on the Nightreign Nexus. You’ll need to install Mod Engine 3 beforehand to run it⁠—most, if not all Nightreign mods require the utility. Doneda seems intent on making more modded Nightreign maps, and you can follow their work on YouTube or support them via Ko-fi.

You talk about love/hate relationships, I’d say I have a ⅔ hate, ⅓ love relationship with Nightreign. Its Deep of Night update gave me and my friends incentive to keep playing, while it introduces some truly incredible boss fights⁠—stuff like The Balancers and Libra give me hope that FromSoft can still surprise, delight, and challenge in a post-Promised Consort world.

But Deep of Night also subjected us to the most frustrating, artless version of FromSoftware difficulty I’ve yet seen, and the studio appears to have quietly stopped supporting the game to work on The Duskbloods⁠—and hopefully something else, too?

Perhaps I should take the glass half full view of FromSoft releasing a multiplayer game, supporting it a bit, but not feeling compelled to turn it into a forever empire of live service returns. In the absence of official support, though, there have been some weird, exciting things happening with Nightreign. Yui’s Nightreign iteration of her signature Seamless Co-op mod is a welcome addition for more “chill with your friends” -style play, while I’ve been intrigued by gameplay videos of TerraMag’s SotE and ds3 weapons, a “no duh” addition that I’m still surprised FromSoft didn’t manage itself.