Nightreign changes the narrative of Elden Ring with playable memories.

Elden Ring: Nightreign will not follow the same path as previous games from FromSoftware, and this is already causing mixed reactions among fans. Far from the free exploration and contemplative pace that marked the base game, Nightreign proposes short sessions of up to 40 minutes, in a cooperative roguelike format, with a direct focus on fast combat against hordes of grotesque enemies.

However, this change in format does not mean the complete abandonment of the dense and fragmented narrative that characterizes the studio's games. In an interview with IGN, director Junya Ishizaki explained how Nightreign will tell its story: through Remembrances, memories from the characters' past, some playable and others in text, accessible in the Roundtable Hold, which serves as the main hub of the game.

"Nightreign essentially shares the setting and world of Elden Ring, but it takes place on a different stage, so to speak," said Ishizaki.

The new threat is known as Night Lord, a calamity that afflicts an alternative version of the Lands Between. According to Ishizaki, it is an "abstract" and unintentional phenomenon. The task of facing it falls to the Nightfarers, warriors with different origins who take on the mission to stop this evil.

"It's something that arose naturally and needed opposition. That opposition comes in the form of the Nightfarers," added the director.

Players can choose from eight playable classes, each with a defined past. These individual stories are revealed through Remembrances, some of which lead to playable sections in solo missions, with specific settings and visual borders that differentiate them from the rest of the game.

Additionally, each memory may include NPCs with personal goals, adding a layer of narrative progression. In some cases, it will be necessary to retrieve a specific item during a normal run to advance in the individual storyline when returning to the corresponding Remembrance.

Despite the initial criticism of the new proposal, FromSoftware tries to maintain part of the soul of Elden Ring by preserving the mystery and narrative fragmentation — but now, instead of exploring large maps, the player revisits the characters' past in isolated memories.

Still without a confirmed release date, Elden Ring: Nightreign represents a bold experiment for the studio, which after the success of Elden Ring in 2022 — a game that won the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards — seems willing to explore new ways of telling stories... even if it means "hitting things."