Put simply, Nightreign is a condensed form of Elden Ring played in brief but intense doses, which is reflected in its $40 price tag: it thoughtfully remixes lots of familiar elements for a novel way to play, though there doesn't seem like enough content to warrant a full $60 or $70 price point.

Elden Ring Nightreign isn’t what I was expecting. I knew from the game’s announcement last year that it would be a co-op Elden Ring spinoff, that it would task players with surviving for three nights and facing off against a variety of new and old FromSoftware bosses.

Elden Ring Nightreign stands as one of the most experimental games to come out of From Software in the last decade. With so many questions up in the air — how does its multiplayer work, how long are the sessions,