Elden Ring: Nightreign bucks the extraction trend, but it would have been a better game if it hadn't

We're almost at the bottom of the volcano. After descending into the fiery depths, fighting through waves of Fire Prelates, Finger Creepers, and Flame Chariots, the ancient altar is finally in sight, promising us the ability to forge our own legendary weapons. Just as we approach the special smithing table, a Magma Wyrm bursts from the ash—one last fight against the clock to secure our prize. After a lengthy battle, I approach the anvil and forge my first unique legendary weapon.

Then I remember I'm not going to get to keep it. In fact, I'll only have it for the next 10 minutes. It's a disappointing realisation that, rather than this dramatic descent into the volcano becoming a memory or an accomplishment (like defeating a hard boss in Elden Ring), if I want to forge another legendary weapon I have to run this event again, and again, and again.

Elden Ring Nightreign has a problem with repetition. After you've played the game for a while, you start to realise that every run is just waiting for the stars to align; for RNG to favour you with the right map composition, the right passives, and the right landmarks so you can acquire a weapon that targets a Nightlord's weakness. And while that's happening, you do the same things over and over—you acquire flasks from churches, bum rush as many bosses as you can, grab smithing stones—as many have joked, it really is the longest boss run-up in FromSoftware history.

Both RNG and repetition are key parts of the roguelike genre, but I feel like the hallmark of a good roguelike is that it's generally possible to create a winning build if you're smart with what you grab, and that's simply not the case in Nightreign. After a while, you'll come to know the few passives and affixes that favour your Nightfarer and you'll grab them every run if you can. In Nightreign, there's very little middle ground; you're either thriving, or making do with unsuitable garbage.

Admittedly, you can prepare for a Nightlord's weakness with the relics you equip at the start of an expedition, but acquiring them is also down to RNG, and their ability to mitigate a run's randomisation is limited. I feel like the most damning indictment of the Nightlord weakness system is beating the final boss and getting a relic that lets you change affinity simply by swapping weapons. "You beat the game! Now you don't have to engage with this annoying system anymore."

Thanks I guess, but why was it in the game to begin with if all it does is hobble inventive buildcrafting?

I can't help but imagine a version of Nightreign where randomisation isn't the be-all and end-all, where we actually get to extract and keep some of our loot, and so prepare more thoroughly for harder expeditions while taking on the risk of losing gear. The key word here is "extract", as in, I genuinely think Nightreign should have had more extraction elements in the vein of Dark and Darker's PvE mode. The rags to riches extraction shooter journey of dropping in with nothing and returning with powerful gear would have fit Nightreign perfectly.

At the very least, it would've made its Shifting Earth events far less pointless. Currently completing them rewards you with temporary buffs that mostly never fit the Nightlord you're actually fighting, with the exception of The Crater and Noklateo. In extraction Nightreign, they could have rewarded something more powerful that you take away with you. It would've made them feel significant and occasional, and less like a pointless area of the map you simply avoid most of the time.

Extraction games also let you choose what challenges you tackle, and so too, your level of reward. Imagine a Nightreign where, rather than rinsing the map for bosses every single run, there were different activities requiring different levels of preparedness. You could choose how deep to go and work towards tackling harder events over multiple runs.

Maybe the game could even let you earn the ability to extract before the Nightlord boss, giving you a bit more freedom if you wanted to focus on a Shifting Earth event instead.

One of the best things about Elden Ring for me is starting a new character—the excitement of hopping into the Lands Between as a Wretch, seeing what items drop, and deciding what build I'm going for. There's definitely a version of Nightreign that could've existed where every expedition was a microcosm of that experience. In a run-based game like this, the extraction formula would've been the perfect way to facilitate it, starting with nothing and building from the ground up based on what you find.

Extracting gear would also have helped us have a bit more say in buildcrafting outside of catering to Nightlord weaknesses or being beholden to each expedition's RNG—something that would be balanced by losing said equipment if you failed. Nightreign could've even had PvP in some form, considering the game already has Nightfarer invaders who drop their gear if you kill them.

The only caveat is that I think Nightreign would have to be harder for extraction to work, with other challenging objectives to work towards besides Nightlords. The boss weakness system would also have to be scrapped (so you couldn't stockpile weapons with their weakness), but honestly, I think that system really emphasises the issue with the game's randomisation and is terrible from a roguelike buildcrafting perspective.

I do enjoy Nightreign, in spite of its identity crisis, but the most frustrating thing as a From fan is that it feels like its position as a side-job multiplayer experiment vs. a mainline game has negatively impacted its development. It's so close to being a significantly better game than it is, but scope is the only answer I can find as to why it isn't.