After 170 hours of Elden Ring Nightreign its new, increasingly evil Deep of Night mode has managed to hook me in again

I've been hyping myself up for Elden Ring Nightreign's Deep of Night mode ever since it was uncovered by dataminers a month ago. It's not like I need an excuse to play, but running through Nightlords and Everdark Sovereigns was starting to get tedious. I wanted a new challenge, and what better than a ranked "endless mode"?

Deep of Night isn't endless in the sense that you just keep going day after day until you die, but it is endless in the sense that you rank up or down depending on whether you win a run, and then your progress affects your rank, which you can keep working towards.

It's largely more of the same, with the two-day expedition followed by Nightlord finale, the same maps, and the same kinds of enemies that inhabit them. The main differences lie in how strong these enemies can get and what kind of weapons you can find around the map.

Not only do the regular grunts hit harder now, but there are souped-up versions of enemies called mutants with a bloody-red tinge to them. They're yet another step up from what players are used to, but fighting them is worth it because of what they drop: weapons with additional and more powerful effects.

I picked up a composite bow, which gave me improved sorceries and a 28% increase in damage negation, while others have granted me effects like glintblades and a range increase.

Getting two buffs does come in handy when facing up against stronger foes, but FromSoft isn't handing out party favours; these new weapons also come with debuffs. Reduced flask HP restoration, a hit to your FP meter, and a decrease in damage negation whilst using a flask. It's important to take a look at what you're picking up in case you get a particularly harsh penalty.

Another advantage that Deep of Night grants players is dishing out Depths Relics alongside regular relics at the end of each run as a reward. These grant additional effects that aren't found in the base game, and therefore can't be used in regular runs. But like the new weapons, these also come with debuffs (because we can't have anything nice).

One relic I got granted me improved sorceries, but reduced dexterity and faith. Another granted improved lightning damage negation, but taking damage causes blood loss buildup. And a third improved vigour and strength for Ironeye, but reduced dexterity.

There's also "dormant powers" attached to relics, which can grant new items like Opaline Hardtears at the start of the expedition or allow players to discover more of a certain weapon type like Great Hammers.

My first couple of runs saw me face up against Tricephalos and Gaping Jaw, but there is a possibility that you'll have to face up against an Everdark Sovereign, as you don't pick your Nightlord; it's anyone's guess as to who you're going to have to fight. (Although given the surprising lack of actual randomness in Nightreign's map seeds, perhaps the same will end up applying to Deep of Night, too).

Deep of Night isn't that different from what I've come to expect from regular expeditions at its early stages, but it's not really meant to be. It's a mode that'll scale in difficulty as you progress through the Depths (ranks), encountering harder enemies and Nightlords as you go.

You can't pick which Nightlord you're facing up against, but at the lower ranks, you'll at least be able to see who you're fighting on the third day when you enter the hero select menu and on the map, so you can gather weapons and effects accordingly. At higher ratings, however, there may be roadblocks like not knowing which Nightlord you're facing up against or not having points of interest show up on the map.

Nightreign has managed to almost entirely captivate me since it was released a few months ago. But despite loving my time with it, expeditions did start to go stale as my friends and I ripped through all the Nightlords and Everdark Sovereigns we came up against; fights just didn't have the same kick as they used to. But Deep of Night seems like a mode that'll only get more interesting and harder the more time you spend with it, which is exactly the right direction to take a game that's now got a pretty hardened and experienced playerbase.