The game director of Elden Ring: Nightreign has delivered an ultimatum to gaming couples everywhere: Find a third wheel or play by yourself
Learning about a new Elden Ring spin-off was my highlight of The Game Awards. Over the last few years, my partner and I have spent a great deal of time playing Elden Ring and its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC alongside each other, occasionally teaming up to explore the lands between or fight a particularly tricky boss. Still, summoning other players is still quite fiddly Elden Ring: Nightreign seemed like the perfect solution.
Elden Ring: Nightreign is a multiplayer spin-off in which teams of players can work together to fight new and old FromSoft bosses while exploring a different version of Limgrave (Elden Ring's starting area) in short sessions of about 30 minutes each. There'll be randomised encounters and placements to discover, but before each run, you'll always have to choose one of eight final bosses to fight. It seemed ideal for my partner and I to dive into it until we found out you can only play solo or in a team of three, no couples allowed.
During an interview with IGN, game director Junya Ishizaki explained why FromSoftware decided to opt for such an awkward number. «The game is designed to be played as a three-person team, but you can play it as a solo player,» Ishizaki says. «The reason that we went with a three-player focus was that we wanted to retain that sense of accomplishment you get from battling a boss together or from conquering a map together and that sense of enjoyment, but we wanted to recreate that in a fresh way. And we felt like focusing on a three-player co-op experience would provide a brand new sense of accomplishment with it.»
As frustrating as it is to have to find a third wheel for our upcoming adventure through Elden Ring: Nightreign, I can't help but find this decision not only typical of FromSoftware's quirky approach to its games, but also really funny. Of course the devs wouldn't just settle for a classic co-op adventure, or round the number up to four players so everyone in your multiplayer group can join in. No, they have to
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