My friends and I spent 10 hours dying to last week’s Everdark Sovereign overhaul of the Gaping Jaw before finally killing the lightning bird late one night, long past the point when we should have all gone to bed. Now Elden Ring Nightreign is back with a new boss for players to take on, but thankfully this one is a lot easier. It took us only two tries, in part due to a completely over-powered relic we unlocked from defeating last week’s terror.
The new Everdark Sovereign players have to face is the centaur-like Darkdrift Knight. He was one of the main game’s tougher Nightlords, so fans were worreid they were in for another brutal stomping. Instead, he’s a more powerful but not altogether different version of the base boss fight, just with a mean new AoE holy attack that’s tough to dodge. As I did with his original form, I played Guardian to soak up all his physical attacks with my shield while my teammates picked him apart.
But we made even quicker work of him this time thanks to the Grand Luminous Scene relic we unlocked after beating the Gaping Jaw Everdark Sovereign. The new merchant outside the keep sells it in exchange for a few sigils and it includes the permanent attack power buff for defeating Evergaol prisoners, an extra Stonesword Key and a treasure map to boot. These perks are usually only found on separate relics, taking up multiple slots. The new relic streamlines that, letting you run the Evergaol strat while also buffing other stats and unique character abilities.
For anyone who hasn’t been running the Evergaol strat, it’s a gamechanger during Nightreign’s farming phase. Each Evergaol prisoner you defeat gives a 5 percent bonus to attack, up to 35 percent. The prisoner fights themselves give very generous runes, making it easy to consistently hit level 14 or 15 before night three without having to worry about things like whether Bell Bearing Hunter is at the bottom of the castle or which field bosses you get. If everyone on your team runs it, everyone’s getting the buff and everyone has extra keys to start, cutting down on the hassle of hunting for all of them out in the wild. The treasure map is just a nice bonus that gives some extra insurance against not getting the right loot during the run.
It’s probably hands-down the most busted strat in Nightreign at the moment. While other ones might have higher skill ceilings, the Evergaol buffs are pound-for-pound the best way to brute force your way through any fights. That’s why some players think they should be nerfed. The fact that FromSoftware just streamlined it by selling the Grand Luminous Scene Relic to every player who beat the Gaping Jaw makes me wonder if it even cares. Of course, if you missed out on that fight, you’ll have to wait until you beat the new version of Darkdrift Knight to unlock it.
Bandai Namco previously confirmed that Everdark Sovereigns will continue rotating each week through the summer, suggesting we’ll eventually see a tougher form of all of the existing Nightlords. Given the game’s ongoing popularity, I expect we’ll eventually see some entirely new boss fights as well. Whether they’ll be free updates or paid DLC remains to be seen. But at just $40 I’ve already gotten way more than my fair share of time well spent out of Nightreign.
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