Elden Ring Nightreign turns FromSoftware’s best-in-class boss fights into multiplayer affairs, so now your shame and frustration can be shared with others. But while lots of players have been going hours without beating the roguelite RPG’s first major encounter, others are in a race to be the sweatiest solo player out there.
“8 hours in and still haven’t beaten the first nightlord...” reads one of the most popular threads from the Nightreign subreddit over the weekend. “Took me 15 hours to beat the first nightlord with randoms,” one fan responded. “Surprisingly I didn’t angrily tilt once, im having a blast shit is fun as hell.” Another wrote, “I’ve done 20 tries and still haven’t got that wolf killed very frustrating but I just gotta get good.”
My favorite post from Nightreign players sharing their long overdue Ws is from a player who went on 30 total expeditions before finally beating the first boss, a fire-wielding, three-headed hound called Gladius. But while many players have spent the opening weekend of the game’s release bleeding out on cosmic shores, some have been making the game look trivially easy.
YouTuber Youwy decided to take on Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow solo and—most importantly—without gaining a single level (via PC Gamer). He played Executor, the dexterity-based Nightfarer who can parry attacks. The fights revolve around jumping, dodging, and managing stamina consumption like a farmer in a drought. Even more crucial was a starting build that included the Night of Miasma and Night of the Wise relics, giving a base weapon with tons of starting status ailments that can just be upgraded through the run. “I sometimes can’t beat the 1st night and bro is out here doing this solo and level 1...WP,” one fan wrote in the comments.
Then there was YouTuber Ongbal, who used the Executor class to take out the Nightreign’s final boss without any outside help (so spoilers, obviously, if you don’t want to know anything before playing it for yourself). Ongbal is well-known for Elden Ring hitless runs, but he hasn’t gotten there just yet with Heolstor, a boss you can really tell FromSoftware had fun designing. Once again making use of Executor’s parry, which lets players treat Nightreign more like Sekiro, he takes the final boss down in less than six minutes. And this was before a new patch making solo play easier went live on Monday (which is already making a big difference for some players).
One thing that makes Nightreign’s boss fights so tough is the work players have to do to get to them. Unlike past games, where you can beeline for the encounter and practice over and over until you’ve mastered it, Nightreign requires players to engage in a 40-minute open-world farming session beforehand. As a result, most players probably only spend about a ninth of their playtime actually learning how each Nightlord works. Some have already called for a practice mode to make training easier. That’s one request I don’t see FromSoftware’s granting anytime soon though.
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