We're big fans of FromSoftware and the soulslike games they've perfected over the years. Elden Ring Nightreign is a bold initiative to try something new. With a little bit of polish and listening to the community demands, it could be a lot better.
‘Elden Ring Nightreign’ launched this weekend to mixed reviews. One of the most prized studios in the world, FromSoftware took a bold step to making their famed title a roguelike multiplayer experience. And with 2 million copies sold on day-one, FromSoftware will be proud of the release. But, as they’ve already acknowledged, they have a lot of work to do to make Nightreign the long-term hit they want it to be.
It didn’t take long for Nightreign to dominate the online discourse. Between a love for the adaptation, and a frustrating lack of multiplayer features, the community was more divided about the game than we expected. But interestingly, the feedback seemed quite united on what was needed to satisfy their desires. We wanted to get to the heart of the conversation, and know exactly what was driving the negative reviews.
Kinn.gg does exactly this. So we ran as much public Nightreign content as we could find through Kinn to pinpoint the largest topics, themes, and talking points. With about 150,000 points of feedback between Steam reviews, Steam Discussions, and YouTube comments, this is what we found.
Almost all of the top 10 negative topics were around a handful of multiplayer functions that players felt essential. They dominated the conversation, and influenced the majority of negative reviews. Even we were surprised to see most of these show up right on the home page. It can appear like a huge problem, but it's really helpful to understand that the community largely agrees on a handful of serious issues. It makes things much easier to tackle and prioritize development.
Players were both surprised and frustrated at the lack of voice and text chat within groups. Whether it's in-game or on Discord, players communicate in a variety of ways. If you're missing even a handful of these, you're alienating a large portion of your playerbase.
This was straightforward and not terribly surprising. You would think that going from one to two friends wouldn't be that big of a deal, but getting two friends to get on at the same time to coordinate together is more challenging than it would first appear.
This is a good example of potential engine and service limitations that players expect to be resolved in a multiplayer experience.
Multiple quotes of the reviving mechanic were "embarrasingly bad" or "completley untested". Lots of players were frustrating by both the mechanic itself and the problems it creates in the game.
A lot of people were expecting to be able to play solo, and when you do, the game is insanely difficult. It kind of forces you to play in a social setting, whether you want to or not.
There is a degree of empathy, but the general vibe is a “how did this get past QA” kind of feel. At this point, the multiplayer experience is so well refined by other games, missing essential functions like in-game chat feels like a complete miss.
Fortunately, it appears that a large majority of the issues can be resolved pretty quickly. Others seem to be an unfortunate engine challenge, so communication to the playerbase will be essential.
Ultimately, we think this theme was a good example of how games are no longer just competing within their niche. When players experience something new or innovative from one studio, it quickly becomes an expectation from others, even in completely separate genres.
We wanted to include this section as a theme of its own because we think it represents a lot of how player expectations have shifted over the years. Game development is long, risky, and challenging. One of the fastest ways to try something new is to take an existing setup and generate as few new assets as possible.
We don’t think remixing existing assets to make a new experience in a franchise isn’t necessarily a bad move, and it seems that players were fine with this decision, but it was clear that players broadly expected more. It’s been a few years since Elden Ring first launched, and it has amassed more gameplay hours than almost any title of the decade.
Even though Nightreign is a fresh take on the Elden Ring universe, numerous topics showed how players were hoping to see some new content in the world. This was even further pronounced since it had been years since Elden Ring first launched, and about a year since the latest Elden Ring expansion dropped.
When a studio is famous for a particular game style, breaking away from that is a risky move. FromSoftware did an excellent job with Nightreign. There’s no doubt about that. But it is increasingly clear that many people didn’t really understand what type of gameplay to expect, and were feeling disappointed or misled.
This was a really unfortunate outcome that probably won’t have too much of an impact on sales, but it is a bummer that a strong percentage of incoming reviews are “Do Not Recommend” strictly because of a lack of understanding.
It does pose a good reminder that with massive success comes massive expectations. So when you take a risk and try something new, be very clear of your goals and what you hope to achieve.
We are always on the edge of our seat when big launches go live, and we’re so stoked to see Nightreign do well.
FromSoftware took a big risk, and it looks like they have found a new way to expand the soulslike universe and expand into new arenas.
At its core, Kinn helps game studios de-risk and build better games faster with more efficient feedback pipelines. As game development cycles lengthen, communities get more involved, and player desires get more complex, studios can get clarity on decisionmaking with Kinn.
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