'Elden Ring: Nightreign' Director Explains How The Cooperative Gameplay Will Work And Reveals Tons Of Details About The Game
Junya Ishizaki, the director for the newly announced Elden Ring: Nightreign game, shared a ton of details about the game and how the cooperative gameplay will work.
In an interview with Japanese website Famtisu, and translated via DeepL revealed the game is “an online cooperative survival action game in which three players try to survive for three days.”
“It will be a different game cycle from the previous ones, one in which you can enjoy the gritty combat typical of ELDEN RING through team play,” he continued.
Next, he described how the cooperative multiplayer works, “You will select a mission or stage, or rather, a boss that will appear on the third day, and the three of you will challenge him. Each day has a day and a night time, and the scope of what you can explore will narrow with the passage of time. At night, the day's milestone boss battle begins. The game is completed when the final boss, which appears on the third day, is defeated.”
Each session is expected to be “about 40 minutes to clear the game on the third day. Of course, if you are wiped out on the first day, the playing time will be much shorter.”
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He also revealed that while the game is designed for cooperative multiplayer, it can be played solo, “Basically, this game is designed to be played by three players. On the other hand, we also allow players who want to enjoy the game at their own pace, or who are in the mood, to play by themselves.”
“Ultimately, our priority was to allow users to enjoy the game freely, and we made sure that there are choices,” Ishizaki elaborated. “However, to repeat, the game is designed to be played by three people and at a level of difficulty that is challenging even with three people.”
He elaborated, “We are focusing on a form that allows each user to play freely according to his or her own play style. You may choose to work silently and quietly to search for items and level up alone, or you may choose to work with your friends as much as possible to avoid being in a pinch, or you may choose to gather together only when you need to attack a particular base.”
“Even if each player plays as a lone wolf, they will always gather to fight bosses that appear at night,” he shared. “It may happen that an ally who was completely out of sight during the daytime appears at night in a very strong state ...... (laugh).
“Also, the runes obtained from defeating enemies go to each member of the party, so even if you fight without cooperation, the whole party will benefit as a result,” Ishizaki stated.
He also explained what the maps are like and what players will encounter in each game session, “There is a vast field, and strategy elements such as bases and small dungeons are scattered throughout it. Their placement is randomly changed each time you enter a session and is fixed for that session. In the bases and dungeons, there are enemies and treasure chests, and if you defeat the enemies, you get runes, so-called experience, and in the treasure chests, there are weapons and items.”
“Various weapons are available, but their strength and battle techniques are random,” he continued. “The game will be a three-day cycle of adventuring during the daytime to strengthen and equip the player character, and then taking on the bosses during the nighttime.”
As for what types of enemies players will face, Ishizaki revealed, “The enemies during the day will basically be mainly from “ELDEN RING”. The bosses from “ELDEN RING” will also appear, but not all of them. Especially “Demigod” is strongly related to the story of “ELDEN RING”, so I will keep it a secret from ....... This does not mean that they will not appear at all.”
While you will face monsters and enemies from Elden Ring, he also made clear the game takes place in “a parallel world. It shares the same story up to the point that ‘there used to be a crushing war in the land between the two’, and words and settings from ELDEN RING will appear, but other than that, it is a different story.”
Given the game takes place in the parallel world, “There will also be a few enemies from the Dark Souls series. In terms of the setting, they are drawn from other worlds due to the influence of the Night King.”
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He also revealed that players will be able to customize their players. He shared, “We decided to create ‘skills’ and so-called ‘special moves’ that give each character special abilities. In order to maintain the ‘goodness’ of being able to enjoy various character builds, which is one of the attractive elements of ‘ELDEN RING,’ we have included elements such as ‘skills’ that show special abilities for each character and “arts” like so-called special moves. Each character has a very different feel, so we hope you will enjoy using them in a variety of ways.”
“I believe that choosing how to fight is one of the most exciting aspects of action games. We thought a system like skills and arts would fit well with the action nature of ELDEN RING, so we incorporated them,” he added.
Ishizaki also made clear that “Each character has a certain performance, and the initial equipment, skills, and arts are fixed, but we wanted to make it easy for people to choose their favorites at a glance. This was also based on the idea that we wanted people to be able to play the game right away.”
Of note, each session will see player level and equipment reset. He stated, “It is reset. Each session starts with initial equipment and level 1.”
While player level and equipment will be reset, players will be rewarded “with ‘marks,’ a currency that can only be used in the base, and equipment called “relics” that you can take home.”
He then compared relics to Bloodstones in Bloodborne and described them as “passive abilities that are given to characters. Each character has a pedestal on which the ‘relic’ can be set, and if the ‘relic’ fits the pedestal, it can be equipped. The pedestals themselves can be changed by spending ‘marks’ to purchase them.”
“Relics have a wide variety of effects, from simple statistic boosts to those that enhance a character's skills, arts, and normal actions. The customization of ‘relics’ will greatly change the way you play the game,” he concluded.
What do you make of all of these details for Elden Ring: Nightreign?
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