Elden Ring: Nightreign Is Getting A Hard Mode Next Month

“Special items such as ‘Depths Relics’ exclusive to ‘Deep of Night’, and weapons with multiple additional, but also detrimental effects will appear. Furthermore, the difficulty increases the deeper you descend. The ratings will fluctuate based on wins and losses, affecting the ‘depth.’”

Additionally, players who reach Depths 4 and 5 will find an endless mode where they can continue to test their skills for as long as they can survive.

While the fast-approaching release date of this addition is a nice surprise, dataminers had previously found Deep of Night in the game’s files, with some going as far as modding it into the game to access it early. At least in the datamined version of the mode, enemies had much higher health, among the other features mentioned above. Another element implied by the datamine and at least partially corroborated by the above press release is that it appears the mode will support skill-based matchmaking, as opposed to the base game, which seems to match based on connection strength.

As for Nightreign as a whole, while many were surprised that FromSoftware was following up Elden Ring with a multiplayer-oriented extraction game, the response to the game has generally been quite positive, and the company has continued to provide updates. They’ve been adding additional bosses and recently introduced a two-player mode as well.