Elden Ring Nightreign director admits the team “struggled” to balance FromSoftware’s formula with a new “novelty”

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As a gamer, I’m absolutely fired up about FromSoftware’s latest offering, Elden Ring Nightreign. Despite the fact that it doesn’t include duos gameplay and has been plagued with annoying PC issues since its launch (which, let’s be honest, isn’t really surprising at this stage), I can’t help but feel excited. However, it seems not everyone is on board with the game’s fresh take on FromSoftware’s classic gameplay style.

It’s interesting to note that even the developers themselves have faced challenges when it comes to the new gameplay style. Specifically, the director of Nightreign, Junya Ishizaki, found it difficult to strike a balance between the game’s innovative format, multiplayer focus, and maintaining elements that fans adore from their previous projects by the developer.

Elden Ring Nightreign wasn’t easy to make 

During the development of Dark Souls 3, Ishizaki conceived a concept for an authentic multiplayer Soulsborne game. However, it proved challenging to reconcile Elden Ring’s gameplay mechanics with the roguelike multiplayer notion.

In an interview with PlayStation Japan, Ishizaki humorously admitted that he faced challenges with everything involved in the project. More specifically, he found it crucial to evaluate if the overhaul of the game design from past versions and the substantial rule changes would result in a successful or less-than-ideal game experience.

In the disclosure by the Elden Ring: Nightreign’s director, it was emphasized that preserving elements from the Dark Souls series was crucial. However, numerous subtle adjustments were required to create a genuine multiplayer cooperative experience. The director placed significant importance on ensuring players felt “content” and “at ease”.

He went on to explain, “We faced quite a challenge in crafting an experience distinctly ours for this specific game. It would have been easy to modify it without much thought, but the tricky part was striking the right balance. We didn’t want it to become ‘an entirely new game’ or ‘a mediocre one’, even though it bears the name Elden Ring.

One significant challenge the team encountered was reorganizing control schemes, particularly shifting HP recovery from a flask on the d-pad to a face button. The director clarified that this change was met with much debate, but in the end, they “adjusted the button layout to simplify the healing process” because of the game’s fast pace.

Despite the recent launch of Elden Ring Nightreign, developer FromSoftware remains committed to an extended post-release plan, which includes additional enemies, bosses, character classes, and further content.

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2025-05-30 13:11