Elden Ring Nightreign is going to diverge from the established FromSoftware formula in several key ways, from its co-op focus and its roguelike structure to its parallel world setting and more. A little lower down that list, another familiar feature from the studio’s past Soulslike titles that won’t be returning (and is admittedly more granular in nature) is the message system.
Leaving short messages scrolled on the ground for other players to read (and rate) has been a staple of FromSoftware’s Soulslike action RPGs for as long as they’ve been around, but speaking in an interview with IGN Japan, game director Junya Ishizaki revealed that Elden Ring Nightreign won’t have that feature. With each run of the game lasting about 40 minutes at most, Ishizaki says players simply won’t have enough time to read and write messages.
“You can still see the ghosts of other players, but the ability to leave messages has been removed. The reason we removed the message function is that in this game, where each session is about 40 minutes long, there is no time to write your own message, and no time to read messages written by others,” Ishizaki explained.
As a co-op-focused title, Nightreign is obviously expected to adopt a different structure and pacing from the game it has spun off from, so the tweaking and chopping of familiar elements here and there doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Whether the game is going to be able to deliver a compelling experience in spite of all the changes is going to be the big question on everyone’s mind.
Elden Ring Nightreign is due out in 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. A closed network test will take place in February, with registrations set to go live next week.
