Elden Ring Nightreign’s director has apologised for the lack of two player mode in the multiplayer spin-off, but is considering adding it post-launch.
The co-operative game is designed for three players, though it’s possible to play alone too. However, a two player option does not exist.
“The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we’re very sorry about that,” director Junya Ishizaki told IGN. “As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it’s at the core of Nightreign.”
In addition, the development team at FromSoftware considered solo play “from the start”.
“And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed,” said Ishizaki. “So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well.”
Ishizaki also discussed further how players are somewhat alone, whether playing solo or as a group of three.
“Seeing as this game is built around three players, we understand the concerns of those solo players, but essentially a lot of the time in Nightreign you will be acting and behaving on your own,” he said. “Even in a group as three, you’ll be going off and challenging different areas of the map and collecting different things before you accumulate together at the boss fight.
“So solo play is generally encouraged and is a natural part of the game loop, but also in general for those solo players – and this might be something that’s difficult to notice in multiplayer – but the activeness and aggressiveness of enemies towards any one single player has been adjusted so that you don’t find yourself in any unreasonable multi-foe fights.
“And just generally, when you’re playing single player, the parameters adjust dynamically depending on the number of players in that session. So we hope that this will alleviate that feeling somewhat.”
Still, playing solo is a much more challenging experience without teammates to revive you, though Ishizaki hints there’s a self-revive feature hidden around the map for players to discover.
FromSoftware has made some tweaks since the network test back in February. Judging by player numbers, many were struggling to defeat the first Nightlord, Gladius.
Following the test, Ishizaki said the team had “received a lot of helpful feedback regarding the difficulty” and that Gladius would “receive some updates”.