It makes total sense that Elden Ring: Nightreign won’t be bringing back one of the Souls games’ most recognisable features

When Elden Ring: Nightreign was announced just a few weeks ago at The Game Awards, much of the discussion had a lot do with how surprising the reveal was. This is, after all, an online co-op game from a studio mostly known for its single-player experiences.

While many of FromSoftware’s games allow players to team up in co-op, the games are chiefly designed to be played solo. There was, however, one big mechanic that made those journeys a little less solitary, and it’s not one we’re going to see again in Nightreign.

One of the most beloved features in most Souls and Soulslike games made by FromSoftware is the ability to leave messages for other players. The mechanic has been utilised in many different ways, not all of them useful.

Typically, players could leave messages to admire a certain view, make a comment on a moment that took place at the spot where the message was left, point players to hidden treasures or illusory walls, or even just to troll and mislead them.

The messaging system only consists of certain words, so players had to get a little clever with their phrasing, which was responsible for giving us plenty of jokes, many of which were naughty. Unfortunately, that entire experience won’t be found in Elden Ring: Nightreign.

Game director Junya Ishizaki confirmed this in a recent IGN Japan interview, and his reasoning actually makes a lot of sense. Ishizaki explained that the relatively short session time of 40 minutes simply doesn’t allow for players to stop and read/write messages. Nightreign is designed to offer a condensed RPG experience that’s made up almost entirely of combat, so there’s very little use for messages.

Indeed, considering the one-and-done style of the game, persistent messages that get liked and disliked by other players don’t make much sense. What is returning, however, are player ghosts, which is something, at least. Another notable absence is that resting at a Site of Grace will not cause defeated (regular) enemies to respawn, which removes an element of risk from the decision to rest, so it’ll be interesting to see how that factors into the bigger picture in terms of challenge.

These are all interesting design decisions, and they prove that FromSoftware may have been inspired by the many mods and randomisers the community created for its various games over the years.

Nightreign is due out sometime this year on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Our next big Nightreign reveal will likely arrive with the network test that’s being held in February.