Summary
Elden Ring Nightreignmay be drawing most of its content from the Lands Between, but many players were unexpectedly surprised to see a fewDark Soulsbosses make a comeback. The two game series have always been separate IPs, and FromSoftware has never intended for the two to overlap, but many players have seenElden Ringas a sort of culmination of everythingDark Soulswas building to. So seeing such nostalgic sights as the Nameless King swooping in as the final boss of day two is sure to bring a smile to more than a few veteran players.
However, where many studios might be eager to cash in on nostalgia, FromSoftware has remained remarkably restrained. There are six bosses returning from theDark Soulstrilogy, alongside two familiar skins for each Nightfarer upon beating the final boss, but there could have easily been more. It’s been an often-employed tactic by large companies to use nostalgic elements of their history to lend a hand to a new project, sometimes to mixed receptions, but FromSoftware has exercised a level of control inElden Ring Nightreignthat strikes a careful balance.
Elden Ring Nightreign Embraces Nostalgia, but Doesn’t Overdo It
There’s something heartwarming about seeing the classicCatarina armor inNightreign. The sheer strangeness of its round onion-shaped plates are no less endearing than they were 14 years ago when the onion knights first appeared inDark Souls, and seeing FromSoftware acknowledge its history in this way feels like a nod directly to long-time fans. While armor like this could have looked quite strange inElden Ring, it works well inNightreign’s melting pot design ideology. After all, the game is built using the framework of the previous game, just remixed and revamped for a different genre, lending a license to the studio to play a bit fast and loose with the world’s coherency.
Nightreign Bucks the Trend of Nostalgia-Bait
FromSoftware is no stranger to making callbacks, but never has it been so direct. It’s an unusual move for the studio, as though its games share a lot of very similar themes, they are their own self-contained universes. All of this comes at an interesting time for video games, as nostalgia seems to be becoming more of a resource that publishers want to mine.Fortniteis perhaps the best example of a game that has leveraged crossovers to great success. While the recentFortniteDarth Vader incident may have generated controversy, it also generated a lot of interest in the game generally, and Epic has made the game a fulcrum point for other IPs to spread their reach in the broader pop culture space.
FromSoftware has tended to call-forward in its games, often using certain characters to foreshadow future projects.
It seems incredibly unlikely thatNightreignwill become anything likeFortnitein that regard, but it does raise an interesting question. TheDark Soulscontent available inNightreigndoesn’t have to be the only bit of FromSoftware’s history that makes an appearance, andNightreignwould be the perfect game for the studio to have some fun with combining all of its past ideas in one place. Though there may need to be some partnerships put into place with other companies, or some similar-but-not exact replicas of bosses and outfits would need to be used,BloodborneandSekirocontent should be on the table, as many of their mechanics have returned in the kits of several Nightfarers. There’s absolutely an argument to make for whyNightreigncould thrive by leaning deeper into nostalgia, and good reason to believe that FromSoftware could add more without overdoing it.
