FromSoftware's Elden Ring Nightreign is almost upon us, and publisher Bandai Namco is ramping up the marketing with the first of what is likely to be a series of short videos on the game's characters.
Unlike FromSoftware's other Souls-y titles, Nightreign's player characters are all preset archetypes, and here we get a look at the bow-fancying Ironeye. The most immediately striking thing about this character is the speed and new animations for various bow actions: these have always been useful weapons in the Souls games, but pretty straightforward.
Not so in Nightreign. Ironeye can fire while moving, can fire while jumping and, in perhaps the trailer's highlight, can blast an arrow into an enemy at point-blank range and then yank it back out as a riposte.
Dark Souls vets will probably experience some flashbacks to Anor Londo's Silver Knights, who specialise in firing gigantic dragonslayer arrows as you're trying to negotiate the rooftops. Ironeye's got some of that DNA but amped-up, with what looks like the character's ultimate attack firing a huge piercing bolt through a crowd, which is swiftly followed by a wake of damaging wind magic.
The Ironeye class starts with a bow and is a dexterity-based class, but the trailer doesn't really present it as a long-range option: here they're fairly in among it, albeit firing arrows constantly, and the playstyle definitely looks more hit-and-run than stationary support. It's also worth bearing in mind that this class will be able to revive co-operators from a distance (in Nightreign you resurrect fallen comrades by, erm, whacking them).
And even though Ironeye is obviously bow-focused, once in-game you'll be able to switch out for any dex-based weapons you loot. Very neat detail here: when you see Ironeye cast their ultimate attack, the character turns their quiver into the bow, so even when you're running around with dual katanas or something the attack still makes sense.
Elden Ring Nightreign releases on May 30, and PCG's Morgan Park recently got the chance to spend several hours looting around Limgrave. Morgan reckons this co-op roguelike spin on the Souls formula will delight some and disappoint others: "Nightreign breaks more Souls game rules than anything before it. In that way, this really does play like a super ambitious mod, and so far it's pretty good."
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