When I played Shadow of the Erdtree ahead of release, there was one thing I kicked myself for missing early on in the giant expansion—a crystal tear that essentially gave you Sekiro-style parrying in the Elden Ring combat system. A certain subset of FromSoft devotees were very excited to discover that feature, as it makes blocking and parrying way more viable on a dual-weapon build (or really any build not using a shield). If you're one of those folks, good news: there's going to be a character just for you in Elden Ring's new co-op roguelike spinoff Nightreign.
As detailed in my breakdown of everything I learned going hands-on with Elden Ring: Nightreign, there will be eight predefined playable characters in the new action game—no character creator this time around! One of the characters, which I spent a good two hours with, is Duchess, whose movement style is more than a little Bloodborney. Instead of the usual Souls dodge roll, her dodge button performs a dashing quickstep, while a backwards dodge will trigger a stylish backflip. She's fragile, with low health compared to the armored knight characters, but also moves more quickly, which in my mind makes her the Bloodborne stand-in (unfortunately she's equipped with a dagger and not a sick transforming cane sword).
Only four of Nightreign's eight total characters were playable in my preview build, so I did not get to play as one with a sick Sekiro parry—but in an interview, director Junya Ishizaki told me to expect one.
"One you might've seen in the trailer who will be in the final game is an archer archetype, with ranged-based attacks with a bow and arrow. They have an expanded targeting system for players who are into that more shooter, TPS-style gameplay," he said. "One more we can speak to takes inspiration from the deflect mechanic that appeared in the Elden Ring DLC. We hope players who enjoy that more intense, one-on-one style deflect-based battle will get a kick out of that [character]."
That leaves two more character archetypes unaccounted for. In an interview with IGN, Ishizaki described another one as a kind of summoner who "uses a Spirit Ash sort of spiritual buddy as a gameplay mechanic."
What about the last one? Well, one character I didn't see in my build who appears in the trailer is this burly axe-wielder, who sure doesn't look like a Spirit Ash user to me. Perhaps they're our number eight.
If FromSoftware is looking to represent playstyles from all its past games in Nightreign, though realistically I think a secret ninth character is essential: They must put an Armored Core in Elden Ring.
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