Elden Ring Nightreign‘s new hard mode Deep of Night is about to go live and publisher Bandai Namco has released a new explainer on YouTube helping to onboard fans to the multiplayer roguelite’s most challenging content yet. Combined with reams of datamined clues over the past month, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect heading into it. FromSoftware will no doubt have a few surprise curveballs hiding up its sleeve, but the announced changes alone should be enough to make even veteran Nightfarers feel like naïve grist for the Soulslike mill all over again.
When does Deep of Night go live?
In keeping with all past updates, Nightreign‘s new mode is set to be available in the game starting around 9:00 p.m. ET on September 10 across PlayStation 5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
Nightlords and shifting Earth events will be completely random
In Deep of Night, players wont get to pick which bosses they face ahead of time, or choose which Shifting Earth events are active. Relic choices and builds will all have to be adapted to on the fly. You’ll want to have multiple relic presets ready so you can choose after seeing what Nightlord you’re facing before the match loads.
Enemies hit way harder
A clip from the Deep of Night trailer shows trash mobs taking several more hits to fall at the start of a run. According to datamines, most enemies in the first depth will have around double their normal health and power, with stats only ramping up from there.
Items come with more buffs and debuffs
Players will have to be a lot more careful about what they pick up when they’re running around Limveld. While gear comes with extra buff slots, it also comes with a debuff that will make it easier to die. Examples shown include status ailment buildup upon getting hit and taking more damage from the Night’s Tide.
New red mutated enemies are extra tough but drop new rare gear
These variants will be even stronger, potentially stopping a run dead in its tracks. Hoping to swoop through a mine for a quick crafting stone? Thought you could demolish that Cathedral golem all by yourself? Not this time! But with the greater risk comes greater rewards. It seems like these red enemies will also drop red gear with new powers that will probably end up making or breaking runs.
Additional Deep Relic slots expand buildcrafting
Players will have access to three additional relic slots that can only be filled with relics earned from Deep of Night. That’s because these will each come with negative stats as well as positive ones. According to datamines, examples include ones that completely invert character’s usual stat progressions. Fighters can become spell casters, squishy glass cannons can become tanks. It looks like Deep of Night will completely turn the established build metas on their heads.
Sometimes the map will be completely empty
There are at least two randomly occurring events we currently know about in Deep of Night. The first will hide the Nightlord icon for the entire run so you have no idea who you’re facing at the end. The other will erase every icon from the map so you have no idea what camps are where. Players will just have to wing it or rely on their memorization of the probabilities from the hundreds of randomized seeds a run can pull from.
Completing runs earns rank points to unlock challenging depths
This scoring system will double as a skill-based matchmaking system for grouping you with other Deep of Night players. Once you progress out of Depth 1 you can never go back, but every Depth after that can see you pushed back to an earlier one if you keep failing.
Everdark Sovereign bosses can appear
That’s right, ED Libra and the gang could be what greets you at the end of an already harrowing run. Good thing you’ve spent months practicing each of those variants, right? Right??
The Bell Bearing Hunter just got scarier
The game’s hardest field boss can also be one of its red variants. Have fun! I’m sure wasting five minutes trying to kill him will be totally worth it. If you want to find out more about what to expect out of Deep of Night before embarking on your own run, YouTube Scavinjx has a great breakdown of many of the new relic effects, passives, and exact damage and health multipliers based on recent datamined info.