Elden Ring Nightreign Patch 1.01.1 is live now, taking aim at the single-player experience to hopefully ease up the difficulty on those trying to clear the new FromSoftware game by themselves. One player, however, decided not to wait, and cleared every Nightlord solo before the patch made anything easier.
Single-player difficulty in Elden Ring Nightreign has been one of the new game’s hot topics, post-launch. Players have expressed frustration over how difficult running the game solo compared to trios has felt. Here’s a bit of what our Elden Ring Nightreign review here at IGN had to say about it:
“None of this is to say that solo play is outright impossible, and I have had a few successful runs on my own. Just that the balancing of solo play feels like a job half finished, and as a result, the frustration of playing alone wasn’t worth the triumph for me to have any desire to play more without a squad.”
All of this built up to Bandai Namco and FromSoftware announcing a patch, arriving today, that took aim at easing the burden of solo players. For many, this might be a welcome relief.
Over on the r/Nightreign subreddit, though, user “Valseran” posted evidence of their solo clears of each Nightlord, from the game’s starting expedition to its final boss. Their reasoning? “Wanted to rush them down before the nerf.”
It’s certainly an achievement. I’d heard tell of other players clearing big chunks of the game solo, and some, like YouTuber Ongbal, have been posting their solo victories against specific Nightreign bosses. Still, Valseran’s effort to clear everything they could before the patch closed in is both impressive and fitting.
You can see the clear times on the right-hand side, showing them advancing steadily and clearing bosses in the days ahead of the update, like they’re outrunning the impending storm of the patch. These bragging rights were earned largely by Ironeye wins it seems, with the Duchess and Executor characters making cameo appearances early on. Thankfully, we don’t have to intuit too much from just one screenshot alone, as Valseran went into further detail about their victory within the comments.
“Don’t worry too much about getting a good bow so much as stacking weapon passives in your other slots,” said Valseran, when asked about tips for Ironeye. “Ranged dmg, dmg while Two-handing, and dmg while at full health can all stack and really cause your damage output to get absurd. Any purple quality bow will shine with some decent passives. Also his dash ability is great dmg output but i tend to save it as a dodge when i know an attack thats difficult to roll is on the way, I tend to use his Art for the same reason against bosses, more for the invulnerability than the damage.”
While Valseran primarily ran Ironeye, the ranged archer among the Nightfarers, they did say they prefer melee on some bosses, and even ran melee weapons as Ironeye on a few. Some bosses, though, are “just a nightmare solo” without ranged attacks, according to the lone wolf archer. They also rank the final boss as the hardest, but say they died to the centaur boss (Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow) the most.
Extra lives also seem to be a big priority, which makes sense; without teammates to pick you up, you’d like to have a safety net or two. Valseran said they would prioritize acquiring the extra lives from merchants, and also some field bosses would also drop them depending on the expedition. “One of my boss fights i went in with 4 extra lives,” said Valseran. “But at the very least, always get one early.”
An extra life during boss fights is one of the ways FromSoftware is handing solo players a helping hand with Patch 1.01.1. The effect “Automatic Revival Upon Defeat,” which allows revival during a night boss battle once per night, has been added to solo expeditions, effectively handing players a free second life. Valseran did say they think the extra life will be “kinda substantial” in solo play. Since stacking them is already ideal for single-player, having a free one is a nice bonus.
So while the single-player Nightfarers might have an easier time with clearing some of the more challenging fights in Elden Ring Nightreign, at least one player has earned some significant bragging rights. For everyone else, Elden Ring Nightreign is out now, with a slightly easier burden to bear for the lone wolves, and waiting for more Nightfarers to attempt to clear its challenges.
We’ve got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you’re wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters.
Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.
