Elden Ring: Nightreign Surpasses 300,000 Players at Launch on Steam

Elden Ring: Nightreign is a spin-off version of the wildly successful open-world RPG by the same base name. As Game Rant describes, it “is a co-op action RPG that builds on the foundation laid out by FromSoftware’s widely celebrated 2022 Soulsborne game, infusing it with roguelike mechanics. It was originally announced at The Game Awards in December 2024 before locking down a May 30 release date two months later. In the days leading up to its debut, the co-op title became the most wishlisted game on Steam.”

As reported by SteamDB, Elden Ring: Nightreign surpassed 300,000 players almost immediately. Only a couple of hours after launch, it had already peaked at 313,593 concurrent players. Consoles do not have the same tracking, but it will be interesting to see whether it lands itself on the most popular PlayStation or Xbox games lists when those storefronts update their rankings. On Steam, though, only Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and Dota 2 surpassed Nightreign in popularity. Based on data, it is also possible that the game has already sold around 2 million copies on Steam as of May 30.

That said, not everything has gone smoothly for the highly successful ARPG. As IGN has reported, the reviews on Steam have been “mixed”, based on their rating scale. “But it also came with a number of negative reviews (67% of the reviews are positive so far), most of which point out Elden Ring Nightreign’s lack of duos, or two-player co-op, and voice chat.” IGN’s Elden Ring Nightreign review digs deeper into other concerns as well.

“Let’s get the most important caveat out of the way first: if you are hoping to tackle Nightreign entirely solo, and are anything less than a hardcore Elden Ring player that actively seeks out ways to make that already difficult game even more challenging, Nightreign isn’t for you. Yes, there is technically a single-player option, but it is so poorly balanced that I would be shocked if it isn’t patched and adjusted within the first month of release. And this is coming from someone who lives and breathes these types of games.”

It is clear that the developers want the game to be played in trios. They admit they overlooked the idea behind duos entirely, and solo runs are darn near impossible. While the complaints are warranted, by the same token, players now know what the game is and how the team wanted it to play out. One summary of a review read, “TL;DR, if you don’t have two more friends you can group up with regularly, it’s not fun.” That is typically not what a game developer wants to see, though perhaps the structure is by intent, and they are not worried about players who are not into the trio build.

Final Thoughts

Elden Ring: Nightreign has seen a great deal of success, driven both by the intrigue of the concept and by the massive popularity of the original Elden Ring game. The sales numbers are likely a massive success for FromSoftware. That said, as a co-op game, much of the battle is retaining the player numbers. With the amount of negative reviews coming in, the team will need to tread carefully. They are in danger of losing some of those fans, and they will need to balance their vision with fan needs to keep it afloat for the long term.