Elden Ring: Nightreign – The Ultimate Update/DLC Wishlist
While we know Nightreign will receive DLC, the information on said DLC at present remains incredibly vague, promising “New Bosses” and “New Nightfarers”. The community seems to latched onto the idea of two of each, which I suppose makes sense given the relatively low price of the DLC and that it satisfies the plural. So, I’ll spitball ideas for two Nightfarers, Two Nightlords and as a bonus, two returning bosses from each of the previous Souls games.
The Nightfarers
So, as much as I would love a Jar Warrior Nightfarer, I don’t think they’re gonna do that. While Recluse may be short and Guardian might be tall (and a bird), they’re still both humanoid – I don’t think they’re going to stray from Humanoid. So, what could we have?
I’ve seen a lot of the community want a Dry Leaf Arts character – the melee hand to hand system introduced in the Shadow of the Erdtree. I’ve seen a Dragon form person mentioned a here and there that could also be good, less FP cost to use dragon incantations and whatnot.
Personally I’d love to see a Demi-Human character since they’re humanoid but different enough. Could even give him the aforementioned Dry Leaf arts, give them Beast Claws to go with it since they’ll no doubt be adding DLC weapon classes. Round it out with a bonus to curved swords perhaps. As for abilities, I’ve got no idea.
As a counter to Duchess being a Spell blade, a Needle Knight Paladin could be really cool. Basically Leda from SotE with a different Light Greatsword and different armour. Abilities could be based on the enemy having buffs or not as well as things like counter attacks.
I don't have any real idea for it, but a Shaman character could be very cool, I'd trust FromSoft to make something really cool but maybe it's one of those untouchable lore topics beyond what they've shown off in SotE.
My final idea is one that would definitely be a strange one, maybe a post game one. Night Shape? Night Aspect? Basically a mini Nightlord. They wouldn’t be able to access relics but instead would have unique passive abilities each run. Could also have some modifiers, is weaker against Day bosses and enemies but better against Night ones or something.
The Nightlords
In Elden Ring and Nightreign, damage types include Physical, Fire, Holy, Electric and Magic. There are also Status effects – Poison, Scarlet Rot, Blood Loss, Frostbite, Sleep, Madness and Deathblight. I only mention this because Nightreign does a good job of making use of all of these during boss fights – Gladius, Fulghor, Adel and Heolstor cover the damage types while Gnoster, Caligo, Maris and Libra cover most of the status types. You know what that leaves? Scarlet Rot, Blood Loss and Deathblight. I would say that “Oh, the DLC bosses could encompass these” but my mind can’t get away from Malenia, Mohg and Fortisax, so maybe these won’t be the case.
I don’t think they’ll add a third dragon alongside Adel and Caligo but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. FromSoftware DLC and Dragons go hand in hand – you need only look at Kalameet, Sinh, Midir or Bayle for that. Heolstor proves that a cool Knight like boss could work, the DLC being able to up the ante on that kind of idea. Something I personally really want them is to go all in one a Crucible boss – Fulghor and Morgott are a start but I need something that goes absolutely crazy. A Crucible Dragon would go exceptionally hard.
It doesn’t look like there’s going to be an Everdark Sovereign version of Heolstor but having a second version would be cool. Not an ES phase 3 version but a Margit to Morgott or Starscourge Radahn to Consort of Miquella like improvement.
It’d be crazy if they completely disregarded canon entirely and said there you are – ‘Gloam Eyes’ Expedition, ‘Basilisk King’ Expedition – Not quite Gloam Eyed Queen or Godwyn but close enough to it to satisfy both camps.I do like the theory of the Gloam Eyed Queen being snake adjacent, so this could be a true snake boss.
Every FromSoft DLC now needs a cool lady boss – Lady Maria, Sister Friede, Rellana Twin Moon Knight and Nightreign should be no exception. My offering to the ring – the third of the Carian sisters alongside Rellana and Renalla. If you follow the suggested canon that Heolstor was a Carian Knight and the Moonlight greatsword he uses was originally used against him (hence why it is impaled into his hand) then you could have this third sister use it in a boss fight. Make this sister more Renalla sized than Rellana (God this naming scheme).
Here's my list of completely unreasonable predictions (Since this is the hardest category to predict)
‘CHIMERA’ EXPEDITION – Ferous, Apex of Night
‘GLOAM’ EXPEDITION – Eiglen, Fires of Night
‘BASILISK KING’ EXPEDITION – Ensha, Death in Night
‘MOONLESS’ EXPEDITION – Renna, Prisoner of Night
‘NIGHT ETERNAL’ EXPEDITION – Everdark Sovereign Heolstor
Day and Night Bosses
Naturally less exciting than the Nightlord bosses but arguably just as important since this is who you’re going to be fighting regularly throughout your runs. I imagine they’ll be pulling primarily from the DLC content
Night 1 Boss: Inquisitor Duo (Jori + Fat Inquisitor)
- Pre Fight: Hornsent Inquisitors
Night 2 Boss: Divine Beast Dancing Lion
- Pre Fight: 2x Horned Warriors, 1x Bird Warrior
Great Enemy: The Great Red Bear
Great Enemy: Ghostflame Dragon
Great Enemy: Divine Beast Warrior
Deathblight Ruins: Death Knight (Twin Axe or Long Axe)
Holy Ruins: Messmer’s Black Knights
Magic Ruins: Carian Troll Knight
Fire Ruins: Messmer’s Fire Knight
Blood Ruins: Chief Bloodfiend
Returning Bosses
Goes without saying but Bloodborne, Demon’s Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice are still off limits (as far as we know) so I’m not considering them.
DKS1
Wylder having the Artorias skin means he’s probably out and given that the Erdtree Avatar’s and Omenkiller’s take the skeleton of the Asylum Demon and Capra Demon respectively I doubt they’d be making a comeback. I reckon the Sanctuary Guardian would be a good fit for the game as well as someone a little more noticeable, Chaos Witch Quelaag perhaps?
Choices: Sanctuary Guardian (Pre Fight – Misbegotten) and Chaos Witch Quelaag (Pre Fight – Kindred of Rot and Baby Kindred)
DKS2
Something that applies to Dark Souls 2 as well as 3 is that I don’t think we see any of the major big hitters – Fume Knight and Burnt Ivory King wouldn’t be brought over. Somehow I see Sir Alonne being a good fit, a nice counter to Executor. Beyond them, the Looking Glass Knight would also be a shout but I think the coolest one could be Darklurker.
Choices: Looking Glass Knight (Pre Fight – Leyndell Soldiers), Darklurker (Pre Fight -
DKS3
There’s quite a few DKS3 bosses I think could make the cut but also plenty that wouldn’t – Friede is out, Gael and Midir have no chance. If any of the four lord souls would appear it’d be the Abyss Watchers. Vordt would be cool if the Dancer of the Boreal Valley wasn’t already in the game. Dragonslayer Armour seems like a natural choice given he just appears and attacks. Personal choice for me would be Champion Gundyr, purely because I love the boss.
Choices: Dragonslayer Armour (Pre Fight – Imps), Champion Gundyr (Pre Fight - Honestly no idea lol)
Shifting Earth
The four Shifting Earth events we have in the game so far are cool but if we aren't getting map variants like Caelid or Altus then there needs to be more Shifting Earth possibilities
Deep Mines
The mines in the game at the minute are pretty lackluster in the way that they generally take about a minute in and out. Run in, kill the Stonedigger Troll/Pumpkin Head/Godrick Knight, get the upgrade material and leave. If the mines were deeper, they could have more options. Maybe it could be a random chance to have the highest upgrade tier of The Crater or maybe the duplication of the Hidden City. Maybe you could change the affinity of a weapon you have to something more desirable for the boss. There's options here.
The Manor
When I wrote down the idea for the Manor initially I was thinking something akin to Midra’s Manse from Shadow of the Erdtree, a puzzle box environment to work your way through. I still like this idea but then my mind switched to the Northerncroft Manor featured in the Revenants back story. I'm not sure what the gimmick here would be but it'd have to be difficult for the reward - a “Doll”. You'd have the option of choosing one of the Nightfarers not being used by the players as an NPC helper for the rest of the match.
Divine Tower of Limveld
This one's fairly simple, one big tower with a big enemy at the top, unlocking a Great Rune level reward. The boss would have to be near Nightlord difficult and the reward would have to be something substantial
Underground River
No gimmick here as such but an expanded map, you'd still explore as you would and the rain would affect the map as it does but you'd be exploring underground with unique locations and bosses. I suppose this is a little too close to just getting a new map but make it a wee bit smaller than Limveld and it works for an exciting Shifting Earth.
Other
New Event: Aged Untouchables
Something that could be cool, or annoying as the case may be, is the Aged Untouchables. Exclusive to Shadow of the Erdtree’s Abyssal Woods, these were an enemy that couldn’t be hurt by conventional means, instead needing stealth to traverse. This would cause the player to stop their mad sprinting around and take it slow. The risk being caught in the rain or caught by an Untouchable.
New Raid: Shadows Descend
Similar to the Fell Omen raid, this raid would have the three wolves that make up Gladius each target a player, and the players have to either kill their target. If they aren’t killed in time, the player is locked in a little arena with the boss and have to fight.
Those are my predictions but who knows? Maybe we get 4 new Nightfarers and 8 new bosses or something ridiculous like that. If I had to guess, it’ll be another month before they announce anything, giving them time to cycle through the remaining bosses for their Everdark Sovereign variants (At the time of writing, Gnoster is ongoing). Whatever it is, FromSoftware DLC’s don’t miss so I eagerly await what comes.
