Elden Ring Nightreign is making infamous swamps more challenging than ever

Elden Ring Nightreign’s Director has confirmed that procedurally generated environmental hazards including the ever-present poison swamp will shake up gameplay.

FromSoftware fans are eagerly anticipating the release of Elden Ring Nightreign which looks to condense the RPG gameplay of Elden Ring into bite-sized multiplayer sessions. This less-canonical spin-off throws players into the ever-shifting pocket realm of Limveld and sees returning bosses from the Dark Souls franchise due to some multiversal shenanigans.

Players will soon get to see how all of this melds together in an upcoming Network Test that gives us an early glimpse of the game. Of course, thanks to the game’s procedurally generated nature, it can be tough to plan ahead.

New comments from Elden Ring Nightreign Director Junya Ishizaki suggest it may be even more difficult than we thought. Speaking with PC Gamer Magazine (via GamesRadar+), Ishizaki revealed that not only will dungeons and loot be randomized in Limveld, but environmental hazards too.

Elden Ring Nightreign will drop random hazards on unsuspecting players

Ishizaki explained that players can expect “large-scale changes to terrain in the form of procedurally appearing volcanos or swamps or forests”. Even when Miyazaki isn’t at the helm, it appears FromSoftware can’t resist the addition of a big old swamp with a frustrating damage-over-time effect.

“We wanted the map itself to be a giant dungeon, so players have the chance to traverse and explore a different way every time they play,” Ishizaki continued. It seems as if Elden Ring Nightreign will lean further into the roguelike elements teased in trailers than players might have initially expected.

“You have to choose the boss you want to face at the end of the third day,” he explained. “Once you’ve made that choice, maybe you have an idea of how you want to strategize against that boss, and this might change how you approach the map. We wanted to offer players that agency, to decide ‘I need to go after a poison weapon this time to face this boss.’”

Of course, with devs fully embracing the procedural generation they experimented with in Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons, there’s only so much strategizing you can do. Especially when you don’t know if you’ll have to contend with lava or a health-sapping swamp in this particular instance.

The Elden Ring Nightreign Network Test kicks off on February 14, 2025. Hopefully, players will be able to gauge how often these poison swamps appear, and how necessary they are to engage with.