The Nameless King is in Elden Ring Nightreign and fans are losing their minds

A high-profile Dark Souls 3 boss, the Nameless King, is in Elden Ring Nightreign – something absolutely nobody saw coming during The Game Awards (2024).

Most Souls fans were watching the Game Awards (2024) eagerly waiting for news related to Bloodborne, what they didn’t expect was an Elden Ring spin-off to be announced. Not to mention an Elden Ring spin-off that contained bosses from earlier Souls games like Dark Souls 3 – but the Nameless King will ride again.

The trailer for Elden Ring Nightreign revealed a return to the Lands Between in a co-op-focused spin-off game that saw a parallel version of the world engulfed by a strange blue miasma. Then the Tarnished are tasked with ending the reign of the Night Lord. The game showed off various old and new bosses, but one set tongues wagging the most.

At mark 2:10 of the trailer, a familiar foe can be seen riding on the back of a dragon, sporting a lance and firing lightning bolts at the Tarnished. This is unmistakably the Nameless King, a boss from Dark Souls 3 who guards the Archdragon Peak location – and is one of the most difficult Souls bosses of all time.

Quite why a boss from Dark Souls 3 is in Elden Ring Nightreign has already sparked much speculation in the community. In the past, FromSoftware have insisted that the Dark Souls games and Elden Ring are set in different universes, but with some multiversal shenanigans taking place in Nightreign, the old rules no longer apply.

Why is the Nameless King in Elden Ring?

Some players leaned into this theory suggesting that we’re finally getting a crossover between Dark Souls and Elden Ring with one Reddit user saying, “A crossover? (very big) reference boss? I literally can’t think of anything else, brain is mush.”

Another said, “I’ve never backed down from Elden Ring being a distant prequel OR a distant sequel from Dark Souls. Even after they “confirmed” it wasn’t.”

However, other players were more cautious and suggested that FromSoftware is simply reusing assets to flesh out its roster of enemies in the new game.

One said, “I’d think reused assets since they did that with the Thralls move set from DS3 but they were reskinned. This is literally just the Nameless King.”

However, Hidetaka Miyazaki rarely does anything by accident and the Nameless King boss will likely have been chosen with a reason in mind – he also may not be the only returning boss. While FromSoft is no stranger to re-skinning enemies and bosses, one as important as the Nameless King would need more justification to be included.

After all, the Nameless King is an important figure in the lore of Dark Souls. In the past, FromSoftware has only reskinned less important enemies, or bosses that already have multiple variants, such as the Vanguard Demon in Demon’s Souls into the Asylum Demon in Dark Souls.

In the lore, the Nameless King was believed to be a son of Gwyn, the First Lord of Cinder, who allied with the Ancient Dragons against his godlike family, eventually outliving them, only to be slain by the Ashen One in Dark Souls 3.

Elden Ring’s royal pantheon also went to war against a race of Ancient Dragons, so there is fertile ground for a crossover between both games. The Nameless King could simply just be added to Elden Ring: Nightreign without any connection to Dark Souls, but bosses always have a reason to be where they are in Souls games.

It has since been confirmed that Nightreign will indeed see an official crossover between Dark Souls and Elden Ring. It’s an exciting time to be a fan of either Elden Ring or Dark Souls. Praise the Sun, indeed!