Elden Ring Nightreign Artist Reveals Design Inspirations for the Game’s World

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Summary

Elden Ring Nightreign offers challenging co-op boss battles in a shrinking area, designed similarly to battle royale games.
The game’s artist drew inspiration from Spirited Away and Dark Souls, creating a familiar yet mysterious world.
Limveld in Nightreign, a procedurally generated version of Limgrave, is home to shadow giants and challenging locations.

Elden Ring Nightreign is finally out in the wild for players to soak up with friends or embark on a punishing solo run, and the game’s environmental artist has recently revealed the inspirations behind Limveld, the game’s open world. Nightreign was one of the biggest surprises to be announced during The Game Awards 2024, and the roguelike action RPG has already been released to generally positive reviews after two million units sold.

Being the very first open world under the Elden Ring IP, Nightreign players can band together in teams of three to battle various hard-hitting bosses, and the difficulty of each encounter is heightened by a shrinking gameplay area, similar to battle royale games, which resets after the enemy is defeated. Something to be aware of, however, Elden Ring Nightreign will undergo server maintenance for Patch 1.01.1 soon, a three-hour process required to introduce the new update to the co-op.

A new Elden Ring Nightreign mod improves player scaling making Solo Play easier

Elden Ring Nightreign Mod Makes Solo Play Easier

One dedicated fan is offering a temporary fix for Elden Ring Nightreign’s Solo Play by releasing a mod that makes the experience more manageable.

During an interview with IGN, FromSoftware environmental artist Saori Mizuno explained the thought process behind creating Limveld and the inspirations that fueled the region’s design. In contrast to the noticeable differences between Elden Ring and Nightreign, Mizuno said the team didn’t strive to make Nightreign feel too different from Elden Ring, saying, “One specific direction [we] did get early on was to create something that at first feels and looks familiar and gradually transforms into the unfamiliar and into the unknown.” Touching on the game’s day and night cycle, the team played into the light and dark themes and wanted to make the darkness seem inviting. “We wanted players to begin to almost yearn for the night, and sort of look forward to this encroaching darkness,” Mizuno continued.

Elden Ring Nightreign Environmental Artist Says Spirited Away and Dark Souls Inspired Limveld’s Design

The artist also mentioned that Nightreign took inspiration from the beloved Dark Souls series and a popular Studio Ghibli film. Spirited Away harbors an intriguing mythology, and Mizuno noted Nightreign’s polarizing, calmer moments, contrasting the sinister world of Limveld, reflect similar scenes in Spirited Away. The artist elaborated, saying Spirited Away has “this feeling of being unable to go home, unable to escape from a dream, this sort of feeling I wanted to kind of harness while designing these worlds and tried to get that through to the player.” Furthermore, the co-op’s Round Table Hold hub and rest area were inspired by Dark Souls, in an attempt to make the spin-off feel “more cozy, more welcoming, more at home.”

The co-op’s Limveld is a procedurally generated version of the base game’s Limgrave, and its scale awards it a place next to some of the best open-world games. The region exists within the soulslike’s Lands Between and serves as a home to shadow giants and Sites of Grace under the power of Runes. Currently ruled by the Night Lord, and boasting several locations to explore, like Oldest Gaol, Shrouded Rountable Hold, and Spirit Sanctuary, it’s up to the players’ Nightfarers to save the world from the threatening Night’s Tide.