Elden Ring Nightreign Dataminers Say They’ve Uncovered an Entirely New, Ultra-Hard Game Mode

Love Elden Ring Nightreign, but getting a little bored of the same three-night cycle of bosses and repetitive Everdark sovereigns? Fret not, Nightfarer, because there may be a brand new, extra-hard game mode on the way that will shake up Nightreign’s regular playstyle.

This new mode, entitled Deep of Night, was found and shared by dataminers, and appears to be essentially a kind of “endless” mode with skill-based matchmaking. Unlike in regular Nightreign, you’re not able to choose the boss you target, and it will be picked for you at random instead. With each victory, your “Depth” rating increases, which in turn increases the difficulty, and Nightreign will generally try to pair you with other players that are at the same Depth as you as long as the wait time isn’t too long.

In total, the datamine suggests there will be five Depths with 999 ratings within each Depth, and killing bosses will increase your Depth. Losing runs will cause your Depth to revert back, but once you get into Depth 2 you’ll never be able to get back into Depth 1. It’s unclear if this applies to every Depth level, or if it’s just a way to keep experienced players from being stuck with new ones.

There are other major changes in Deep of Night, too. Some bosses are “magmafied”, which is just what it sounds like. They’re covered in magma. This probably makes them stronger – I certainly don’t want to touch them. There are also new weapon effects, and stronger weapons that come with better buffs, but also some drawbacks. Additionally, players will get access to three more relic slots on top of the existing three, with the three new slots only working in the Deep of Night. Like the new weapons, new relics were datamined also, with both stronger buffs and also sometimes counterbalancing drawbacks.

All in all this new mode sounds like it could be an interesting spin on Nightreign that keeps it fresh for a while yet. While Nightreign still has a bustling community, interest has slowed down in the months since launch, especially as the rotation of Everdark bosses has gotten a little more repetitive. FromSoftware did just announce the next new Everdark boss, Caligo, which will drop tomorrow evening.

We gave Elden Ring Nightreign a 7/10 at launch, with our reviewer saying, “when Elden Ring Nightreign is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it’s one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around – but that’s harder to do than it should be, and playing solo is poorly balanced.” The game has since gotten a duos mode, and it had sold five million copies as of July.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.