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Elden Ring Nightreign: does the new game improve the original's tech issues?The closed network test examined on all current-gen consoles.Image credit: Fromsoftware Face-off by Thomas Morgan Senior Staff Writer, Digital Foundry Published on Feb. 28, 2025 The Elden Ring Nightreign network test proved a surprise success, giving a handful of lucky players an early taster of this multiplayer spin-off on PS5, PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X/S ahead of the 30th May release. Nightreign's central hook is a compelling, too: a blend of Souls combat and Fortnite-inspired PvE multiplayer with plenty of strategic depth, though the game marks the return of some familiar technical limitations from Elden Ring - including performance issues in both quality and frame-rate modes. Also a surprise is the lack of any PS5 Pro patch update to take advantage of the mid-gen refresh. Before we get into the tech talk, it's worth highlighting the tweaks to the Elden Ring ruleset for Nightreign. In a nutshell, this is a faster-paced PvE version of Elden Ring with rogue-like elements thrown in for good measure. You're flown into Limveld, a kind of 'greatest hits' remix of the main game's Limgrave map with major landmarks condensed into a smaller area. The goal is to survive two full days here with the aid of two allies, with each day concluding with a boss fight. Surviving both takes you to a final battle against one of eight Night Lords available in the beta. Crucially, each game only lasts around 40 minutes to an hour - and this is a key distinction to make. Within this smaller window of time, FromSoftware has to significantly hasten most aspects of Elden Ring's gameplay to help adjust the balance. Hence, you're able to mantle up geometry, survive drops from any distance, and even burst into a sprint with no penalty to your stamina bar. Levelling up is also streamlined into a single value, affecting your character's stats in a simple predetermined manner. And finally, death is penalised by losing a level on respawning, costing you precious time ahead of challenging a boss. Even in a limited weekend sample we grabbed as much test footage of Nightreign as we could muster. Here's Tom Morgan on video with the full results of our tests on PS5, PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X/S. Watch on YouTubeDespite the gameplay departures, Nightreign's underlying tech is very much familiar territory, with the customary performance and frame-rate modes on all tested platforms. Elden Ring's RT mode, meanwhile, doesn't return on any platform, perhaps due to its poor performance in the original game. That makes for a simple binary choice, helpfully streamlining the task of analysing the game too. Nightreign also reuses the same basic metrics for its resolution and frame-rate modes, with quality mode running at a fixed 4K on PS5 and Series X and 1440p on Series S. Alternatively, the frame-rate mode allows for dynamic resolution scaling between 1512p to 4K on the higher-end machines and 1008p to 1440p on Series S. Performance is improved considerably with the latter option, and it's what we'd recommend for both platforms. In exchange though, you are making some visual sacrifices. Shadow quality uses a lower preset, for example, most notably affecting shadows cast by sunlight. The overall image quality is also noticeably softer, with performance mode normally at that 1512p lower bound. As you might expect, that means not much extra performance is on the table - and indeed, the frame-rate is some distance away from a locked 60fps here. Regardless of your selected mode, the game's in-engine cinematics always run at a 4K resolution, so frame-rates between the two modes are nearly identical during these sections.PS5 Pro gets the cold shoulder once again from the Elden Ring studio. We were surprised to see that Nightreign lacks any official PS5 Pro support in the network test, despite being many months past the Pro's hardware launch. That said, the game still benefits by running on the higher-clocked machine - with its 45% GPU clock increase in particular helping to hit higher average internal resolutions. That means you're seeing a native 4K image in frame-rate mode more frequently - where dynamic resolution is deployed - though the base PS5's shadow quality settings (and every other setting) is ingrained at a software level. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Inevitably, Series S takes a more notable image quality hit in its frame-rate mode than other consoles, with it going down to 1008p, while shadow quality settings are cut back even further. The results are acceptable on a 1080p display, but don't scale well to a 4K set at an ordinary viewing distance. Performance testing the quality mode gives us a good way to test each platform without the distraction of a fluctuating resolution. As a means to benchmark each platform, in a sense, we chose the less demanding Roundtable Hold area in order to sychronise each feed fairly, away from the dynamic time of day and random spawn points of typical play in Limveld. Running into the Roundtable building, for example, the PS5 Pro hovers around 55fps, the PS5 and Series X are at 39fps, while Series S trails at 35fps. Different areas show different values, but PS5 Pro is often far ahead in its pursuit of 60fps - if not always quite at the mark. Actual Limveld gameplay sees the base PS5 and Xbox Series X in the 35-45fps region in quality mode, so more or less similar to single-player Elden Ring in the same mode. On both platforms, drops into the 20s are still possible as the day turns to night and Night Lord bosses enter the frame. Even for the image quality purist craving a pixel-perfect 4K picture, it's a hard trade-off to make given the penalty to controller response when you most need it. Meanwhile, the 4TF Series S is even worse off on the quality mode, with a majority of play at 30-40fps and more freqent drops to the mid-20s during open world action. Finally, PS5 Pro is a much more adept performer on the quality mode, typically running at 45-60fps, 40fps lowest - so even VRR can't smooth out the worst stumbles. Frame-rate mode is the best hope for a 60fps lock, with all four machines typically in the 55-60fps region in Roundtable Hold - a frustrating result that feels solveable with tweaks to the DRS algorithm. For example, if base PS5 comes close to the 60fps line while rendering at 1512p, the renderer will detect a frame-time budget to switch to a higher resolution for the following frames. Doing so, of course, sabotages what could have been a 60fps lock. It works just like the core Elden Ring experience in this way, and once again, should be better optimised for 60.Here's our last look at Elden Ring, with the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. It's a familiar story in terms of tech... Watch on YouTubeLimveld's open world pushes each machine much harder. Base PS5 and Series X run at between 45-60fps on this frame-rate mode, with internal resolutions rarely breaking past the 1512p mark on each. Curiously, some final Night Lord boss encounters do play out surprisingly close to that 60fps mark. As with the core Elden Ring game though, Series X and even Series S have an advantage over base PS5 due to their wider VRR windows (40-60Hz vs 48-60Hz), with most action cleanning up well with VRR on Xbox consoles. The PS5 Pro is again in that 55-60fps window in Limveld, so well within range for even the more restrictive VRR setup on PS5 systems. The network test gives us a fascinating early sample of what Nightreign has in store. Despite some initial skepticism, it's a genuine surprise to see this blend of ideas pay off in something so addictive. Elden Ring's balance is tweaked to allow for tight PvE mini-adventures that are brisker in pace but still benefit from a familiar world and controls. As far as its tech goes, the beta shows a familiar lack of optimisation for 60fps on console, just as with the core Elden Ring game. Nightreign is coming to PC too of course, but the best-case scenario on console thus far is playing on frame-rate mode on a VRR display. PS5 Pro users also typically get a higher-res image into the bargain, making it one of the better ways to play on console. It's not long until the 30th May release, and I'm curious to see more options open up in the game's lobby - and if we might see any technical improvements.
