Elden Ring: Nightreign suffers a sharp drop in players after its successful debut

The expansion has lost much of its active base in just a few weeks.

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After a highly anticipated release, Elden Ring: Nightreign seems to be experiencing its first major slump. The multiplayer spin-off of the successful Elden Ring was met with enthusiasm from the community, but current player numbers are showing a significant decline that raises questions about its long-term retention capabilities.

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Although it surpassed 313,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch, the title has lost around 85% of its active player base, with recent peaks reaching only 47,000 users in the last 24 hours. The data comes from SteamDB, and while it’s not alarming on its own, it does reflect a concerning trend for a game entirely focused on online experiences.

What’s happening to Elden Ring: Nightreign?

Despite initially receiving a wave of negative reviews, Nightreign managed to stabilize its Steam rating as “Very Positive”. And it’s true that FromSoftware has reasons to celebrate commercially: the game has sold over 3.5 million copies in July alone, demonstrating that interest in the Elden Ring universe is still alive and well.

However, the decline in players raises several questions. Among the possible factors that may have affected its online performance are:

• A design too dependent on cooperative multiplayer, without a solid system for solo play.

• Matchmaking issues in certain regions.

• Lack of content or long-term incentives.

The highly anticipated Duo mode is expected to arrive in the coming days, which could provide a temporary boost to the game’s activity, offering an experience closer to the classic co-op of other titles from the studio. While it’s not expected to completely reverse the trend, it could serve as a test of FromSoftware’s ability to adapt and improve this new approach.

Overall, Elden Ring: Nightreign remains a successful experiment for the Japanese studio. Its universe, aesthetics, and combat have convinced millions of players, and although the decline in users is significant, it doesn’t represent a debacle. Rather, it seems to be a reflection of a title still searching for its balance in unfamiliar territory: real-time multiplayer.