Elden Ring: Nightreign’s previously-rumored ultra-hard difficulty mode is real and official, according to Bandai Namco, and it’s coming to the game on September 11.
As announced in an official post, the new mode is called “Deep of Night” and is essentially a challenge mode of the base game. While previously, Nightreign’s ongoing challenging endgame content has been limited to more difficult bosses, Deep of Night will impact an entire run, from start to finish.
For one, enemies will just be stronger than normal across the board. You also won’t get a heads up about which Nightlord you’ll be fighting, nor will you know if you’re getting a Shifting Earth event in advance, so you won’t be able to prep a build for any specific type of run.
However, to counterbalance this, players will be able to collect new types of weapons and relics with even more powerful effects…though they may also have some new drawbacks attached as well.
As you play and win Deep of Night you will descend to deeper depth levels, going at least as far as Depth 5. Each new Depth gets even more challenging, though losses will push you back up to easier Depths.
This mode was previously datamined, with dataminers getting all the announced details correct. Not announced but suggested by the datamine is that Deep of Night will feature skill-based matchmaking, and that some enemies will get special additional effects, such as being “magmafied,” or covered in magma. The datamine also suggests that players can unlock access to three additional relic slots for Deep of Night only, giving them up to a total of six.
We gave Elden Ring Nightreign a 7/10, 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 recently got a much-requested duos mode, and currently has two Everdark Sovereign bosses available for players wanting a challenge before Deep of Night: Libra, and Caligo.
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.
