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Update @ 10:40 p.m. PT / 1:40 a.m. ET: FromSoftware has indeed decided to hold another Elden Ring Nightreign network test to make up for the one that was unplayable, with the studio announcing the news on social media. It's scheduled to run tonight, February 15 at 8 a.m. JST / 12 p.m. CET / 3 a.m. PT. The original article follows below.
Original article: The long-awaited network test beta for Elden Ring Nightreign — FromSoftware's co-op roguelike take on its award-winning 2022 action RPG that's slated to release on May 30 — officially kicked off on Xbox Series X|S and PS5 with its first playtest session early on Friday. Unfortunately, things...didn't go well, to say the least.
While the first hour of the test seemed to go fairly okay for most folks, the servers quickly fell apart after that, and most players were either met with a "Cannot log in to the game server" message on the main menu or were booted to it in the middle of gameplay when "the connection to the game server was lost." FromSoftware explained that there was "a problem" and attempted to get things working again with a server restart and maintenance, but neither ultimately did any good.
"The first session of the ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN Network Test has ended. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the game server issues," wrote the studio at the conclusion of the playtest this morning. "Work is currently ongoing to improve the stability of the Network Test. An additional Network Test session is being considered. Thank you."
The first session of the #ELDENRING #NIGHTREIGN Network Test has ended.We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the game server issues.Work is currently ongoing to improve the stability of the Network Test.An additional Network Test session is being considered.Thank you.February 14, 2025
Severe server issues like these would be frustrating regardless of the beta test's structure, but they're particularly aggravating in this case since playtime availability is very limited. Unlike most betas that typically give players 24-hour around-the-clock access while they're being held, Elden Ring Nightreign's network test this weekend only has a handful of three-hour windows that fans with access can play in. Indeed, there are just five, and there's only two others — February 14's 11am-2pm PT / 2pm-5pm ET / 7pm-10pm GT session and February 15's 3am-6am PT / 6am-9am ET / 11am-2pm GMT block — friendly to the European folks this first test was ideal for.
The good news, though, is that as FromSoftware confirmed in the above statement, the developer is considering holding an extra test to make up for this one's server problems. Another post from the studio's player support account suggests that this new window might open up "today," though there's no way to know if we'll actually get that additional test or not until the devs announce something officially.
By the way, the Elden Ring subreddit is precisely as abuzz as you'd expect it to be right now, with countless users complaining or posting memes about constantly getting kicked out of Nightreign before getting a chance to try it out. Others have used humorous images to make a point, which is that finding problems like these and developing solutions for them is precisely what betas and server tests like these are for.
Nightreign Network Testers When the Network isn’t Working: from r/Eldenring
That's definitely some important perspective to keep in mind, as is understanding that the team at FromSoftware is undoubtedly just as frustrated as players are with how the network test has gone so far. With that said, I do hope the studio ends up holding an extra play session so that fans who couldn't enjoy this one due to server instability have another shot.
Elden Ring Nightreign itself looks like it could be one of the best Xbox games and best PC games to play if you like the sound of an action-heavy roguelike with Elden Ring's combat and arsenal and plenty of bosses from FromSoftware's various Souls-style titles. I'm looking forward to jumping into it tonight with the second playtest happening at 7pm-10pm PT / 10pm-1am ET / 3am-6am GMT, as I consider the original Elden Ring to be one of the best games of all time.
Preorders for Elden Ring Nightreign are available now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PS5, and PS4. It's got an MSRP of $39.99 — $20 less than Elden Ring itself — but thanks to some sweet deals, you can reserve your copy of the PC version for just $35.19 at Fanatical.
