RIGHT AS REIGN

Teamwork makes the dream work in latest chapter of the Elden Ring franchise

- CHERYL MULLIN

IT FEELS like the world of RPGs has pretty much been dominated by Elden Ring for the last few years.

One of the biggest titles of 2022, it was greeted with almost universal acclaim and retains a highly coveted score of 96 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Last year saw the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, an expansion that felt more like a standalone game than a mere DLC.

Now the Elden Ring narrative has expanded again, with the arrival of Nightreign. Set in an alternative universe of the Lands Between, the action takes place in Limgrave now dubbed Limveld.

There's no vast open-world maps here to explore, this is a much tighter version of the game, with co-op very much at its heart.

I was expecting a world that was strikingly different, so I was surprised by how instantly familiar the space was.

Roundtable Hold is immediately recognisable, although it is desperately in need of some TLC, with a gaping hole in the wall letting through daylight. Wild flowers and weeds burst through cracked and rotten floorboards.

While there is a single player mode, this game is meant to be shared in all its glorious, roguelite multiplayer madness.