All Elden Ring Nightreign classes and abilities

Five Elden Ring Nightreign characters have been shown off so far, with adept archer Ironeye being the latest to get shown off. The full game will have eight Nightfarer characters to choose from, each with their own set of three abilities. Whether you want a grappling crossbow, blood magic, or invisibility, the full cast of Nightfarers in Elden Ring Nightreign offers a range of archetypes.

While we’ve played Elden Ring Nightreign, we could only test four characters and their kits, and we’re still waiting for three characters to be properly introduced. Here's everything we know about all the characters, classes, and abilities that will be in Elden Ring Nightreign, based on what we’ve played so far and what Bandai Namco has announced.

Best Elden Ring Nightreign classes

Based on my experience in the Nightreign closed network test, here's how I rank the four character classes that were available:

1. Duchess: Duchess has the best dodge, a skill that massively increases damage output when used well, and an ultimate art that helps the whole team by making everyone untraceable. You can't really ask for much more.
2. Wylder: Beginner-friendly but still highly effective, Wylder is a solid Nightfarer to play as and can make boss fights noticeably easier with good use of their Onslaught Stake ultimate.
3. Guardian: Guardian's crowd-control abilities are perfect against standard enemies in Limveld, though the walking shield playstyle might not be for everyone.
4. Recluse: Playing as Recluse can be fun but requires seriously good resource management and teammates who can run interference in the frontline, but you need to keep pace with them. Furthermore, Recluse's lack of evasive options and extremely low base HP also means desperately fighting in melee is very tough.

Every Nightfarer in Elden Ring Nightreign explained

Before starting your run, you and your co-op allies need to pick one of the eight Elden Ring Nightreign characters to play as. Each one comes with a passive ability, a character skill with a relatively short cooldown (Triangle + L2/Y + LT), and a powerful ultimate art (Triangle + R2/Y + RT). Any character can also wield any weapon, but their armor and basic attributes are fixed. However, you will be able to visually customize the appearance of each character in the full game.

Regardless of who you pick, you'll have to face all sorts of Elden Ring Nightreign bosses over the course of a single run too. To help you figure out who your main might be, here are all the characters we know about, some we've got experience with as they were playable in the Elden Ring Nightreign beta:

Elden Ring Nightreign Wylder

Wylder is the kind of generic knight character in Nightreign, though that doesn't mean they don't have a few cool tricks up their gauntlets not seen in Elden Ring before. Packing solid stats, a fun grappling hook, and an extremely powerful exploding crossbow bolt that's great for staggering larger enemies and bosses, Wylder is a good all-rounder and very beginner friendly.

• HP: 200
• FP: 55
• Stamina: 54
• Starting Armaments: Wylder's Greatsword (Stamp, Upward Cut) and Wylder's Small Shield (Buckler Parry)
• Passive Ability – Sixth Sense: Cheat death a single time.
• Character Skill – Claw Shot: Fire out a grappling hook to reel in smaller enemies or pull yourself towards larger enemies, bosses, and environment objects. Holding the input lets you aim where you fire the claw shot before grappling.
• Ultimate Art – Onslaught Stake: Fire a short-range exploding bolt from Wylder's wrist crossbow. Hold the input to charge it up and increase its damage and stagger power.

Elden Ring Nightreign Guardian

Guardian is a heavily armored eagle man with the most HP and stamina of all the Nightreign classes so far. They act as support tank role, using their defensive abilities to soak up attacks from the frontline but can also use their Whirlwind and Wings of Salvation to disrupt and knock down enemies, leaving them highly vulnerable.

• HP: 260
• FP: 55
• Stamina: 60
• Starting Armaments: Guardian's Halberd (Charge Forth) and Guardian's Greatshield (Shield Bash)
• Passive Ability – Steel Guard: Dodge while guarding with a shield to brace yourself for a stronger guard. You move more slowly during Steel Guard and your stamina drains but blocking attacks does not reduce your stamina.
• Character Skill – Whirlwind: Create a small cyclone in front of you, launching smaller enemies into the air and knocking some enemies down or back. Hold the input to make the whirlwind larger
• Ultimate Art – Wings of Salvation: Leap into the air and fly for a moment before crashing down, dealing damage in a large area and knocking away smaller foes. Hold the input to create a protective area when you land.

Elden Ring Nightreign Duchess

Duchess is the nimble assassin character of Nightreign, packing a unique Bloodborne-style quickstep instead of a regular dodge toll, making her supremely agile. They're the melee glass-cannon character, capable of dealing lots of damage in a short time when Restage is used effectively and can help the entire team get easy damage in by making them all invisible. Once you figure out how Restage works, Duchess is quite easy to use and is arguably the best Nightreign character.

• HP: 160
• FP: 65
• Stamina: 54
• Starting Armaments: Duchess' Dagger (Magic Dagger)
• Passive Ability – Magnificent Poise: Duchess has an enhanced double step dodge which allows you to avoid attacks and move very quickly by repeatedly pressing Circle/B.
• Character Skill – Restage: Repeat any damage dealt to a single enemy in the last few seconds. This manifests as a ghost of that enemy getting hit again though this is purely visual.
• Ultimate Art – Finale: Make yourself and any nearby allies invisible for about 8 seconds. Attacking or getting hit does not end the invisibility effect either.

Elden Ring Nightreign Recluse

Recluse's whole deal is casting powerful sorceries to deal lots of damage and keep themselves alive. They have a good amount of FP to sling spells with but a miniscule amount of HP, so getting into melee range is not advised. That makes them arguably the toughest Elden Ring Nightreign class to play as.

• HP: 140
• FP: 70
• Stamina: 54
• Starting Armaments: Recluse's Staff (Glintstone Pebble and Glintstone Arc)
• Passive Ability – Elemental Defense: Discover affinity residues that can be collected to replenish FP.
• Character Skill – Magic Cocktail: Collecting enough affinity residues lets you fire an affinity-exploiting spell.
• Ultimate Art – Soulblood Song: Mark nearby enemies with blood sigils, allowing you to siphon HP and FP when they are hit.

Elden Ring Nightreign Ironeye

Bows and non-magic ranged builds usually aren’t that great in Elden Ring, but Ironeye’s whole kit is based around agile archery in Elden Ring Nightreign. This character has been shown off in a gameplay trailer, so we know about their abilities, but not their stats. While they’ll mainly be focused on dealing damage from a distance, their abilities add a nice amount of team support, helping with weak points, staggering, and even loot.

• HP: ???
• FP: ???
• Stamina: ???
• Starting Armaments: Recluse's Staff (Glintstone Pebble and Glintstone Arc)
• Passive Ability – Eagle Eye: Increased enemy item drop rate.
• Character Skill – Marking: Mark enemies to create a temporary weak point
• Ultimate Art – Single Shot: Fire a massive, supersonic arrow that deals high damage and stagger

Other unnamed Nightfarers in Elden Ring Nightreign

The first four Elden Ring Nightreign characters above are just the ones that were available to try out in our recent preview, but we know there will be at least four others in the final game, one of which will be Ironeye. Here’s are all the other mystery characters I’ve been able to find details on from available gameplay footage and interviews:

• There's a sort of big barbarian-type character wielding a massive hammer/axe hybrid weapon, who is visible in a couple of sequences in the Nightreign gameplay trailer. They also appear to have a big leaping attack where the ground explodes, launching them into the air so that they can come crashing down to knock enemies over.

• A katana-wielding knight character is also shown off in one brief sequence in the gameplay trailer, where they are repeatedly deflecting and parrying blows from an enemy to great effect. Their katana glows with a golden light and appears to have vines wrapping around it. This golden glow effect also vanishes after an attack, so it might be that the katana can be briefly powered up for increased damage in some way

• In a preview from IGN, game director Junya Ishizaki teased a character who could summon a rock pillar to climb and "snipe arrows from". Iron eye has no such ability, so perhaps there’s another archer character we’re yet to see.
• Finally, from the same IGN preview, Ishizaki mentions a character who can command their own Spirit Ash, though I’ve not seen anything of the sort in any available gameplay footage, so this character remains a mystery. They might also be the one who can summon a rock pillar.

We already know that Elden Ring Nightreign has plans for DLC which should include more characters to battle Nightlords with too. We'll be sure to update this guide with the latest information when we have it.

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