There will be eight Elden Ring Nightreign characters to choose from in the full game, each with their own abilities, ultimates, and looks. Whether you want a grappling crossbow, siphoning spells, or even wings, these Nightfarers will cater to all sorts of playstyles and offer plenty of variety in Elden Ring Nightreign. We recently got to play Nightreign for a few hours and tested the available characters and their kits, so here's everything we know about all of the Nightfarers and their abilities.
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 bonus, a skill with a relatively short cooldown, and a powerful ultimate ability. Their armor can be visually customized but is otherwise fixed, so you can't alter their defenses. However, any character can wield any weapon, although obviously some weapon types will be better suited to certain characters than others.
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 you'll be able to play as in the Elden Ring Nightreign beta:
Elden Ring Nightreign Wylder
Wylder is the generic knight class in Nightreign, though that doesn't mean they don't have a few cool tricks up their gauntlets not seen in Elden Ring before. Their skill utilizes a special crossbow to reel in small enemies or pull themselves toward larger foes, while their ultimate ability fires a high-damage and high-stagger explosive shot that can be charged up.
Elden Ring Nightreign Guardian
Guardian is a more heavily armored eagle man capable of launching enemies into the air with a fancy whirlwind attack, leaving them vulnerable. However, their ultimate ability sees them briefly soaring into the air with their wings before slamming down to deal big area-of-effect damage.
Elden Ring Nightreign Duchess
Duchess is the nimble assassin class of Nightreign, packing a unique Bloodborne-style quickstep instead of a dodge, as well as her skill and ultimate. Their skill allows them to repeat any damage dealt to nearby enemies in the past two seconds or so while their ultimate makes them and nearby allies undetectable for about eight seconds, even while attacking!
Elden Ring Nightreign Recluse
Recluse is a sorcerer, so spellcasting is their deal. Their skill gathers elemental essence for a big hit, while their ultimate applies a curse mark to nearby enemies that regenerates health and mana for all allies attacking them. These siphoning powers sounds quite helpful, as Recluse is also very fragile.
Other unnamed Nightfarers in Elden Ring Nightreign
The 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, and some of them were visible in the debut gameplay trailer:
- 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
- Several sequences also show a lightly armored archer character, who appears to be able to pull out a massive greatbow to fire powerful arrows. In a preview from IGN, game director Junya Ishizaki teased a character who could summon a rock pillar to climb and "snipe arrows from" so that sounds an awful like this archer character.
- Finally, from the same IGN preview, Ishizaki mentions a character who can command their own Spirit Ash, though I can't see anything of the sort in the gameplay trailer, so this character remains a mystery.
We already know that Elden Ring Nightreign has plans for DLC which should hopefully include more characters to screw around with too. We'll be sure to update this guide with the latest information when we have it.
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