Elden Ring Nightreign’s Best Feature Shouldn’t Be Limited…

Elden Ring Nightreign is in the middle of rolling out its next wave of Everdark Sovereign bosses, and they’re easily one of the game’s best features. The Nightlords were one of Nightreign’s biggest draws in the first place, with the mystery and challenge surrounding them injecting some new intrigue into the world of Elden Ring. But not content to sit on its laurels, FromSoftware upped its game by releasing enhanced versions of Elden Ring Nightreign’s Nightlords, the Everdark Sovereigns. Each one has transformed the Nightlords into a true spectacle, and even helped to transform some of the less-liked bosses into something fun and memorable.

Elden Ring Nightreign Everdark Sovereign Gaping Jaw

This has been an absolute goldmine for regular fans and challenge-runners alike. There is something new for players to cut their teeth on, and the best among them can now optimize strategies for taking down the best Nightlord bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign. The formula has been shown to work well, and it has kept interest in Nightreign up as many fans speculate about what content FromSoftware could release next. But the era of Everdark Sovereigns doesn’t have to end with Nightreign. FromSoftware could make a very bold move in its future titles by using this idea to add new layers of replayability to new games.

Elden Ring Nightreign’s Everdark Sovereigns Should Become a Staple in More FromSoftware Games

One of the biggest lessons FromSoftware can take from the Everdark Sovereigns is that a large portion of the community is hungry for more challenge. So far, most Sovereigns have been received pretty well, and some, such as Adel, have shown that previously easy bosses can become incredibly formidable. Others, like Everdark Sovereign Sentient Pest, didn’t do a lot to make the fight easier for melee builds, though there’s plenty of time for FromSoftware to take the feedback to heart and make future bosses better.

Seven out of eight Nightlord bosses have Everdark Sovereign forms, with only Heolstor yet to receive one.

But despite any missteps, the Everdark Sovereigns should not be limited to just Nightreign - they’re a fantastic tool to add further challenge to familiar fights in any game in the series. One of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’s best features was the Bell Demon, a way to enhance the difficulty of the game if the player chose to, and it’s been a core part of hard challenge runs by fans. Applying that kind of philosophy to Everdark Sovereigns could go a long way, letting players choose to fight regular versions of bosses, or enhanced versions. It would also tie back into Sekiro’s boss rush mode, a mechanic added to allow players to refight bosses - something that could be improved by letting players choose the difficulty and movesets of the bosses.

The Pthumerian Descendent in a Bloodborne Chalice Dungeon

The Everdark Sovereign Concept Has Already Been Done Before, but It Could Go Further

Surprisingly, Nightreign is not the first game by FromSoftware to try the Everdark Sovereign concept. FromSoftware experimented with this formula ten years ago with Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons. Beyond just being spiraling labyrinthine tunnels for rune and bloodgem farming, Bloodborne allowed players to customize the difficulty with fetid, rotted, and cursed modifiers that greatly increased difficulty and rewards. Various bosses that appeared throughout the Chalice Dungeons also had different movesets to the versions encountered in the base game.

There’s also no reason FromSoft could not expand the feature to previous games. Elden Ring could get an update adding enhanced versions of the best bosses, accessible as part of an Elden Ring boss rush mode, challenging players’ pre-established muscle memory of the game’s best fights. The sky is the limit when it comes to a feature like Everdark Sovereigns, so FromSoftware shouldn’t squander the concept in its next Soulslike game.

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