Elden Ring Nightreign has flipped the script on the Soulslike formula in some really intriguing ways, but one of its best has to be the Everdark Sovereigns. The Nightlords have already provided a fearsome challenge to players of all skill levels, and with all the lengthiest boss run-backs in FromSoftware’s catalog, some players may have been daunted by the prospect of making them harder. Still, the Everdark Sovereigns have shown that even bosses with now-familiar movesets can bring fresh surprises, and it’s a formula that has made a lot of fans excited to fight the four upcoming enhanced Nightlords.

That’s right, four upcoming Everdark Sovereigns, not five. So far, Elden Ring Nightreign has hosted enhanced versions of Fulghor, Sentient Pest, and Adel, and coming at the end of July are Equilibrious Beast, Gladius, Maris, and Caligo. While a handful more bosses are raised to Everdark status, there is an enormous, night-cloaked elephant in the room, and the absence of the final Nightlord could be telling of what FromSoftware plans to do with them. Elden Ring Nightreign’s final Everdark Sovereign is both the most terrifying, yet tantalizing Nightlord that’s surely waiting in the wings.

elden ring nightreign fromsoftware tradition missing patches
Elden Ring Nightreign Breaks a Classic FromSoftware Tradition

For a game full of references, Elden Ring Nightreign has avoided FromSoftware’s biggest tradition for its Soulslike games, and it isn’t clear why.

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Everdark Sovereign Heolstor Should Blow the Roof off Elden Ring Nightreign in Ways Only FromSoftware Knows How

Despite his incredibly short shelf life so far, Heolstor the Nightlord has become one of the most iconic Soulslike bosses. The sheer pomp and grandiosity of the fight, the maudlin soundtrack, and the significant challenge Heolstor poses to many players have led to an unforgettable final boss fight. While Heolstor’s exact relationship with the Lands Between is open to interpretation, his power is almost unmatched, able to create a parallel dimension in Limveld within which he can summon warriors from other realms, aka Dark Souls bosses. His stewardship of the Nightlords is a dark mirror to the Nightfarers of Nightreign, an unlikely assortment of opportunistic and otherworldly foes, and all gathered together because a child of night never felt love.

Heolstor Being Singled Out Could Point to Something Big Coming

Heolstor’s absence from the next roster of Everdark Soveriegns seems deliberate, and it speaks to the idea that FromSoftware may be planning a Sovereign whose challenge is on another level. This would be a pretty difficult feat, as of the three current Sovereigns, it’s fairly clear that Everdark Adel is one of Elden Ring Nightreign’s hardest Nightlord bosses. Heolstor could feasibly one-up Adel, taking his already formidable moveset and dialing it up to eleven, throwing out singularities and who knows what. While not every FromSoftware final boss is the hardest in their respective games, it would feel right for Everdark Heolstor to be the ultimate challenge.

That’s what makes the prospect of an enhanced Heolstor fight so exciting, but also intimidating. It needs to be the fight that crowns Nightreign’s strong first wave of updates, but it also comes with a caveat. There may be a limit to how far FromSoftware can go in making Heolstor difficult, as it isn’t a boss that players can very easily practice against, given the game’s Roguelike nature. Besides, Elden Ring had to nerf Promised Consort Radahn due to backlash, and even then, it remains one of the studio’s most controversial boss fights, with even expert Elden Ring players saying it went too far.

The Everdark Heolstor fight needs to bring all the dark majesty and insane grandeur it can, without going so far as to alienate a part of Nightreign’s player base. The Everdark Sovereigns will always be aimed at the FromSoftware challenge runners and superfans, and that’s fine, but other players should at least feel like they have a chance, which was a difficult tightrope that Radahn couldn’t walk with the weight of Miquella on his back.

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Elden Ring Nightreign Tag Page Cover Art
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Action RPG
Soulslike
Roguelite
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Systems
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Top Critic Avg: 80 /100 Critics Rec: 78%
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Released
May 30, 2025
Developer(s)
From Software
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Elden Ring Nightreign Press Image 6
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WHERE TO PLAY

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Genre(s)
Action RPG, Soulslike, Roguelite