Elden Ring Nightreign's Player Count is Dropping Fast, But…

When FromSoftware announced Elden Ring Nightreign at The Game Awards last year, a lot of people didn't know exactly what to make of it. Instead of being an Elden Ring DLC or a full-on sequel as some fans expected, this title was a co-op, battle royale-inspired multiplayer spin-off that was made by re-imagining the core design of its predecessor. Elden Ring Nightreign, frankly, didn't look anything like what FromSoftware had made before. Although FromSoftware promised that the game would have an offline mode, it seemed to lack the curated single-player content that players had come to expect from the studio.

Despite the cautious attitude that fans had expressed towards Elden Ring Nightreign, many of them were pleasantly surprised by the game when it came out on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in May 2025. Elden Ring Nightreign had an incredibly successful launch, both critically and commercially. The title not only sold over 2 million copies in a single day, it also received largely positive reviews from players on all platforms. In spite of Elden Ring Nightreign's overall popularity, however, the game has started to lose a lot of players, particularly on Steam. While this would be a cause of concern for most multiplayer games these days, in the case of Elden Ring Nightreign, it's not that big of a deal.

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Elden Ring Nightreign's Declining Player Counts is Not Cause for Concern

Concurrent Player Counts for Elden Ring Nightreign on Steam Have Dropped More than 80%

Elden Ring Nightreign debuted with over 313,000 concurrent players on Steam, roughly a third of the all-time peak player count for the original Elden Ring. The buzz surrounding the game lasted for several days, until around June 7, when its player counts began to drop dramatically. At the time of writing this article, Elden Ring Nightreign had a peak player count of just 53,000+ on Steam in the last 24 hours. Although these are still good numbers, the active playerbase for the game is roughly 82% smaller than it was at launch, and the title now also has fewer concurrent players than the three-year-old Elden Ring on the same platform.

Elden Ring Nightreign is Not a Live Service Game, So Player Counts Don't Matter That Much

Before players start to get worried about whether Elden Ring Nightreign is dying, it's important to note that the game is not like other multiplayer titles on the market. As was reiterated by the game's director, Junya Ishizaki, several months ago, Elden Ring Nightreign is not a live service title. Instead, it is a fully complete paid multiplayer game with no battle passes, microtransactions, seasons, or anything of the like. As such, a loss of players isn't particularly damaging to Elden Ring Nightreign, since the game doesn't need to keep fans engaged over the long term in order to be commercially successful.

FromSoftware is Adding Some New Content to Elden Ring Nightreign in the Future

Even though Elden Ring Nightreign doesn't have the trappings of a modern-day live service title, it is still going to get some significant content updates in the near future. FromSoftware confirmed a few days ago that Elden Ring Nightreign will receive a two-player co-op mode on July 30, alongside a handful of quality-of-life features and some Relics filtering options. A two-player mode for Nightreign was highly requested by fans since before the game was even released, so it will likely bring a lot of lapsed players back into the game.

This month, FromSoftware has hosted some weekly Everdark Sovereign events in Elden Ring Nightreign, and the company plans to continue doing so in the coming weeks.

In addition to this upcoming update, FromSoftware is also going to release a paid DLC for Elden Ring Nightreign sometime before the end of this year. This unnamed DLC, which is included at no extra cost in Elden Ring Nightreign's Deluxe Edition, will feature some new playable characters and bosses. Aside from that, however, FromSoftware has largely kept fans in the dark about the contents of the expansion. Regardless, the release of that Elden Ring Nightreign DLC is bound to give the game a second wind of players, just like its future updates.

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