Elden Ring Nightreign’s The Forsaken Hollows DLC is a bit harder than the base game, but still fair, according to its director. Read on to learn more about Nightreign’s latest DLC and the recurring swamp meme of the studio.
Elden Ring Nightreign The Forsaken Hollows DLC Director Insights
A Little Bit Harder Than The Main Game
Elden Ring Nightreign’s The Forsaken Hollows DLC is a little bit harder than the game, but it is still a fair challenge, says Director Junya Ishizaki. During an interview with GameSpot on December 1, Ishizaki shared more insights about the expansion.
As with any FromSoftware Soulslike, difficulty is always a major discussion point. With the Forsaken Hollows DLC, fans are wary of how its balancing will be, considering Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion was widely viewed to have a significant difficulty spike compared to the base game, especially at the start.
Ishizaki acknowledged Nightreign's initial balancing flaws, noting that it has been on the developers’ radar since the game's release. He stated that the team has been working tirelessly to remedy these issues, laying the groundwork for the upcoming Forsaken Hollows DLC.
As part of these efforts, Nightreign released Patch 1.03 to introduce support for the upcoming The Forsaken Hollows DLC, alongside several crucial quality-of-life and bug fixes. The update also brought numerous balance adjustments, including buffs to various passive effects, melee attack power, and Relic effects, while broadening the trigger conditions for low-HP damage negation but decreasing its effectiveness.
Regarding the DLC itself, Ishizaki stated that he wanted it to be accessible to newcomers while simultaneously allowing veteran players to recapture the feeling they had when they first started the game.
"So whenever people who have played the main game extensively go into the DLC content, they'll be able to have a bit of that feeling like they had when they first played Nightreign, where there's still a bit that they're trying to figure out. [The Forsaken Hollows is] definitely a little bit harder, but it's not ridiculous or anything like that, but that's still within what we would consider to be a fair challenge," Ishizaki said.
All Roads Lead To The Swamps
While Nightreign’s DLC will be introducing new characters and bosses, the Soulslike multiplayer looks to "return" to one of the highly favored spots of FromSoftware – the swamps. The usage of swamps has been a recurring theme from the developers’ past games, starting with Demon’s Souls in 2009, then with recent titles such as the Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring.
The community has since turned this into a meme, noting that FromSoftware appears to have some affinity for swamps. Ishizaki said that the team is aware of the "Swamp Software" memes online, and clarified that constantly having swamps in their games wasn’t intentional.
"We're definitely aware of the [swamp] meme. It's not like there's a rule or any sort of policy here where it's like we have to have a swamp in there, but it always seems to be [that before you realize] someone's come up with the idea, it's already sort of in there, and it's just sort of taken a life of its own," Ishizaki explained.
This was even funnier considering that the base game for Nightreign did not have swamps to begin with, which is why fans stated that FromSoftware is doing it on purpose. "The main game for Nightreign did not have a swamp, so I do see what you mean now, having it added after the fact with the DLC. But yeah, it's definitely one of those things that [it] always just seems like [our game] ends up with a swamp. Even if there's not a specific rule like, 'Oh yeah, we have to put that in there,' [that's] just always how it kind of ends up," the director said.
Swamps in the Forsaken Hollow DLC are spread across the map, which, when traversed upon, inflict various status effects on players such as Poison, Sleep, and other ailments. This makes exploring in Limveld more hazardous than ever before, but pushing through may yield rewards for players in the end.
Regardless, the new DLC will surely spark new interest in current players and welcome new ones to the Soulslike multiplayer. As of writing, Nightreign’s player count has spiked to over 90,000 after the release of The Forsaken Hollows, and could continue to climb over the weekend.
Elden Ring Nightreign’s The Forsaken Hollows DLC is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. To stay up to date with the latest information about the game, check out our article below!
Source:
Elden Ring Nightreign's Forsaken Hollows Has Reignited My Interest With Exciting Additions
Elden Ring Nightreign SteamDB Charts
