The worst part of Elden Ring Nightreign, like all multiplayer games, is that you need to rely on the kindness and intelligence of strangers

Lying dead in the sand, a few feet away from Mothma and his scorpion pal fighting the two remaining members of my Elden Ring Nightreign trio, I had plenty of time to stare off into the night sky and ask myself where it all went wrong.

I had spent the entire run looking after these two Ironeyes. Guiding them to estus flask charges, keeping an eye out for the encroaching night, and repeatedly reviving them whenever they picked a fight with the wrong dragon. However, I was happy to do so—I just wanted to help my team in any way I could. But my patience ran out when I was left on the floor to rot with just one tick as my teammates buried arrows into Gnoster, Wisdom of Night.

When I first heard about Nightreign's multiplayer capability, I was so excited. I've loved Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree, and while I played it alongside some friends, getting the chance to experience all the aspects of a new game with other players just sounded too good to pass up.

And don't get me wrong, there are tons of aspects of Nightreign's multiplayer experience that I love. I've watched on in horror as a Tree Sentinel dropped on my team's heads as they were too engrossed in their fight with a Giant, and have collectively noped out on a fight with an Ancient Dragon—we all took one look at it, then at our measly three levels, and decided that this was a bit above our paygrade. These were all funny moments that made the run more memorable.

Most of all, I was most excited to work with other players who I could rely on to have my back, giving us the upper hand when fighting troublesome bosses. But the coordination, or lack thereof, is what let me down.

With friends like these, who needs enemies

I've always thought that most multiplayer games expect far too much coordination from total strangers. Whether it be five knuckleheads running around and ulting at the wrong time in Overwatch 2, or your companions splitting up with different objectives at the start of a Nightreign run.

Sure, the ping system is good for picking out a route and highlighting helpful items, but the most important part of Nightreign is its boss fights, and in these, it's become every tarnished for themselves.

I've played plenty of matches with randoms in which I've been left in the dirt, half dead, watching someone try to be the main character and solo a Nightlord with half its health left. I'd trust very few people to solo a boss like this under these circumstances—maybe the person who's already beaten a solo Nightreign run at level one or Let Me Solo Her, but that's it.

It's at moments like these that I wish there was voice chat, so I could tell the last player alive 'I don't care how many Elden Ring Nightreign guides you've read buddy, you ain't him, now put that blood grease down and revive your team'. Even just a prattling pate that yells 'hey stupid, I'm over here!' would be helpful at this point. But alas, all I can do is just lie there and hope someone sees me.

This isn't to say all multiplayer runs with strangers are bad. I've had some great attempts with skilled and thoughtful teammates who all work together and have each other's backs. But having known the joys of playing with friends in voice chat, I'm not sure I can ever really go back to playing with strangers, not in Nightreign's current state.

Actually being able to coordinate with friends not only makes the runs so much easier, but it also makes the boss fights so simple. We're able to properly come up with tactics and make a game plan that suits each Nightlord's playstyle.

Back when I was taking on the first Nightlord, Tricephalos, my group decided to discuss what worked and what could have been better. After figuring out a game plan, each attempt got easier—it felt like we were actually building to something, as opposed to starting fresh with a new team each time.

The single-player mode has received an update after FromSoftware admitted that it was too tough and actually quite unfair. So here's hoping that the poor communication options are also addressed pretty soon, because playing with others is how this Nightreign should be experienced.

But in the meantime, we'll all just have to overcome the greatest, most tiresome FromSoftware boss: Finding friends, and then managing to convince them to fork out $40 for Nightreign—good luck soldiers.