Many FromSoftware fans are eagerly awaiting Nightreign, the surprising spin-off of Elden Ring that happily draws from the roguelike repertoire. The release was recently announced for May 30, leading many players to rush to the game's Steam page to glean some additional information.
That's when some keen-eyed observers noticed a telling detail: a discreet line of text mentioned "Additional DLC" that would include “playable bosses and characters””. This has since been removed — but the message seems clear: everything indicates that FromSoftware wants to make this a full-fledged service game, and that you will probably have to pay to enjoy all the content.
Not necessarily bad news
At first glance, this does not seem dramatic. For starters, the game's announced price (40 euros) is quite reasonable in the current context, where many AAA titles happily cross the 70 euros mark — not counting the premium editions.
In addition, the studio has already proven on many occasions that it was capable of offering additional content of very high quality. Overall, the DLCs for the 3 Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring have all been acclaimed by the public, in particular because they all offered a substantial quantity (or even downright gigantic, like the Elden Ring expansion whose scale has sometimes been compared to that of a full AAA game).
But with Nightreign, Hidetaka Miyazaki's team seems to be taking a radically different path. Knowing the format of the game — chains of frantic fights against monsters and bosses chosen randomly, all in procedural environments and with rather short games - we can imagine that this new title will rather offer a large number of DLC with fairly limited added value in order to vary the experience.
A dynamic to watch
Even if FromSoft's pedigree and impeccable service record inspire confidence, it's a safe bet that part of the community will experience this approach as a betrayal. After all, there are countless promising AAA games that have been transformed into obscene cash factories by developers (and especially publishers) who treat players like common cash cows.
Is FromSoftware preparing to go over to the dark side of the Force? It is still much too early to say. Before getting out the torches and pitchforks, it will obviously be appropriate to judge the game itself on the basis of its intrinsic qualities. And in the worst case, the community can always console themselves by saying that these cash inflows will undoubtedly allow them to fuel the development of the enormous and grandiose titles to which the studio has accustomed us. See you at the release, on May 30, for the first elements of response.
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