Elden Ring Nightreign is designed as a three-player co-op journey that aims to challenge players' combat abilities, having them work together to bring down tough bosses and explore a shifting map. While you can play Nightreign as a solo player, the game is focused on pairing you with two other players for you all to fight and explore together. Fortunately, both the single-player and multiplayer functions in Elden Ring Nightreign are easy to use, allowing you to minimize your time between expeditions into the Living Lands.
Below, we'll show you everything you need to know about how to start expeditions and how to set up both single-player and co-op multiplayer runs in Elden Ring Nightreign, as well as the lack of proper cross-play support.
First and foremost, let's go over how to actually get into expeditions once you're past the tutorial of the game that occurs within the first 10 or so minutes.
After the tutorial, you'll find yourself at the Roundtable Hold, a familiar location for Elden Ring fans. At the Roundtable Hold, you can interact with a variety of NPCs, but the main area you'll spend the majority of your time in is right in the center at the table itself. When you approach the central table, you'll get a prompt to "Commence Expedition," which you want to press.
When you choose to commence an expedition, the boss menu in Nightreign will appear on your screen. This lists all the current bosses you can hunt down in the game, providing a brief background on each one so you know what you're up against. Before you choose a boss, though, you want to tab over to the Matchmaking Settings by using the bumpers on your controller.
Starting an expedition with the first boss in Elden Ring Nightreign
On the Matchmaking Settings menu, you're able to invite members to your party, create a password for your friends to use and join your group, and even change your Expedition Type to switch between single-player and multiplayer.
First up, if you want to play solo in Elden Ring Nightreign, all you have to do is change the Expedition Type from the default "multiplayer" to "singleplayer." These are your only two options, so switching the type once will do the trick.
Once you have switched your Expedition Type, you can head into the boss menu, select your boss, and then commence a solo expedition. As a note, you'll default to the class that you currently have equipped in the Roundtable Hold, as you have no teammates to go through the class selection screen with.
Going through Nightreign in a party of one
Other than that, everything is the exact same as it is in the multiplayer expeditions. You can do the same things, fight the same enemies, and try to defeat all of the bosses to eventually reach the final boss. Of course, as a solo player, this is incredibly hard, and once you die a single time, you're dead for good since you can't be revived.
Now, let's get into playing Elden Ring Nightreign the way the developers intended. By default, your Expedition Type is set to multiplayer, so if you want to play with two random players, all you have to do is commence an expedition, pick your boss, and then the game will take care of the rest. You'll be automatically matched with two other real players, and then the character selection screen will appear.
The tutorial box for setting up team expeditions
Only one person can select any particular class, so if a player gets to your favorite class, you need to have a backup or two. Once the characters have been chosen, all three of you will drop onto a map together, and you can start playing from there. There's no limit to staying near your teammates, so feel free to do whatever you think is best. However, you'll eventually wind up with your teammates at the end of the day as the zone encroaches around the map.
On the flip side, if you want to play with your friends instead of random players, you can do that from the Matchmaking Settings menu as well. All you have to do is select the "Invite Members" option from the menu, which brings up a list of your online friends from your platform. If you invite players, they become members of your party, and you can all hop into an expedition when everyone has readied up. As a note, if some players haven't progressed to your point in the game, they'll still be able to play, but could experience content they haven't seen yet.
To bypass the inviting and joining process, you can also set a multiplayer password. This allows you to matchmake with players using the same password as you, which gives you the chance to play with people that you're not friends with on your platform. You can choose to set the number of players with the password who can join, with a maximum of three players, which fills out the entire party. If you select one or two players, then the remaining spots will be filled with random players.
Setting a multiplayer password for others to join off
Finally, you can also set up to five group passwords. These passwords are so you can more easily see bloodstains, phantoms, and victor records from others who are using the same password. Of course, setting up five passwords takes some coordination if you're planning to use them across a large friend group, so make sure all of your friends are using the exact passwords.
Now that you understand how multiplayer expeditions work, you might be wondering if you're able to party up with your friends or other players who are on a different system. Unfortunately, Elden Ring Nightreign does not support cross-play at launch, meaning that you can only matchmake with players who are on the same system as you.
However, there is one caveat to that rule. Nightreign does support cross-generation play, which means you can party up with friends and players who are using the same console brand as you. For example, if you're on Xbox Series X|S, a friend on Xbox One can still matchmake with you for an expedition. The same goes for players on PlayStation 4 and 5.
So, while the game doesn't offer full cross-play, there is a silver lining for those who have a friend group with some mismatched last-generation and current-generation consoles.
And that just about does it for all of the ways to set up an expedition in Elden Ring Nightreign.
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Below, we'll show you everything you need to know about how to start expeditions and how to set up both single-player and co-op multiplayer runs in Elden Ring Nightreign, as well as the lack of proper cross-play support.
How to start expeditions in Elden Ring Nightreign
First and foremost, let's go over how to actually get into expeditions once you're past the tutorial of the game that occurs within the first 10 or so minutes.
After the tutorial, you'll find yourself at the Roundtable Hold, a familiar location for Elden Ring fans. At the Roundtable Hold, you can interact with a variety of NPCs, but the main area you'll spend the majority of your time in is right in the center at the table itself. When you approach the central table, you'll get a prompt to "Commence Expedition," which you want to press.
When you choose to commence an expedition, the boss menu in Nightreign will appear on your screen. This lists all the current bosses you can hunt down in the game, providing a brief background on each one so you know what you're up against. Before you choose a boss, though, you want to tab over to the Matchmaking Settings by using the bumpers on your controller.
Starting an expedition with the first boss in Elden Ring Nightreign
On the Matchmaking Settings menu, you're able to invite members to your party, create a password for your friends to use and join your group, and even change your Expedition Type to switch between single-player and multiplayer.
How to play solo in Elden Ring Nightreign
First up, if you want to play solo in Elden Ring Nightreign, all you have to do is change the Expedition Type from the default "multiplayer" to "singleplayer." These are your only two options, so switching the type once will do the trick.
Once you have switched your Expedition Type, you can head into the boss menu, select your boss, and then commence a solo expedition. As a note, you'll default to the class that you currently have equipped in the Roundtable Hold, as you have no teammates to go through the class selection screen with.
Going through Nightreign in a party of one
Other than that, everything is the exact same as it is in the multiplayer expeditions. You can do the same things, fight the same enemies, and try to defeat all of the bosses to eventually reach the final boss. Of course, as a solo player, this is incredibly hard, and once you die a single time, you're dead for good since you can't be revived.
How to play multiplayer in Elden Ring Nightreign
Now, let's get into playing Elden Ring Nightreign the way the developers intended. By default, your Expedition Type is set to multiplayer, so if you want to play with two random players, all you have to do is commence an expedition, pick your boss, and then the game will take care of the rest. You'll be automatically matched with two other real players, and then the character selection screen will appear.
The tutorial box for setting up team expeditions
Only one person can select any particular class, so if a player gets to your favorite class, you need to have a backup or two. Once the characters have been chosen, all three of you will drop onto a map together, and you can start playing from there. There's no limit to staying near your teammates, so feel free to do whatever you think is best. However, you'll eventually wind up with your teammates at the end of the day as the zone encroaches around the map.
On the flip side, if you want to play with your friends instead of random players, you can do that from the Matchmaking Settings menu as well. All you have to do is select the "Invite Members" option from the menu, which brings up a list of your online friends from your platform. If you invite players, they become members of your party, and you can all hop into an expedition when everyone has readied up. As a note, if some players haven't progressed to your point in the game, they'll still be able to play, but could experience content they haven't seen yet.
To bypass the inviting and joining process, you can also set a multiplayer password. This allows you to matchmake with players using the same password as you, which gives you the chance to play with people that you're not friends with on your platform. You can choose to set the number of players with the password who can join, with a maximum of three players, which fills out the entire party. If you select one or two players, then the remaining spots will be filled with random players.
Setting a multiplayer password for others to join off
Finally, you can also set up to five group passwords. These passwords are so you can more easily see bloodstains, phantoms, and victor records from others who are using the same password. Of course, setting up five passwords takes some coordination if you're planning to use them across a large friend group, so make sure all of your friends are using the exact passwords.
Does Elden Ring Nightreign support cross-play?
Now that you understand how multiplayer expeditions work, you might be wondering if you're able to party up with your friends or other players who are on a different system. Unfortunately, Elden Ring Nightreign does not support cross-play at launch, meaning that you can only matchmake with players who are on the same system as you.
However, there is one caveat to that rule. Nightreign does support cross-generation play, which means you can party up with friends and players who are using the same console brand as you. For example, if you're on Xbox Series X|S, a friend on Xbox One can still matchmake with you for an expedition. The same goes for players on PlayStation 4 and 5.
So, while the game doesn't offer full cross-play, there is a silver lining for those who have a friend group with some mismatched last-generation and current-generation consoles.
And that just about does it for all of the ways to set up an expedition in Elden Ring Nightreign.
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