Nightreign’ Is Getting Its Missing Duos Patch Imminently

Elden Ring: Nightreign has done quite well since launch in terms of reception and playercount, but there has been constant confusion about one thing. Why on earth did FromSoft not make a duos mode for the game? It’s based around trios, and they did adapt some aspects to help solo players, but there is no dedicated duos mode.

Now, FromSoft has just announced that duos will be coming to Elden Ring: Nightreign with patch 1.02, courtesy of a new trailer they just posted on social media.

We also have a date for that patch, which is going to be July 30, 2025, dropping next Wednesday a little less than a week from now. FromSoft has also revealed that 1.02 will contain a number of quality of life updates for the game, which will include a lot more Relic filtering options for ease of use.

The duos situation was just very weird. In an interview with IGN, Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki addressed the issue:

“The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we’re very sorry about that. As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it’s at the core of Nightreign.”

“Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I’m just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start. And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well.”

They just…forgot? Well, that was back in late May and now here, two months later, it’s being added, so not a bad turnaround time. Making this mode is more than just hitting a button to allow teams of two without backfilling, they have to rebalance the game in order to make it more viable for smaller teams, similar to what they did with the (very challenging) solos. It stands to reason that duos will be harder than trios, even with changes made.

Since its release two months ago, Elden Ring: Nightreign is down from 300,000 concurrent launch players on Steam to 50,000, on average. That’s fine. Yes, this is a multiplayer game, but it’s a FromSoft side project that is not meant to be anything like a live service with constant new content added to keep players engaged. At most, players should expect small additions, but mostly patches like this focused on a few new features and QoL updates. This 1.02 patch should be a good one.

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