Elden Ring Nightreign gets off to a strong start on Steam despite mixed user reviews
A peak of more than 300,000 players has been reached on Steam already
Elden Ring Nightreign has enjoyed a solid launch on Steam despite mixed reviews from players.
According to SteamDB, the game reached a peak of 313,593 concurrent users on Steam an hour after its release, which was a 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm BST on Thursday.
That number has continued to gradually drop since then, but is expected to rise again, potentially surpassing 313,593, during the weekend.
The day one peak makes it FromSoftware‘s second highest maximum peak for a game, behind the 953,426 peak achieved by Elden Ring itself.
All other FromSoftware games failed to gain as many concurrents as Nightreign, including Dark Souls III (which reached a maximum peak of 129,975), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (125,315) and Armored Core 6 (156,171).
One of the contributing factors to Nightreign’s high concurrent count may be the game’s focus on co-operative play. While the game can be played solo it’s mainly designed for three-player co-op, meaning most game sessions will account for three concurrent players.
Despite its strong start, Elden Ring Nightreign‘s Steam reviews currently sit at ‘Mixed’. At the time of writing, 10,401 user reviews have been submitted, of which 3,456 have been negative, meaning it sits at a positive score of around 66%.
Numerous negative reviews criticise the fact that two-player co-op isn’t an option in the game (only solo or three-player), with some saying the experience is greatly lessened if players don’t have two partners and voice chat enabled.
Others criticise the lack of depth compared to other FromSoftware titles (given its roguelike structure) and performance issues on high-spec graphics cards, something FromSoftware has acknowledged.
In the game’s recent patch notes released on Thursday, FromSoftware noted: “We have confirmed that some PC configurations using the latest graphics cards may experience frame rate drops. We are currently investigating the cause.
“In the meantime, If you experience significant frame rate drops, you may be able to resolve it by setting the graphics settings from the default High to Medium or Low and lowering the screen resolution, as well as installing the latest drivers for your graphics card.”
VGC’s Elden Ring Nightreign review called it “a clumsy multiplayer sideshow to the generation’s best RPG,” saying: “While its rougelike elements may entertain, a lack of variety and uneven combat system ultimately make for a curious sideshow that doesn’t come close to the series that shares its name.”
