One of the most important aspects ofElden Ring Nightreignis communicating and coordinating with your party to synergize attacks, strategize in the moment, and get everyone on the same page about which locations should be a priority. Unfortunately, the ability to openly communicate with other players is extremely limited inNightreign. Unless you are playing with a party of friends and using external voice channels, there’s no dedicated chat feature in the game to allow you to speak with other players.
The lack of a functional in-game chat feature is a massive omission fromNightreign, and it cuts against the core of what the game seems to encourage its players to do. The entire design behindNightreignis built around multiplayercooperative gameplay, yet the ability to “cooperate” with random players online is largely limited placing pins on the map and hoping for the best. This is just one of a handful of big problems that are currently plaguingNightreign, though it seems like FromSoftware is listening to player feedback androlling out updatesto address its biggest issues.
Elden Ring Nightreign Desperately Needs A Chat Function
You Can’t Speak With The Random People You Match Up With, & It’s Very Limiting
Cooperation between party members and open communication is a core aspect of multiplayer games likeElden Ring Nightreign,and the idea that was at the heart of its design philosophy.Teamwork is essential to success, andNightreignis fundamentallystructured around Nightfarerswith different synergies that can be utilized to great effect. However,Nightreignmakes it hard to take advantage of these synergies unless you are playing with people you know and are using an external chat.
“It’s simply not enough for a game where communication is imperative to success.”
Without a chat feature, players are consigned to relying on map pins, which do nothing other thanindicate the location you intend to head to next.While you can place multiple pins and “agree” on destinations, that’s about the extent of the built-in ability to communicate. It’s simply not enough for a game where communication is imperative to success. If the lack of voice chat was an intentional decision, it’s an unnecessary (and strange) obstacle that makes the game harder and less fun.
No Chat Feature Makes Communication Too Difficult In Nightreign
Coordinating Ultimate Attacks Is A Chore Without Voice
There are a handful of big problems with not having the ability to speak with your party. The first has to deal with Ultimate Art attack coordination, arguably one of the most effective ways to deal with tough bosses.There are so many different ways to synergize these various Ult Artsbetween three different Nightfarers, yet they often go unutilized when playing with random people because there’s no easy way to know when your partners have a full gauge or when exactly they will pull the trigger on an attack.
Another major problem with the lack of a voice chat feature is that pins only tell you the general location a player is heading to, but where they go within that location becomes a guessing game, especially in “vertical” areas such as castles, deep crevices, and the icy mountaintops once you reach the mid-game. Trying to track down a player who has fallen in the middle of a castle is a nightmare, andit’s something a few spoken words could fix. Pins are a great tool, but they definitely shouldn’t be the only tool for players to communicate.
While there are risks to including a chat feature, such as people abusing it by harassing other players, the benefits far outweigh these possible downsides. Voice chat functionality isn’t a novel concept, and it’s been part of multiplayer experiences since time immemorial. WhyElden Ring Nightreigndecided to exclude this basic feature in a game that is expressly about communication is a mystery, but I’m very hopeful that we see an update in the coming weeks that addresses this problem.
