Info about ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN The Forsaken Hollows:

Official game description:
Delve deeper into the world of ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN with this expansion. The Forsaken Hollows DLC includes 2 additional Nightfarers, 2 Day Three Bosses, 1 new Shifting Earth, and more!  
ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN The Forsaken Hollows includes:  
\- 2 additional Nightfarers  
\- 2 Day Three Bosses  
\- Additional Shifting Earth  
\- And more!  
\*The Forsaken Hollows DLC is also included in the Deluxe Edition. Be careful of duplicate purchases.

Release date: Dec 3, 2025

Categories: Action RPG, Soulslike Combat, Open-World Exploration, Cooperative Multiplayer, Character Progression, Boss Fights, Environmental Puzzle


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Unique & Fun Playable Characters (weight 0.94): The two new playable characters, Undertaker and Scholar, are highly praised for their unique mechanics, fresh playstyles, and engaging designs. Undertaker excels with aggressive damage and ultimate spam, while Scholar offers strategic support through consumables and buffs, adding significant depth to gameplay.
- Excellent DLC Value & Content (weight 0.81): The DLC delivers a substantial amount of new, high-quality content, including characters, bosses, and maps, all at a very fair price of $15. Players consistently report excellent value, often stating it exceeded their expectations and provided a refreshing experience.
- Stunning & Vertical Map Design (weight 0.64): The new map, often referred to as "Shifting Earth" or "The Great Hollow," is widely praised for its gorgeous visuals, innovative verticality, and engaging, challenging design. It offers a fresh, expansive environment that deeply enhances exploration and makes the game feel new.
- Challenging & Masterful Boss Fights (weight 0.46): Players celebrate the new bosses, including main encounters like Dreglord, King of Rubble, and various Nightlords, for their fun, challenging, and often cinematic design. These fights are frequently described as intense, fair, and among the most memorable combat experiences in the game.
- Enhanced Core Game Experience (weight 0.2): The DLC significantly revitalizes the overall game experience, bringing back the excitement of launch and reaffirming the base game's quality. Players appreciate FromSoftware's commitment to high-quality, challenging design and continued support, enhancing the game's long-term appeal.

Common complaints:
- New Map is Frustrating to Navigate (weight 0.89): The new "Shifting Earth" map (also referred to as Great Hollow/Grand Cavern) is overwhelmingly criticized for its confusing verticality, numerous fall hazards, and difficult traversal. Players find it poorly designed, unintuitive, and tedious to navigate, especially under time pressure and with poor in-game map functionality.
- DLC Lacks Content Value (weight 0.86): The DLC is widely considered overpriced for the minimal content offered, with many players feeling it provides only a few hours of gameplay. This leads to significant disappointment, as it is perceived as rushed, insincere, and more akin to a small update than a full-priced expansion.
- Limited Boss & Enemy Variety (weight 0.63): The DLC introduces a limited number of new bosses and enemies, with many being reused from the base game or other FromSoftware titles. Players report repetitive boss encounters, particularly with recurring enemies and frustrating multi-enemy "gank fights" that feel unbalanced and unfair, especially for solo players.
- Missing New Weapons and Spells (weight 0.43): Players are severely disappointed by the almost complete absence of new weapons, spells, incantations, and Ashes of War. This is exacerbated by the perception that existing assets from Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC could have easily been integrated, leading to a lack of build variety and replayability.
- New Characters Underperform (weight 0.38): The newly added characters, particularly the "Scholar," are widely regarded as weak, clunky, and unrewarding to play, especially in solo mode. Their abilities are often ineffective, slow, and require excessive item management or specific relics to be even marginally useful, making them a liability rather than an asset.
- Restrictive Multiplayer Access (weight 0.09): The DLC implementation forces all party members to own the DLC to access new content, preventing friends who haven't purchased it from joining. This significantly fractures matchmaking and makes playing new areas with a consistent group difficult, which is seen as a regression from standard genre practices.
- Frustrating Invasion Events (weight 0.08): New invasion events featuring Caligo and Tricephalos are widely disliked for their disruptive mechanics. Caligo creates blinding fog and severe FPS drops, while Tricephalos forces players to waste time, inflicts map-wide damage-over-time, and spawns infinite adds, making these encounters tedious and unfair.
- Tedious Crystal Mechanic (weight 0.08): The new "crystal finding" mechanic is criticized as an old-fashioned, boring puzzle that wastes valuable in-game time. Players are forced to hunt for unmarked crystals across a confusing map to remove debuffs or access content, which feels unrewarding and poorly integrated with the game's time constraints.
- Critical Bugs & Performance Issues (weight 0.08): The game suffers from significant technical problems, including frequent crashes, white screen errors preventing launch, and severe performance drops. These issues often arise immediately after the DLC update, making the game unplayable or highly frustrating for many users.
- Poor Overall Design Philosophy (weight 0.08): Critics observe a fundamental flaw in the game's overall design, with an apparent prioritization of frustrating gimmicks and artificial difficulty over enjoyable gameplay. The level design is described as abysmal and intentionally designed to displease players, indicating a broader dissatisfaction with the creative direction.
- Disappointment in FromSoftware (weight 0.07): Many players express deep disappointment and a loss of faith in FromSoftware, perceiving the DLC as an unpolished, rushed, and embarrassing release that doesn't meet their usual high standards. This suggests a worrying direction for the developer, with some feeling ignored or treated poorly.

Gameplay feedback:
- Significant new characters and bosses (weight 0.19): The DLC introduces two new playable characters, the Scholar and the Undertaker, each offering distinct playstyles. It also adds several challenging new bosses, including powerful Nightlords and the notable boss Artorias, alongside new events like the Tricephalos wolf invasion, greatly expanding the game's roster.
- New map is complex and vertical (weight 0.16): The 'Shifting Earth' map is a significant new addition, characterized by its large size, multi-layered design, and high verticality. Players report that its unique layout and integral crystal-breaking mechanics make initial navigation challenging and confusing, requiring a steep learning curve.
- Scholar character offers unique support (weight 0.07): The new Scholar character is an Arcane-based item user, specializing in support through applying debuffs (e.g., rot, frostbite, poison, attack down) and buffs (e.g., stamina, damage negation). While offering a unique playstyle, many players find the Scholar difficult to master, requiring specific item-leveling strategies and party experimentation.
- DLC offers high difficulty challenge (weight 0.06): The DLC significantly increases the game's overall difficulty, presenting a substantial challenge compared to the base game. Players frequently compare its unforgiving nature and design philosophy to FromSoftware's Elden Ring DLCs, indicating it is explicitly for those seeking a tougher experience.
- Future updates to add SOTE weapons (weight 0.06): Players have expressed a strong desire for more weapons and Ashes of War. Developers have acknowledged this, stating that Shadow of the Erdtree-themed weapons and equipment are planned for implementation in future updates, with balancing considerations being a key factor before their release.

Performance notes:
- Unplayability, crashes, poor optimization (weight 0.05): Many players cannot load or play the game due to general bugs, crashes, and white screen issues, even after extensive troubleshooting. The overall game optimization is described as 'shockingly bad' and has worsened, leading to an unplayable experience for some regardless of PC specifications.
- Severe FPS drops from events (weight 0.05): Players report significant frame rate drops, often below 20 FPS, during various in-game events such as ice storms, frost dragons, and specific 'Fracture' occurrences. This makes gameplay feel like a 'powerpoint slide' and hinders the overall experience.
- Widespread server and network lag (weight 0.03): Players are experiencing high ping, severe lagging, and stuttering, indicating that the game's servers are struggling to cope and require repair. This issue has not improved and significantly hinders the online gameplay experience.
- Unfair crowd boss fight bug (weight 0.01): A critical bug in a new crowd boss fight makes it 'functionally impossible' as enemies float in the air after an attack, allowing them to hit players but making them untargetable. This creates a highly frustrating and broken gameplay encounter.
- vcruntime140.dll launch error (weight 0.01): A specific technical issue prevents players from launching the game due to the 'vcruntime140.dll' file being deemed 'untrustworthy'. This completely blocks access to the game for affected users.

Recommendations:
- Mixed DLC Value & Recommendation (weight 0.42): Player reception for the DLC is highly polarized. Many recommend it strongly for existing fans of the base game 'Nightreign' who seek more content or replayability. However, a significant portion feels it's overpriced for the content offered, should wait for a sale, or is not worth buying in its current state, especially for casual players or those who didn't love the base game.
- Demand for New Content (weight 0.08): Many players strongly desire future updates, especially requesting new weapons, spells, and character skins to enhance build variety. Some even state they would change their negative review to positive if these content additions were made, indicating their high importance for player satisfaction.
- Developer Reputation & Future (weight 0.07): Feedback touches upon the developer's (implied FromSoftware) reputation. Some players express disappointment leading to skepticism about future purchases, while others show continued support and hope for sustained updates and innovative future titles.
- Community Review Dynamics (weight 0.05): The community shows divided opinions on the review process itself. Some reviewers mention using negative reviews as an 'informational act' or express intent to refund, while others caution against 'review bombing' for unadvertised features, highlighting a polarized debate around player expectations versus actual content.
- Niche Audience & High Difficulty (weight 0.03): There's a consistent sentiment that the game or its DLC caters to a niche audience. It is often deemed unsuitable for casual players or those who prefer less challenging games, indicating it targets a hardcore or dedicated player base expecting significant skill demands.
- Specific Content & Map Feedback (weight 0.02): Players provided detailed feedback on new content, requesting better integration of new elements like monsters and bosses with existing maps, and suggesting improvements for the new map's traversal, such as more air currents or spirit hawks.
- Co-op Improves Experience (weight 0.02): The game's enjoyability varies significantly between solo and co-op play. Reviewers frequently advise against playing solo but highly recommend the experience when playing with friends, suggesting a strong multiplayer focus.
- Player Disengagement (weight 0.01): A noticeable segment of players has expressed significant dissatisfaction, leading to decisions to retire from the game or discontinue playing entirely. This indicates a failure to retain certain players due to unresolved issues or unmet expectations.

Other player notes:
- Missing SotE Content & Future Updates (weight 0.3): A prominent concern among players is the initial absence of Shadow of the Erdtree weapons, ashes of war, and other content in the DLC. While developers never promised these for launch, they have confirmed that such content is planned for future free updates, attributing delays to balancing challenges. There's a strong anticipation for these additions.
- DLC Content Scope & Quality (weight 0.2): Player reception of the DLC's content scope is mixed. Many found it to be a smaller offering than major expansions, which some attribute to limited development resources. While some reviews were positive (7.5-8/10), others expressed disappointment, particularly regarding the game's 'fake roguelike' aspects, and desire more substantial, potentially pricier future DLCs.
- Unfair Expectations & Review Bombing (weight 0.16): A significant portion of the player base believes that negative reviews are largely driven by 'review bombing' tactics and unfulfilled, often unadvertised, player expectations. These expectations primarily relate to the immediate inclusion of Shadow of the Erdtree content, which developers never promised. This suggests a disconnect between player hopes and official communications.
- Future Support & Game Improvements (weight 0.14): Players overwhelmingly desire continued developer support and updates for the game, expressing trust in FromSoftware to enhance the experience. There's an expectation that the game will become more fleshed out over time, with significant improvements and additional content drops leading to higher overall satisfaction. Many loyal players remain committed, ready to purchase future DLCs.
- Acceptable DLC Price (weight 0.13): The DLC's price point, typically around $15-$20, is generally considered acceptable by most players for the amount of content provided. While some reviews suggest a slightly lower price might have been ideal, many believe it offers fair value, especially when compared to the cost of cosmetics in other games, for a smaller content drop.
- New Map Navigation & Learning (weight 0.06): The new 'Great Hollow' map presents initial challenges regarding navigation and layout, with some players struggling to find routes without guidance. While some perceive this difficulty as a 'skill issue' akin to the base game, it highlights a learning curve. Many expect that familiarity over time will make the map more rewarding, though minor traversal fixes are hoped for.

Emotions:
- Disappointment (weight 0.28): Players frequently expressed disappointment over the perceived lack of new content, especially weapons, spells, and skins, and the overall quality of the DLC not meeting high expectations set by the base game or developer's reputation. This also extended to poor map design, frustrating traversal, and an unfavorable content-to-price ratio, leading to a feeling of unfulfilled potential and value.
- Frustration (weight 0.23): Frustration stemmed primarily from poor map design, characterized by difficult navigation, frequent fall deaths, confusing layouts, and time-sensitive mechanics. Unfair enemy encounters, unbalanced boss difficulty, and technical issues like frame drops or server instability also significantly contributed to player frustration.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.19): Satisfaction was driven by the high quality of new characters, engaging boss designs (such as Artorias and Dreglord), and the overall enjoyment of combat and exploration. Many players found good value for money, appreciating the new map mechanics, cinematic presentation, and the rewarding experience of overcoming challenges.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Players felt excitement from challenging new bosses, the thrill of exploring the new map and its unique features, and the introduction of new characters. The phenomenal music, new content, and the anticipation of future updates also contributed to a vibrant and engaging gameplay experience.
- Anger (weight 0.05): Anger was primarily directed at the perceived poor quality and design choices within the DLC, including frustrating game mechanics, intentional difficulty spikes, and technical issues like crashes or frame drops. The lack of new content for the price and the overall feeling of developer mismanagement or contempt for the player experience also provoked strong negative reactions.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Joy arose from the overall fun gameplay experience, particularly with new characters and engaging boss fights. Players also found joy in researching map strategies, discovering new Nightlords, and the general positive, thrilling atmosphere of the DLC.
- Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion often centered on the new map's design, particularly its labyrinthine layout and unusual mechanics like 'Shifting Earth' that felt unfitting for the game style. Players were also confused by the DLC's value proposition, lack of clear objectives, and the absence of expected content like achievements or more Souls-like bosses.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Hope was primarily tied to the expectation of future updates that would add missing content, especially new weapons, spells, and skins, and address existing bugs or balance issues. Players desired continued developer support and expressed optimism for the game's long-term potential and future DLCs.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance was caused by specific irritating game mechanics such as constant invasions, low key drop rates, and forced map traversal. Some players also expressed annoyance with other reviewers' complaints about unadvertised content or unpromised features.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.01): Enjoyment was derived from challenging content, playing with friends, and experiencing new characters and Nightlords. The new Shifting Earth map, engaging boss fights, and overall fresh feeling of the DLC contributed to a positive gameplay experience for many.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom resulted from repetitive boss encounters, uninteresting new characters, and perceived linear or tedious map design that lacked variety. The absence of fresh content and a sense of repetition after initial learning phases also led to players quickly losing interest.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Players expressed anticipation for future DLCs and updates, with a strong desire for the addition of new weapons, magic, and specific items from other titles like Shadow of the Erdtree. This looked forward to continued content support and expansion of the game's arsenal.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Relief often followed the DLC meeting minimal expectations, despite existing controversies, or a specific bug being fixed (like fall damage). Some players also felt relief in understanding complex new mechanics or not encountering recycled content as new players.
- Appreciation (weight 0.01): Appreciation was directed towards the developers for their continued support, the amazing music, and the high quality of the new Nightfarers and specific boss designs. The visual design of the new map and characters also garnered significant positive feedback.
- Desire (weight 0): Players explicitly desired more substantial content, particularly the addition of Shadow of the Erdtree weapons, Ashes of War, new skins, and more maps. There was a strong wish for character reworks and a more calm exploration experience.
- Amusement (weight 0): Amusement was found in humorous initial reasons for playing, specific in-game details (like 'undertaker's butt'), or finding humor in chaotic and challenging experiences. Some players also found amusement in other players' exaggerated negative reviews or reactions to new enemies.
- Surprise (weight 0): Players were surprised by the substantial size of the new calamity field, the unexpected inclusion of bosses from other Dark Souls titles, and the overall high quality or unexpected volume of content in the DLC. Discovering new buffs also added to this positive surprise.
- Challenge (weight 0): Challenge was embraced by players who enjoyed the difficulty of the new calamity and enemies, including bosses like Dreglord, and the constant threat of death on new maps. This difficulty was often seen as a core, fun aspect of the game experience.
- Sadness (weight 0): Sadness arose from the perceived lack of new weapons, spells, or items in the DLC, which led to a feeling of wasted potential for what was considered a 'cool game.' The overall poor quality or insufficient content also contributed to this emotional state.
- Regret (weight 0): Regret was expressed by players who felt remorse over purchasing the DLC, particularly pre-ordering the deluxe edition, due to the content not living up to expectations. This led to a feeling of wasted money and unfulfilled potential.}