FromSoftware has dropped a meaningful round of updates for Nightreign, and they land where players really feel them: build balance, boss tuning, world rules, and stability. This feature breaks down Version 1.02.2 and the recent lead-up patches in clean, player-first language. You will find what changed, how it impacts common builds, and smart tests to run on your next session. Within the first few minutes in-game, you will feel why these Elden Ring Nightreign patch notes matter.
The latest update is App Ver. 1.02.2 / Regulation Ver 1.02.2 for PlayStation 4 / PlayStation 5 / Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S / Steam. We also touch on App Ver. 1.02.1 / Regulation Ver. 1.02.1 and the initial App Ver. 1.01 / RegulationVer. 1.01.1 where relevant, along with the official Deep of Night mode announcement and timing.
Headline Additions At A Glance From The Elden Ring Nightreign Patch Notes
Let’s start with the changes you will notice in your first hour post-patch. These are the big wins and pain points worth circling.
- Nightfarers adjustments: Across Wylder, Guardian, Duchess, Raider, Revenant, and Executor, core stats, poise windows, weapon reach, and Ultimate Art interactions were tuned for flow and fairness.
- Weapons and passives: Dual-wield jump attack staggering rebalanced by weapon size; Eclipse Shotel’s Death Flare gets a stronger death build angle; stacking caps set on Power of Vengeance and Power of House Marais.
- Relic effects: Multiple relics buffed or normalized, including stronger continuous HP recovery, improved FP/HP on hit effects, and changes to how Wylder’s fire follow-ups consume stamina.
- Boss and encounter tweaks: Everdark Sovereign encounters adjusted, with specific changes to condemned Nightfarers, stagger reactions, and ranged behavior; Red Wolf of the King Consort now staggers to strong hits and Ultimate Arts.
- Deep of Night mode: A high-difficulty Expedition mode with stronger enemies, new depth-rated rewards, and matchmaking rules tied to rating and depth begins on a fixed schedule.
- Penalties and sessions: Disconnect penalties clarified; rejoining your previous session can remove the penalty.
- Stability and platform fixes: PC target switching, general stability, and a PS5 HUD/UI crash fix in the earlier 1.02.1 round-up.
New Content And Features In The Elden Ring Nightreign Patch Notes
There is a fresh lane for seasoned players to explore, plus some foundational setup that improves day-to-day runs.
- Deep of Night mode: A new high-difficulty Expedition mode for 1–3 players online with rating, depth scaling, and unique reward types including Depths Relics and weapons with multiple effects balanced by drawbacks. You cannot specify the Nightlord target, and elemental terrain shifts do not telegraph ahead of time. Matchmaking aims to pair similar depth levels, and penalties apply for disconnecting or quitting mid-session if you do not rejoin.
- Version 1.01 launch items: The first update introduced gameplay handling improvements, soundtrack additions, text corrections, balance adjustments, added character scenarios, and bug fixes. While those are now baseline, they set the tone for Nightreign’s ongoing cadence.
If you have cleared key milestones and want a sharper nightly challenge with a defined ladder to climb, Deep of Night hits that sweet spot.
Balance And Tuning Overview In The Elden Ring Nightreign Patch Notes
The intent of this cycle is consistent: clean up edge cases, let each Nightfarer hit their fantasy, and clamp down on runaway stacking while preserving expressive builds. Below is a practical guide to what changed and why it matters.
Weapons And Ashes Of War
- Dual-wield jump attacks: Stagger damage increased for some small and medium weapons; decreased for some large weapons. This nudges daggers, straight swords, and comparable mids into more reliable stagger without letting ultras bully every trade.
- Eclipse Shotel: Death Flare’s death status potency increased. Death builds get a clearer path to pressure, especially when paired with crowd control or posture breaks.
- Guard burst interactions: Explosions from the passive that triggers holy bursts on guard counters no longer reset posture breaks. That preserves reward for clean posture play.
In fights with multiple adds, the dual-wield jump attack tuning makes midweight options feel more consistent while preserving distinct roles for heavies.
Spells And Incantations
- Rykard’s Rancor: Visibility adjusted for better readability. This is a clarity pass that improves both offense timing and dodge responses.
- Magic Cocktail (Recluse): Offensive spells draw more power, and casting time is reduced. Recluse loadouts feel snappier and more decisive.
Clearer visuals and shorter cast windows make these tools easier to weave into mixed melee-caster lines.
Talismans And Status Effects
- Power of Vengeance / Power of House Marais: Cumulative effects now capped with potency adjusted. Expect fewer outlier damage spikes from extreme stacking loops, while the identity of these passives remains intact.
- Death status and frostbite notes: Death Flare’s potency is up; earlier fixes resolved overperforming frostbite from certain passives. Status play stays dangerous but less abusable.
This keeps status builds viable without letting passive stacks overrun encounter design.
Spirit Ashes And Summons
- Revenant’s spirits: Transparency adjusted; players can now pass through spirits Helen and Frederick. That removes frustrating body blocks in tight arenas and hallways.
- Summon revival: A fix ensures spirits revive as intended if their HP was depleted. This stabilizes summon uptime.
Summon-friendly builds get a smoother experience, with less positional grief mid-fight.
PvP-Only Changes
The notes emphasize a broader multiplayer integrity pass rather than standalone PvP scalars. The key live-service change is enforcement around disconnections:
- Session penalties: Disconnecting due to network issues or quitting mid-session results in penalties that may limit multiplayer. Rejoining the same session will remove the disconnection penalty.
This creates a cleaner ladder and fairer session logs for both co-op and competitive invasions.
Boss, Enemy, And Encounter Adjustments In The Elden Ring Nightreign Patch Notes
FromSoftware focused on readability, response options, and fairness in big encounters.
- Everdark Sovereign Sentient Pest: Higher attack and stamina attack power against guarding Nightfarers while possessed by Animus, Ascendant Light; adjusted attack actions for Ascendant Light, Gnoster, Wisdom of Night, and Faurtis Stoneshield; reduced stagger duration when hit by some Ascendant Light attacks. Guard-heavy play now demands cleaner counters.
- Everdark Sovereign Equilibrious Beast: Effects on summoned condemned Nightfarers can be dispelled by Law of Regression; defeated condemned drop more impactful light; several nerfs to condemned Guardian attack power and defenses; death status resistance reduced; ranged reactions improved; targeting priorities tuned. The fight becomes more dynamic and legible with stronger counterplay.
- Everdark Sovereign Darkdrift Knight: Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow, has higher HP and stamina attack power versus guarding Nightfarers, and some attacks received power increases. That pushes block-focused builds to reposition more.
- Other enemies and arenas: Added a stagger reaction when strong attacks, such as Ultimate Arts, hit the Red Wolf of the King Consort boss; Marionette Soldiers’ hit consistency improved.
These collectively make posture play, Law of Regression, and smart ranged pressure more rewarding, while blunting frustration from unpredictable collision or unreadable chains.
World And Quest Updates
Two global adjustments steer how the wider game flows as you push deeper into the night.
- Limveld: Night’s Tide damage increases after defeating the second night boss, and Sentient Pest incursion spawns were repositioned to appear closer to the player more reliably. The pacing picks up and side threats arrive where you can engage them.
- Menu clarity: The Holy attribute icon was redesigned for faster recognition in menus.
They are small in isolation, but they smooth out exploration rhythm and loadout planning.
Performance, Camera, And Controls In The Elden Ring Nightreign Patch Notes
Stability got another lift across platforms, with a pair of fixes that will immediately stand out to frequent players.
- PC target switching: A long-standing camera and input quirk was resolved, making diagonal target switches behave correctly.
- General stability: The patch includes environment-specific stability improvements and lowers render load for some Everdark Sovereign Tricephalos attacks on last-gen consoles.
- PS5 UI/HUD: In the 1.02.1 pass, an issue that could cause the HUD to disappear and terminate the game was fixed.
Better input fidelity in hectic fights and reduced spikes in boss arenas help keep runs consistent.
UI And Quality Of Life
A steady round of small wins adds up to smoother sessions.
- Penalty clarity: The session disconnection penalty now clearly explains that rejoining the same session removes the penalty applied at disconnect.
- Inventory and relic handling: Previous inconsistencies in relic display counts, filter behavior, and sort functions were corrected. You see what you actually have, sorted how you want it.
- Iconography: The Holy attribute icon refresh is a small but welcome legibility bump in fast setup changes.
The fewer seconds you spend fighting menus, the more time you spend solving fights.
Bug Fixes Worth Calling Out
There is a long sweep of fixes; these are standouts you will actually feel.
- Post-attack input and pre-inputs: Fixes for Wylder right-hand Greatsword delays after left-hand spell casts; Duchess backstep pre-inputs now work; Executor’s Cursed Sword now accepts pre-inputs after deflects.
- Summons and spirits: Revenant spirit revival and visual layering corrected; tombstone clipping addressed when Totem Stella is used.
- Skills and passives: Storm Ruler exploit closed; Improved Charged Sorceries now applies to Shattering Crystal; guard-triggered effects activate reliably; walking-triggered passives now work while precision-aiming bows and crossbows.
- Status and edge cases: Frostbite could erroneously hit players during Ultimate Arts; False Blessing hooks and level-down edge cases in Equilibrious Beast were corrected; Spectral Hawk movement exploit fixed.
- Networking and drops: Dormant Power drop visibility under unstable networks improved; Wending Grace no longer re-activates when rejoining after a disconnect.
These changes sand off the sharp edges in both high-level play and casual co-op runs.
Platform-Specific Notes
Keep these labeled items in mind if you play on a specific platform family.
PC Only Adjustments
- Switching targets with a diagonal input now behaves correctly.
- Stability improved in some environments.
Only for PS5 Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the UI, including the HUD, would disappear and the game might unexpectedly terminate if play were continued.
How This Patch Changes Your Build
You do not need to respec from scratch, but several classes and build routes open up or tighten down.
- Wylder: Casting Claw Shot now carries more poise, and it hits blocks harder. Lean into a pressure game that forces stamina breaks, with relics that reward sustained aggression. Wylder fire follow-ups now consume stamina when you trigger them via the greatsword Character Skill, so plan around endurance.
- Guardian: Stronger Strength and Dexterity on level-ups plus a wider Wings of Salvation hit window and better halberd guard counters cement a bruiser identity. Guard counters into chase-downs make sense again.
- Duchess: Daggers got selective power bumps, but a two-handed second heavy took a damage decrease. Keep your burst in charged windows and weave Finale’s longer duration into mobility traps.
- Raider: Greataxe and Great Hammer staggering is up, and Retaliation reaches farther. Use that room to own corners and punish greedy rolls.
- Executor: Cursed Sword damage increases across standard use and its weapon skill when unleashed. Aspects of the Crucible: Beast buffs some lines too. The kit now supports an assertive parry-into-execution rhythm with clear payoffs.
- Death builds: Eclipse Shotel’s Death Flare getting stronger makes hybrid posture-and-status lines very attractive, especially when paired with relics that juice on-hit FP/HP returns.
Across the board, stacking caps on Power of Vengeance and Power of House Marais reduce extreme outliers but keep the fantasy alive.
Best Things To Test Today
If you have an hour, here are focused experiments that reveal the patch’s intent.
- Dual-wield jump tests: In a mid-size mob arena, compare stagger consistency on small/medium pairs versus ultras. Feel the difference in route safety.
- Guardian halberd counters: Practice guard counter timings into Wings of Salvation in a boss arena with clear punish windows. The flow feels cleaner.
- Executor parry loop: Build around Cursed Sword’s unleashed weapon skill. Test posture break into weapon skill burst on elites.
- Death Flare pressure: Use Eclipse Shotel against targets with manageable death resistance, then chain with Ultimate Arts to force mistakes.
- Law of Regression tech: Take it into Equilibrious Beast and clear condemned Nightfarers’ buffs to control the pace.
- Red Wolf stagger: Tag the boss with Ultimate Arts or strong hits to confirm the new stagger reaction and set up safe punish cycles.
- Deep of Night warm-up: Start at depth 1 with a flexible loadout, try a hover between melee and status lines, and feel how rating shifts with wins and losses.
How To Update And Check Your Version
On all consoles, download the latest update, launch, and from the title screen select LOGIN to pull the latest Regulation files. The lower-right corner of the title screen lists the current versions. You should see App Ver. 1.02.2 and Regulation Ver 1.02.2. If the Regulation Ver. does not match, select LOGIN again to apply the current regulation.
On PC via Steam, update the game and confirm the same version labels on the title screen. If you encounter startup or file issues, you can verify integrity by going to Library, right-clicking Elden Ring Nightreign, selecting Properties, then Installed Files, and running Verify Integrity of Game Files. After any update, restart the game to apply changes.
Known Issues
A few items are called out in the official notes.
- Equilibrious Beast condemned rendering: Under specific conditions, condemned Nightfarers summoned in this fight may not render. The team notes this will be addressed in a future update.
- Healing distribution note from a prior patch: A bug affecting allies with the passive Gradual Restoration by Flask was identified earlier and flagged for a future fix.
If you see unexpected behavior in these areas, note your conditions and keep an eye on the next update.
Patch Timeline And Notes Archive
Here is a quick official timeline you can use to track changes:
- App Ver. 1.01 / RegulationVer. 1.01.1 (May 29, 2025): Initial patch with handling improvements, added character scenarios, balance adjustments, and fixes.
- App Ver. 1.02 (July 31, 2025): Broad gameplay and balance pass, forming the foundation for the 1.02.x series.
- App Ver. 1.02.1 / Regulation Ver. 1.02.1 (August 12, 2025): Storm Ruler improvements; numerous bug fixes; a PS5-specific HUD/UI crash fix.
- Deep of Night announcement (September 10–11, 2025): High-difficulty Expedition mode details, start time, and rules.
- App Ver. 1.02.2 / Regulation Ver 1.02.2 (September 10, 2025): Nightfarers balance, weapons/passives tuning, relic changes, Everdark Sovereign adjustments, disconnection penalties clarified, and stability fixes.
With these labeled milestones, you can tie your build changes to the patch that made them possible.
Conclusion
This is a crisp, consequential patch window. The Elden Ring Nightreign patch notes sharpen class identities, smooth out problem encounters, and raise the ceiling for expressive builds while sanding down exploit paths. If you favor Wylder pressure, Guardian counters, or an Executor execution loop, you have new lines to chase. If you are ready for a stern test, Deep of Night sets a clear stage with fair rules and real stakes.
Whether you are starting a fresh run or pushing late-game grinds, these changes make Nightreign more readable, more reliable, and more rewarding to master. Keep the Elden Ring Nightreign patch notes handy, test the standout interactions above, and watch for the next round of balance and fixes to keep your build humming.
