Nightreign:Deep of Night
The Deep of Night is a game mode added to ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN in v1.02.2 on September 11, 2025. It is a harder difficulty version for players that have mastered regular expeditions and seek a higher challenge, and is made available after the player as defeated the Night Aspect.
Differences
When selecting the Deep of Night, the player has no control over which Nightlord they face until they reach the character selection screen. Any active Shifting Earth events will not be revealed until the expedition begins.
Enemy health and damage across the board is increased, and on occasion, red-tinted enemies can appear, which are even harder to defeat. Location and field mini-bosses can also be red-tinted, making them significantly more challenging. However, should the players defeat them, red enemies are guaranteed to drop a random weapon, and red mini-boss rewards are guaranteed to contain a red "unique" tier armament, which requires the player to be level 7 or higher to use effectively and is slightly stronger than its normal rare equivalent.
Equipment obtained from any source during the expedition can sometimes contain three passive abilities - two positive, one negative. Unique-tier equipment is guaranteed to contain two positive and one negative passive ability, with one of the positive abilities drawing from a set of possibilities exclusive to unique equipment.
Completing (regardless of victory or defeat) Deep of Night expeditions yield Deep Relics, which can contain abilities that do not appear on normal relics. Some Relics can contain stronger versions of existing Relic abilities, but offset this with a negative effect. Additionally, after the player completes their first Deep of Night expedition, each vessel will reveal three more relic slots that only accommodate Deep Relics. Deep Relics will only take effect on Deep of Night expeditions, and do nothing during normal gameplay.
Should the players happen to be facing Everdark Sovereigns during a Deep of Night expedition, they also receive Sovereign Sigils in addition to the usual rewards. If the player defeats a specific Everdark Sovereign for the first time during Deep of Night, they also receive the first-defeat reward of 25 Sigils. Defeating an Everdark in higher difficulties also yields greater amounts of Sigils than normal.
Ranking
Each player has a Rating score starting from 0, gaining points for a completed expedition and losing points on defeat. As they reach different score thresholds, their Depth increases, starting at Depth 1 and maxing out at Depth 5. Higher Depth presents more challenging expeditions but also greater rewards. The game attempts to match the player with others of equal Depth, though players of different Ranking can still group up and play together. If the player prefers to play at a lower difficulty, they can manually reduce their Depth, undoing all their progress in their current rank and going back to the midpoint of the previous one.
- 0-999: Depth 1
- 1000-1999: Depth 2
- 2000-3999: Depth 3
- 4000-5999: Depth 4
- 6000+: Depth 5
If the player loses enough points from multiple defeats, they can drop down one Depth rank, but cannot de-rank from Depth 2 to Depth 1. At Depth 3 or higher, if the player would lose enough points to lose a rank, they are instead temporarily kept at the minimum point threshold for their current Depth, ignoring all excess point losses. This happens only once at Depth 3 but up to twice at Depth 4 or higher (after which a subsequent large enough point loss will cause a loss of rank as per normal) but resets once the player de-ranks and climbs back to where they fell from.
At Depth 2 or greater, the team may be pitted against the Everdark Sovereign version of the Nightlord. This detail will not be revealed until the team enters the boss arena.
At Depth 3 or greater, points of interest on the map may be concealed, or the target Nightlord may be obscured until the final day.
Score Breakdown
- Score gain on victory:
- 200 points per victory
- +50 if the player is playing on a Depth one rank higher than theirs. -50 if the Depth is one rank lower than theirs.
- +100 if the map's points of interest are concealed
- +100 if the Nightlord is concealed until the final day.
- Score loss on defeat:
- If the player's own Depth Rank is 1, they lose no points on defeat at all. Ignore all other modifiers.
- -0 at Depth 2, -200 at Depth 3, -400 at Depth 4, -600 at Depth 5.
- Additionally, -200 if defeated on Day 1, -100 on Day 2, -0 against the Nightlord.
- Additionally, 50 fewer points lost if the player is playing on a Depth one rank higher than theirs. 50 more lost if the Depth is one rank lower than theirs.
- Disconnection penalties:
- Leaving the session and never reconnecting will impose a penalty as if you were defeated normally.
- Leaving but reconnecting will not issue an immediate deduction, but the penalties will be included in your next expedition.
- If any teammate has disconnected, points lost on defeat or disconnection is halved. However, no change to points awarded if the expedition is successful.
