Nuclearpasta

with the release of elden ring: nightreign, the elden ring lore-junkie fanbase was faced with a somewhat vexing situation: how do we know if this game is “canon”? the greatest minds of reddit (lol) were forced to argue for and against the inclusion of the game’s contents into the known understanding of elden ring’s “lore” with the deadly serious gravitas of biblical scholarship. this may seem strange to outside observers who have better things to do than argue about the plot of a video game designed to drive you clinically insane. but for some people, arguing is a hobby. and so here i am.

many, including myself at first, were reluctant to take a rogue-like side game without direct oversight from fromsoft director hidetaka miyazaki seriously. the game drags in bosses from the dark souls catalog for variety’s sake, so on a gameplay mechanic level, the concern for canon was chucked out the window from the get-go in favor of making the game more fun (unquestionably the more important variable to focus on). i had assumed nightreign was going to be a nice little junk food snack compared to the massive mythology of elden ring and in many ways it is; there are little nods to the fan base hidden here and there, including one seemingly deliberately provocative lore drop for dark souls for no reason other than to kick a hornet’s nest1 (and its pretty funny in my opinion). but it also has something i wasn’t expecting at all: answers to questions no one was really asking but me.

i’ve been thinking about what nightreign has to offer when it comes to the story of elden ring. i am going to attempt to explore the idea of “the night” using the information present in nightreign and in elden ring, starting with a very quick overview of the events of nightreign and why it could, arguably, be “canon”.

(read a hell of a lot more here)