FromSoftware confirms Elden Ring: Nightreign won't have a beloved community feature

Elden Ring: Nightreign, which was surprise unveiled during The Game Awards 2024, will be extremely different than any other Soulsborne, or FromSoftware title.

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For those that don't know, Nightreign will be strictly focussing on co-op gaming experience, as players won't be able to kill each other, there won't be any summons either for assistance with bosses, no invasions, and now recently confirmed by IGN Japan, no player messages. According to Nightreign's director Junya Ishizaki, players will still be able to see the ghosts of other players, but the ability to leave messages on the floor for other players to find has been removed from Nightreign.

But why? According to the game director the ability to leave Soapstone messages was removed due to the developers believing players won't have enough time to both read and write messages. Ishizaki states that each session will be approximately 40 minutes in length, and that given the nature of the session, players won't need to leave messages or read messages from other players. Soapstone messages are easily one of the biggest community aspects of Soulsborne games, as it gives players ways to assist other players with hints, informative messages, and, of course, trolls.

"You can still see the ghosts of other players," Ishizaki said, via Google Translate, "but the ability to leave messages has been removed. The reason we removed the message feature is that in this game, where each session is about 40 minutes long, there is no time to write your own message, and no time to read messages written by others."

Being Soulsborne fan, I find it quite disappointing to see messages be removed from Nightreign, a game based on playing with the community. But, perhaps FromSoftware is right in its assertion that they are simply necessary for this game. However, it will still feel strange being in a FromSoftware game and not seeing any glowing white messages on the ground that provide clues, hints, and my personal favorite - useless information.