Elden Ring Nightreign director says FromSoft will be fine-tuning game balance right up until launch: 'We really try to tweak things until the last minute'

We're just two days away from the launch of Elden Ring Nightreign. FromSoft sickos around the world might be eagerly awaiting their chance to wade into a new style of soulslike punishment, but it sounds like the studio itself will be busy polishing the experimental spinoff until the last possible moment.

In an interview with GamesRadar, Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki said he's both "very excited" and "a little nervous" as the launch date approaches. Considering he's about to release an unconventional rework of one of the most beloved games in the last decade, I'm surprised he's only "a little" anxious, but it explains why Ishizaki said the Nightreign team is "continually tweaking and balancing" things as the clock ticks down.

"We really try to tweak things until the last minute," Ishizaki said. "We're busy fine-tuning, getting the most out of any single session. We want players to feel happy and comfortable in each session, so we're really trying to get that player comfort and that play feel just really fine-tuned until the very end."

Balance and player comfort is already a tricky enough proposition for punishing games like Elden Ring, but it's not surprising that Nightreign might demand an even more delicate hand. If you find yourself banging your head against a troublesome boss in a traditional FromSoft Soulslike, you can always grind out a few levels. And if you fail your next attempt, all you lose is the time it takes to walk back to the boss room.

In Nightreign, however, those failures have higher stakes. If your squad wipes during a boss fight, that's your entire run tanked—along with any cool build you might've assembled along the way. With that kind of all-or-nothing structure, potential frustrations like the battle royale-style circle and unlucky drops could make for a lot of misery.

It's reassuring, then, that the studio is conscious of how narrow its error margins are. According to Ishizaki, that attention is paying off, because he's "still finding it very fun to this day."