Two Nightreign pieces already sit on this site: the co-op reward ladder covers which Nightlord unlocks which Relic, and the Relic and role guide covers who plays what. Neither covers Deep of Night, which shipped on 11 September 2025, and neither names, dates or prices the paid expansion. This piece is the state of the game: what shipped, in what order, what each balance pass did to a run, and which route fits the live build.
What this covers: Nightreign after The Forsaken Hollows — the expansion’s contents and unlock gates, the two Nightfarers it adds, both Day Three bosses, Deep of Night, and the patch timeline through 1.03.5. Why it matters: the last balance patch landed in January 2026 and the last hotfix in March 2026, so most route advice circulating describes a different build. Who should care: returning players weighing the expansion, Deep of Night climbers who need a route that survives today’s tuning, and anyone whose Relic plan was built around bow stacking.
The exact version this describes
Everything below assumes the live retail build on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One — no beta or preview branch, because the patch notes name none. That build reports itself as App Ver. 1.03.2 / Regulation Ver. 1.03.5, which is what Bandai Namco’s 31 March 2026 hotfix page says the title screen should read.
The newest balance pass is therefore 1.03.2, dated 15 January 2026 on Bandai Namco’s site and posted to Steam on 16 January; everything since has been fixes. The newest patch note on the game’s feed when this was checked was that 31 March 2026 hotfix, so there is no announced content drop to wait for.
| Version | Date | What it changed in an actual run |
|---|---|---|
| 1.02 | 31 July 2025 | Added two-player Expeditions and renamed the setting to “Number of Players”; balance now scales to party size |
| 1.02.2 | 10 September 2025 | Shipped alongside Deep of Night; buffed most Nightfarers, raised Night’s Tide damage after the second night boss, adjusted disconnect penalties |
| 1.03 | 3 December 2025 | DLC support; broadened low-HP trigger conditions; buffed attack-type passives (dash, rolling, jump, charge, guard counter, chain finisher, two-handing, dual-wield) |
| 1.03.1 | 17 December 2025 | DLC targets, landmarks, raid events and Shifting Earth enabled in Deep of Night when the whole party owns the DLC |
| 1.03.2 | 15 January 2026 | Guardian, Raider, Executor and Revenant buffed; bow Relic effects reduced to correct a 1.03 bug; raid and field tuning |
| 1.03.5 | 31 March 2026 | Performance fix only: repeated use of specific actions in a multiplayer Expedition no longer degrades the session |
The trend beat behind this piece belongs next to that table. A live query against Steam’s public player-count endpoint returned 22,345 concurrent players for ELDEN RING and 8,532 for NIGHTREIGN when this was checked. Those are snapshots, not averages, and they move hour to hour — but the ratio is roughly 2.6 to 1, so the audience for Nightreign advice is a separate, smaller group.
What The Forsaken Hollows actually contains
The expansion is ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN The Forsaken Hollows, the only paid DLC attached to the game on Steam. Steam dates it 3 December 2025; Bandai Namco’s unlock guide and launch post both say 4 December 2025. The two official sources disagree by a day and neither explains the gap, so treat 3–4 December as the honest window rather than picking one.
Contents, per the store page and the launch post:
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| 2 Nightfarers | Scholar and Undertaker |
| 2 Day Three bosses | Balancers (named by Bandai Namco) and the Dreglord (named in patch notes) |
| 1 Shifting Earth | “The Great Hollows” in the unlock guide, “Great Hollow” in the patch notes — official text uses both |
| And more | New areas and threats in Limveld, per the launch post |
Prices are as fetched on 2026-10-29 and vary by region: the DLC at R 300.00, the base game at R 749.00, the Deluxe Edition at R 1 049.00, in the currency that check was served. Ownership differs by platform in a way that catches people out: on Steam the Deluxe, Seekers and Collector’s editions include the expansion automatically, while console owners of those editions still download it manually.
The reception split is the most useful number here. As fetched, the base game sits at Very Positive — 87% of 75,415 English reviews, while the expansion sits at Mixed — 56% of 3,783, with 43% of the last 67 positive. The expansion did not land as cleanly, and the 1.03.1 and 1.03.2 notes read like a team working through that.
The two Nightfarers, and what they actually do
Both join the eight launch Nightfarers — Wylder, Guardian, Raider and Executor as melee, Ironeye as ranged, Duchess as ranged and spells, Recluse as spells, Revenant as summons — for a roster FromSoftware’s own vinyl-collection announcement calls “the 10 Nightfarers.”
Scholar is the arcane support: an academic of the School of Hierodas whose default weapon is a special thrusting sword built for fast attacks, moderate reach and feints. His passive, Bagcraft, levels up each consumable category the more you use it. His skill, Analyze, studies a target, and the longer the observation the better the buffs or debuffs — hence the official advice to start at medium range rather than in melee. His ultimate, Communion, links allies to their enemies’ fate so damage to one linked enemy is shared across all of them with part returned as health, and taking damage from a linked enemy can snap the thread.
Undertaker is the frontliner. Bandai Namco calls her slight, which misleads: her strength and faith are equally matched, and her default cudgel-like hammer swings faster than the Raider’s great axe while still breaking armour and shields. Her passive, Confluence, lets her fire her ultimate almost regardless of gauge when a nearby ally activates theirs, or when she closely evades a darkness-infused grab. Her skill, Trance, raises toughness and adds attack power per consecutive hit, with a deeper auto-evading trance once the gauge is full. Her ultimate, Loathsome Hex, is a bone spear that strikes any targeted body part and tracks flying enemies such as dragons within range.
Both unlock the same way: defeat Tricephalos, then speak to the Iron Menial in Roundtable Hold, who carries a message from the Small Jar Merchant. There is no separate DLC menu and no in-game purchase check beyond ownership.
The two Day Three bosses
Bandai Namco’s launch post says the expansion adds “two new bosses to defeat at the dawn of the third day” without naming them, so the pairing has to be assembled from two other pages. The unlock guide names the Balancers and its conditions: at least two base-game bosses defeated including Tricephalos, and both new Nightfarers playable, after which a chapel opens behind the Small Jar Merchant and both the Great Hollows Shifting Earth event and the Balancers expedition become available. The Dreglord appears by name in the December 2025 “2 Million Nightfarers” post and repeatedly in the 1.03.2 fix list, including a note about a “Decayed Favor of the Rotted Woods” effect that would not deactivate after a session leave and rejoin.
The Balancers then got the treatment the base-game Nightlords got. Salvation’s Standard-Bearers arrived on 19 December 2025, and patch 1.03.1 on 17 December added it as a potential Deep of Night target for DLC owners — but only when matched with players who also own the DLC. 1.03.2 spends a lot of lines on that fight: charm-state enemy counts and their attack boost both came down, alongside a long list of fixes for behaviour that could stall the encounter.
Deep of Night is the change that matters most
This is the part the two earlier pieces predate entirely, and where a returning player will notice the biggest difference.
Deep of Night unlocks once you have defeated Night Aspect, and it removes the two planning tools a normal Expedition gives you. The target Nightlord is not revealed until the expedition begins, and any ongoing Shifting Earth state does not apply. Enemies are stronger, with red-sheen variants as extra threats. In exchange the mode hands you two new tools: weapons carrying multiple additional effects, which also carry detrimental effects and so are a decision rather than an upgrade, and Depths Relics, which only activate during Deep of Night runs and slot into three newly unlocked Relic slots.
Progression is a Rating that rises as you defeat Nightlords, moving you to the next Depth. Enemy strength escalates with depth, and at higher depths the map may hide key locations or withhold the Nightlord until the final battle. Matchmaking generally pairs players of similar depth, and an Everdark Sovereign can turn up on the third day.
The DLC’s relationship to all of this is the thing to get right. DLC targets, landmarks, raid events and Shifting Earth do now appear in Deep of Night, including during base-game Expeditions — but the unlock guide is explicit that this requires matching with three players who all own the DLC. For a mode built on climbing a shared ladder, that is the most consequential ownership rule in the game.
The patches that changed how a run plays
Two-player Expeditions changed the shape of a party. Patch 1.02 added them on 31 July 2025 and, in the same note, renamed “Expedition Type” to “Number of Players” because balance now scales to the count. Composition advice written for three players is a different balance state at two, and the site’s earlier build guide — one frontliner, one striker, one ranged specialist — assumes a trio.
Nightfall got more expensive. Patch 1.02.2, shipped with Deep of Night, increased Night’s Tide damage after the second night boss is defeated — the window in which a team carries Day 2 loot toward the Spirit Shelter.
The Relic economy moved off the low-HP build. Patch 1.03 broadened the trigger conditions for effects that fire at low HP and then decreased their effectiveness, including the Blue-Feathered Branchsword talisman. In the other direction it buffed a long list of attack-type passives: melee, dash, rolling, charge, jump, guard counters, chain finishers, skill attack power and physical attack up, plus the two-handing and dual-wield bonuses. The read is straightforward: stack the attack type you actually use rather than engineering a near-death state.
The melee anchors were raised, and the bow stack was walked back. Patch 1.03.2 is the current balance state and it is generous to the front line. Guardian gained damage negation against physical and elemental attacks plus Guard Boost. Raider’s attacks, except dual-wield and jump attacks, got faster, the movement distance of some Greataxe, Great Hammer and Colossal Weapon attacks was adjusted, Fighter’s Resolve gained an attack boost at low HP, and Totem Stela’s range expanded. Executor’s Cursed Sword gained critical power, Guard Boost, deflect stagger and a one-hit survival window during the Crucible transformation, and Revenant’s spirits now scale with depth in Deep of Night.
The correction at the other end is the one most people missed. Patch 1.03 had raised “Improved ●● Attack Power” and “Improved Attack Power with 3+ ●● Equipped” across weapon categories, and 1.03.2 states plainly that those increases were “mistakenly applied to the bow weapon category.” Both bow effects were reduced. If your Ironeye plan was a triple-bow Relic stack valued against 1.03 numbers, it is overvalued now.
The route that fits this build
Before departure, read the weakness — or accept that you cannot. For a normal Expedition, Bandai Namco’s Advanced Tips state that all Nightlords’ weaknesses are visible on their profile in the Expedition menu, and that the map shows which elements are available at certain camps and ruins. In Deep of Night the Nightlord is hidden until the run starts, so the official advice is a well-rounded Relic loadout. Mixing the two preparation modes is how runs get lost on Day 1.
Route Day 1 by structure type, not by proximity. Weapon categories cluster: bows in tower ruins, seals in dungeons below ruined cathedrals or village altars, staves in rises, daggers and swords in castles. Each Nightfarer taking a line through the structures that feed their weapon beats the whole team clearing one area.
Take churches whenever the line allows, and use the Spirit Shelter properly. A church altar adds one Flask of Crimson Tears charge for the rest of the Expedition, and every member can use the same altar without blocking anyone else; HP recovery is otherwise restricted to Sites of Grace. The Spirit Shelter is the one stretch with no Night’s Tide pressure, its merchant has an inventory not shared with Limveld’s other merchants, and since 1.03 it stocks Fire Pots.
Fight bosses, and do not panic about their drops on Day 1. Runes from kills are credited to every player regardless of distance, and boss chests hold better items than overworld chests, so a team that kills several bosses in a day levels faster than one that clears trash. Day 1 boss chests do not despawn overnight — but items swallowed by the tide on Day 2 are gone, so sweep Day 1’s leftovers at the start of Day 2.
If you want DLC content in Deep of Night, sort the party first. Three DLC owners, or the expansion’s targets and Shifting Earth will not appear. Then push depth: with Revenant and Executor scaling on depth and Depths Relics only active there, Deep of Night is where the last two patches’ progression systems resolve.
What is not confirmed
Three things are worth stating rather than smoothing over. The Dreglord is not named as one of the expansion’s two Day Three bosses on any page that lists the expansion’s contents; the identification comes from the publisher’s patch notes treating it as a boss plus the milestone post describing a hunt against it. The Shifting Earth added by the expansion is spelled “The Great Hollows” in the unlock guide and “Great Hollow” in patch notes, and I do not know which is current. And the player figures above are one reading from Steam’s public endpoint, not a trend.
Next read
- Nightreign Boss Raids and Remembrance Drops — the reward ladder this piece deliberately does not restate.
- Nightreign Co-op Builds and Relic Rites — per-Nightfarer Relic effects, useful as a baseline before applying the 1.03.2 changes above.
- Elden Ring 1.25 Patch Closes DLC Trading Exploit — the base game’s own patch cadence, which runs on a separate version line from Nightreign.
- Elden Ring Switch 2 Port and the 30-Million Baseline — where the parent game’s audience actually sits.