Elden Ring Nightreign Disables Multiplayer Passwords for Playtest

Elden Ring Nightreign’s multiplayer passwords are a no-go tonight.

February 14, 2025, 10:17pm

If you’re going to be playing Elden Ring Nightreign tonight on the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X during the Elden Ring spin-off’s second playtest, you’re not going to be playing with your friends. That’s because Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have made the decision to disable multiplayer matchmaking via passwords for the Nightreign session scheduled to run from 7-10 p.m. PT on February 14th. The announcement was made Friday night right before the second playtest began with players warned not to set a multiplayer password at all throughout the whole session.

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The Elden Ring social accounts shared word of the multiplayer letdown just minutes before the second Elden Ring Nightreign playtest started. No explanation for why the multiplayer password feature was disabled was explicitly given, but if you’ve got one set, turn it off now so that you can actually get into a game.

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Despite the lack of an official explanation, it’s not difficult to imagine that the decision was likely due to one of two reasons. The less likely explanation for this multiplayer shakeup is that FromSoftware wants to collect data and see how Nightreign performs whenever players are going through a purely random matchmaking process and aren’t matching up with friends. What’s more likely, however, is that disabling multiplayer passwords may lead to a smoother experience than what was seen this morning when disconnects were so frequent that it was said we might get another extra Nightreign test. Both answers could be a factor, but whatever the case, don’t expect to be teaming up with friends tonight.

Elden Ring Nightreign can still be played as either a solo or in trios — just not in duos — so you’ll still be matched with others during tonight’s session. But if you keep the multiplayer password on, matchmaking will be impossible, so make sure you’ve got it off if you had one enabled this morning.