“No gods, no masters” and all that, but I at least have a pantheon of dolls – FromSoftware is good at making things delicately deadly, and the Revenant class it unveiled for Elden Ring Nightreign shows that sometimes being pretty can even be more effective than parrying.
FromSoftware first enigmatically shared a portrait of the porcelain girl almost exactly one month ago, and I – along with many others intrigued by her cold face and sharp, ball-jointed fingers – started fretting. Who was she? Could she be a disciple of Bloodborne’s amnesiac Doll NPC? A descendent of Elden Ring witch Ranni, who inhabits a poppet?
Neither, apparently. The Revenant is her own, sick thing, an angry ghost in a body you might underestimate.
As the clock started running out to hours – and now minutes – before Nightreign’s release today, FromSoftware showed off both a new character trailer and gameplay teaser that demonstrate how the Revenant manipulates lost souls to do the heavy lifting in battle for her.
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She’s a necromancer – necromancy is the Faith-based character’s passive ability, and it offers the chance for downed enemies to revive as allies. For more targeted attacks, the Revenant can use her claw-like fingernails to pluck her lyre and use the Summon Spirit skill, which calls three different spirits forward to handle the bulk of combat for you. Meanwhile, you’re free to cast powerful incantations and throw lightning bolts from a distance.
Then, the Revenant’s ultimate skill Immortal March grants temporary immortality to living allies, and it also momentarily resurrects fallen allies in a near-death state.
“A hollow frame, guided by a thread pulled taut by vengeance,” says the description for the Revenant’s gameplay overview. “In her silence, the slain heed her call.”
I prefer to play all FromSoftware games like I’m crashing through trees in a 747, like I’m made of steel, so the well-timed combat and parrying opportunities presented by other Nightreign characters like Executor don’t appeal to me.
Inhabiting the Revenant, however, might soon become my favorite FromSoftware experience yet. The Revenant doesn’t appear to sweat over a challenge – she works smart in Nightreign, and she outsources. Sometimes a mastermind looks just like a puppet.
Elden Ring Nightreign is an extension of FromSoftware’s philosophy, director says, not a revision: “We’re always looking to make something valuable in our games, something that feels worthwhile.”
