When I played Shadow of the Erdtree ahead of release, there was one thing I kicked myself for missing early on in the giant expansion—a crystal tear that essentially gave you Sekiro-style parrying in the Elden Ring combat system. A certain subset of FromSoft devotees were very excited to discover that feature, as it makes blocking and parrying way more viable on a dual-weapon build (or really any build not using a shield). If you're one of those folks, good news: there's going to be a character just for you in Elden Ring's new co-op roguelike spinoff Nightreign.
As detailed in my breakdown of everything I learned going hands-on with Nightreign, there will be eight predefined playable characters in the new action game—no character creator this time around! One of the characters, which I spent a good two hours with, is Duchess, whose movement style is more than a little Bloodborney. Instead of the usual Souls dodge roll, her dodge button performs a dashing quickstep, while a backwards dodge will trigger a stylish backflip. She's fragile, with low health compared to the armored knight characters, but also moves more quickly, which in my mind makes her the Bloodborne stand-in (unfortunately she's equipped with a dagger and not a sick transforming cane sword).
