If you're playing Elden Ring Nightreign solo, every merchant carries a revive item, you can carry two at once, and there are more solo QoL changes coming next week

Yesterday, unexpected day one patch for Elden Ring Nightreign that already included balance changes for the roguelike soulslike. The patch notes were characteristically terse, but they've already overhauled the solo experience, and we can expect another patch next week with further adjustments.

But if you're playing Nightreign solo right now, here's the tldr: Most (all?) merchants now carry a Wending Grace item that revives you to full health when you die at a night boss. This is only in singleplayer, you can carry two at a time, and you should buy one whenever you see it.

On Twitter, the official Elden Ring revealed the two big changes we can expect next week. First, we'll get one free revive for each of the climax night bosses, and we'll also accrue runes faster than in co-op. This addresses two of solo play's biggest pitfalls: Not having allies to revive you when you go down, making any mistake extremely punishing, along with not being able to clear camps and level up as quickly as a trio.

But the first, 1.01 patch already quietly improved solo play relative to its frustrating pre-release state. Lacking real patch notes, I can't say for certain everything that was tweaked, but I'm absolutely doing much more damage now than in pre-launch singleplayer.

Even bigger though is that aforementioned Wending Grace change. In co-op, it's an exceedingly rare drop that can only be acquired from certain high-level bosses. In pre-release solo play, the final merchant before the Nightlord was the only one guaranteed to carry a Wending Grace.

Now it's a Wending Grace-a-palooza. If every merchant doesn't sell one in singleplayer, it's certainly most of them⁠—I've got confirmed sightings at the settlement and fort merchants so far. That helps make up for not having friends to revive you in solo play, and coupled with the free revive in patch 1.02, we'll be able to have up to three chances to get back up and keep fighting against Nightreign's toughest bosses.

Nightreign is still best enjoyed in co-op, but now its singleplayer feels like less of a compromised, frustrating experience⁠—and it's still plenty challenging, don't worry, fellow Souls sickos. Perhaps the most surprising thing here is how quick FromSoftware was to roll out a patch addressing player critiques⁠—far from a given with the infamously withdrawn studio, which typically operates at an imperious remove from the hoi polloi.