Elden Ring DLC DISASTER! Fans FURIOUS Over Nightreign's Map!

Elden Ring's latest foray into downloadable content, "Nightreign," promised more of what players loved: challenging combat, cryptic lore, and breathtaking (if often deadly) landscapes. However, one particular element of the "Forsaken Hollows" DLC is drawing serious fire from the Tarnished: its map. More specifically, a location known as the Great Hollow. And it's not exactly winning any popularity contests.

Elden Ring DLC DISASTER! Fans FURIOUS Over Nightre...

The Great Hollow, introduced with the "Forsaken Hollows" expansion which launched a month and a half ago, is visually striking. Imagine a colossal crystal, seemingly ripped from the heavens, embedded in the earth. Now picture the surrounding terrain shattered and fractured, creating a multi-tiered canyon system. Ruins dot the landscape, echoing familiar Elden Ring structures: churches, forts, mines, all teeming with the usual assortment of grotesque and deadly inhabitants. So far, so Elden Ring, right?

The problem, it seems, lies in navigation. Getting around this fractured landscape involves a heavy reliance on spirit springs to leap between levels. The central crystal itself offers a significant buff, which I'm told is crucial for those end-game boss encounters (I'm still working my way through Margit, to be honest). But accessing that buff requires destroying several smaller, colored crystals. And here's the kicker: their locations change with each attempt. It's a scavenger hunt layered on top of a vertical maze.

This multi-layered design is proving to be a major headache for players. In Elden Ring, a quick scan of the map to plot a course for essential items like flasks or smithing stones is usually second nature. But the Great Hollow throws a wrench in that process with its sheer vertical complexity. Add to that the constantly shifting locations of those colored crystals, and you have a recipe for frustration. I can almost hear the collective groan of countless Tarnished plummeting to their deaths.

The sentiment is clearly reflected in the Steam reviews. While "Elden Ring: Nightreign" as a whole maintains a generally positive reception, "Forsaken Hollows" is currently sitting at a "Mostly Negative" rating for the past 30 days. A quick glance reveals that only about 30% of the 1,347 reviews are positive. Ouch.

One particularly disgruntled reviewer wrote, "The characters and bosses are great but the new 'map' is absolutely horrible and is ruining the experience of the game as a whole." Another echoed this frustration, stating, "Love the bosses and new classes but the new map is just trash. There was Zero NEED to add gaps in the map to kill YOU... That map is NOT FUN!!! It's a freaking chore... An otherwise great DLC ruined by this nonsense map." It seems FromSoftware might need to reassess the map design of the Great Hollow before more players abandon the Forsaken Hollows altogether. Sometimes, even the most beautiful and challenging games can stumble over a badly designed map.