Shifting Earth Events – Elden Ring: Nightreign

Even though your goal in Elden Ring: Nightreign is to defeat Night Lords at the end of your three-day expedition to Limveld, these victories have a damaging effect on the island, causing the land to “rupture and churn.” This disruption causes Shifting Earth events to appear — where large parts of the island change and become much more dangerous but also much more rewarding. Sound exciting? Keep reading to learn more.

Background

Shifting Earth events will only appear after you’ve completed the Tricephalos expedition to defeat Gladius, Beast of Night. So you won’t need to worry about tougher versions of Limveld until after you’ve learned the basics of the game and figured out how to defeat bosses, including a Night Lord. Further events are unlocked after you’ve defeated two more Night Lords. It doesn’t matter in which order you do it.

You’ll know you’ve triggered a Shifting Earth event right away when you start an expedition. When you open the map, a large portion of it will be different. For example, with the Crater event, a large crater full of lava will appear in the northern half of the island — something tough to miss.

Shifting Earth events do not just randomly appear each time you start an expedition. Once an event has triggered, it will stick around for several expeditions, giving you multiple opportunities to defeat it. If you’re a veteran player looking for some extra challenge, then this is excellent news. But if you’re more of a novice player having a tough time just beating the regular Limveld map, don’t despair. If you want to skip events, then you can sleep in the bed in the Roundtable Hold. This will cause time to pass and the event to end.

There are four Shifting Earth events: The Crater, the Mountaintop, the Rotted Woods, and Noklateo, the Shrouded City. You’ll encounter them in the order listed. Each event is described below.

Event Tips

Before we get to the specific Shifting Earth events, here are some tips that work for all of them:

• Ignore enemies as much as possible. Night’s Tide doesn’t slow down for events, so you have to get through them as quickly as possible — especially if the events are far away from the spot where the Night Boss is going to spawn.

• Shifting Earth events are difficult. You should wait until Day 2 to try them, and you should be at least Level 8 — the higher level, the better.

• Once you learn that you have a Shifting Earth event active, you can plan ahead for it. Look up the type of damage done by the event, and the type of damage it is vulnerable to, and then match it up with a Night Lord with similar strengths and weaknesses. That way your equipment will work for both.

• You can try Shifting Earth events multiple times before they expire. So don’t worry if you fail miserably during your first attempt. Learn from what you did wrong and come back better prepared in subsequent trips.

The Crater

• Unlocked After Defeating: Gladius, Beast of Night
• Best Damage to Resist: Fire
• Main Boss: Magma Worm
• Reward: Ascend an armament to Legendary / gold

The Mountaintop

• Unlocked After Defeating: Third Night Lord
• Best Damage to Resist: Magic (Frost)
• Main Boss: Mountaintop Ice Dragon
• Reward: Favor of the Mountaintop
  • “Halves frostbite damage and frost buildup. Nearby frostbite boosts attack.”

The Rotted Woods

• Unlocked After Defeating: Fifth Night Lord
• Reward: Favor of the Forest
  • “Nullifies scarlet rot and increases max HP. Attacks after receiving damage partially recover HP.”

Noklateo, the Shrouded City

• Unlocked After Defeating: Seventh Night Lord
• Main Boss: Naturalborn of the Void
• Reward: Favor of Noklateo, the Shrouded City
  • “Rise from near-death, unaided, a single time and become more powerful for a short time.”