After more than 150 hours in Elden Ring Nightreign, I am still not especially good at it. My partner and our regular trio teammate have carried much of the workload, particularly our Guardian player, who has become remarkably reliable at keeping my fragile Recluse/Scholar character alive—or reviving me quickly when that plan fails.
As a group, we have slowly defeated almost every standard Night Boss. The downloadable content’s Dreglord is the only one still standing. Our long breaks between sessions, busy lives and my limited ability have all contributed to the slow progress. However, I recently found another explanation for some of our struggles: NAT Type.
What is NAT Type?
I still cannot explain NAT Type with complete confidence, despite having it explained to me several times. In simple terms, it is an internet setting that affects how games connect your console to online services and other players. Before this week, I had never heard of it. Now I wish I had remained blissfully unaware.
NAT Type became a suspect after months of persistent Nightreign disconnections affecting both my partner and me. In almost every session, one of us would lose connection. First, our characters could spend roughly 20 seconds running through the world while unable to deal damage or influence what was happening. Then the game would remove us from the session.
Returning was not quick. We had to work back through the menus and reload the game, losing valuable time in a title where every second matters. We might reappear near the place where the disconnection occurred, while our runes—including the progress from an entire lost level—were left somewhere else. Recovering them meant wasting even more time.
Disconnecting near the end of a night was worse. We could return already dead, leaving the still-connected player to reach us, revive us and fight the boss at the same time. For a team already relying on cooperation, that created an enormous disadvantage.
It became deeply frustrating. I continued playing because I enjoy Nightreign, but repeatedly being the person who apparently dragged the group down was difficult to tolerate.
Nothing seemed to fix the problem
We tried the obvious solutions and plenty of less obvious ones. We checked our internet connections, restarted the router repeatedly, changed the session host and adjusted various settings. We also made sure we were using wired connections. None of those steps solved the disconnections.
Eventually, my partner investigated the problem in more detail and identified our NAT Type as the likely cause. Both consoles were showing Moderate NAT, a setting that can create difficulties for online multiplayer.
The proper way to change NAT Type appears to involve a series of complicated router-related steps. On Xbox, however, we found a much simpler workaround: repeatedly selecting the Test NAT option in the console settings until the status changed to Open.
Several hours later, my partner’s NAT Type was still Open, but mine had returned to Moderate. We ran the test repeatedly again until my status changed, and our matches have been uninterrupted since.
A hidden setting should not decide whether co-op works
That leaves an irritating question: do I need to check NAT Type before every Nightreign session? It seems absurd that a group of people with strong internet connections might need to investigate obscure networking settings simply to play a co-op game normally.
During the troubleshooting, I also encountered references to UPnP, IPv6 and several other acronyms that most players should never need to understand. I could probably learn more about them with enough time, but I would rather spend that time hitting a horrible death-goop creature in a giant arena than conducting network research while my friends fight it alone.
If you are experiencing unexplained disconnections in Elden Ring Nightreign, Elden Ring multiplayer or another online game, NAT Type may be worth investigating. It is not an appealing solution, and the setting may even revert, but changing ours from Moderate to Open finally restored reliable matches and made our evenings considerably less frustrating.
Once Dreglord is defeated, I plan to forget almost everything I have learned about NAT Type and never think about it again.
For more gaming and arcade-related coverage, browse RETROCADE’s Arcade Blog. If troubleshooting has inspired a dedicated gaming setup, the Arcade Machine Buying Guide can help with planning your space, while arcade machines offer a different way to enjoy multiplayer sessions. Compact setups may suit players with limited room, including bartop arcades, and hands-on builders can explore arcade parts.
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