Den gylne flodhesten ødelegger løp i Elden Ring: Nightreign

Elden Ring: Nightreign just made group fights more chaotic with the surprise entrance of the Golden Hippopotamus. It’s not a new enemy for Elden Ring veterans, but this version shows up at the worst time possible: in the middle of an already tense boss battle.

In Nightreign, you take on bosses across multiple waves. On the second night, after you manage to wear down Crucible Knight — already one of the tougher enemies — the game drops in a second health bar. That’s when the Golden Hippopotamus charges into the arena, mid-fight, ready to ruin whatever momentum your squad had going. Polygon recently covered how the hippo-sized tank is crashing fights and turning decent attempts into total wipeouts:

“You don’t get your revive bars reset, so it’s fucking brutal if you lost any on Ancient Dragon.”

That’s straight from players stuck dealing with the aftermath of an earlier boss and now facing two more, with no chance to breathe. The Golden Hippopotamus, or Golden Hippo for short, isn’t just an oversized threat for show. Its entire design is built to wreck plans. Three attacks — Hippo Bite, Hippo Rush, and Fanged Charge — are enough to make your team scramble. The Hippo moves fast, charges hard, and gets right in your face.

It doesn’t even need a complicated moveset. The charge alone triggers a long damage animation where you basically get chewed up and launched like you owe the beast money. And it’s that relentless speed that turns it into one of the worst enemies to deal with while also facing Crucible Knight, who goes into a more aggressive phase during the same battle.

FromSoftware might’ve pulled a page from Left 4 Dead with this one — the sudden difficulty spike feels like The Director noticed things were going too well and hit the chaos button. One player's mistake and the field becomes a mess of spinning swords, hippo chomps, and failed revive attempts.

Polygon notes that the Golden Hippopotamus was already a pain when it first showed up in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. There, the battle is even tighter — literally. Players face the hippo in a small, awkward room where dodging becomes nearly impossible. Combined with janky camera movement clipping through the walls and the enemy’s fast, jerky motions, the fight becomes a mess. It even launches golden quills from its back like a porcupine. So now it’s a hedgehog-hippo hybrid with no concept of personal space.

And just in case one wasn’t enough, other Golden Hippo variants also appear throughout Shadow of the Erdtree. At least one comment summed it up: “This is the only boss that doesn’t let you breathe; he always has you cornered.”

Some players called it satisfying to finally take the hippo down, but most described the fight as straight-up annoying. One player wrote: “Yeah, just beat the fat hippo at level 130, so annoying and I’ve seen 3 of them.”

In Nightreign, the design takes that frustration to another level. Pairing the hippo with Crucible Knight turns the fight into a team-breaking gauntlet. On top of that, if you’ve already spent your revive bars during the battle with the Ancient Dragon — a completely separate and demanding fight — there’s no recovery. You go straight from that boss into a fresh duo tag match with no reset.

Even worse, the Golden Hippopotamus doesn’t stick to just boss rooms. Players have also found it roaming solo in Nightreign, but the group fight version hits way harder. A solo hippo can be dodged, baited, and learned over time. But side-by-side with Crucible Knight, it becomes part of a fast, flanking strategy where one stuns while the other crushes.

And the boss doesn’t just hit hard — it breaks rhythm. One minute you’re spacing Crucible Knight, learning patterns, and setting up dodges. Next, your screen is full of golden quills, massive jaws, and two health bars pushing into you from both sides.

The Golden Hippo is quickly becoming a symbol of Nightreign’s increased difficulty curve. It's not just another enemy; it’s the kind of mid-battle twist that makes players want to rethink their entire strategy. The double-boss structure means you’re punished for not being perfect during earlier waves. Even if you played clean against the Ancient Dragon, this new combo leaves no room for slip-ups.

If FromSoftware intended to make Nightreign feel more reactive, unpredictable, and cruel, they succeeded. The Golden Hippopotamus has already gone down as one of the most frustrating enemies in the expansion, not just because of its strength, but because of when and how it appears.

And if you haven’t checked out what else FromSoftware has been doing with its new content drops, don’t miss their other wild move: a full-on dating sim called More Than Just Pals, released in the Palworld universe. No, that’s not a joke. It’s real — and way less dangerous than a massive golden hippo chewing you into orbit.