Elden Ring NPC invasions are perhaps one of the most fun parts of one of the best RPG games to grace our gaming PCs this year. There’s certainly a lot to be said for exploring the giant, gorgeous open world of the Lands Between crafted by FromSoftware, or tackling the biggest and baddest Elden Ring bosses that come your way. But seeing that invasion notification pop-up as you’re adventuring and having to go toe-to-toe with a troublesome Tarnished is one of the best thrills to be found, and it just got even better thanks to the creator of some of the best Elden Ring mods.
The Elden Ring ‘Invasions’ mod offers a new combat challenge to players looking to spice up their Elden Ring playthrough with some fresh encounters. Created by Clever, who goes by ‘cleverraptor6’ on Nexus Mods, Invasions does exactly what it promises, adding “over a dozen new invasions across the Lands Between, containing new characters, weapons, and challenges.”
Clever, who has created numerous weapon and skill mods including an Elden Ring firebending mod based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, has cherry-picked some of their personal favourite custom weapons and handed them out to the new NPCs. Clever says that they’ve actually improved all the weapons from their individual releases, too – so even if you’ve checked out some of them before, you’ll probably want to give this mod a look.
After installing the Invasions mod, head to the Isolated Merchant’s Shack in the Weeping Peninsula, where you’ll find a series of ‘Kill orders’ that give you the locations of the various invasions, along with a brief description of what you might encounter there. Of course, it’s up to you whether you want to read through these and just take on the fights directly, or simply wander about and encounter them naturally.
Either way, you’ll be able to loot each invader’s weapon after defeating them in glorious combat, further adding to your repertoire of the best Elden Ring weapons. In addition to this, defeating all targets will allow you to travel to Farum Azula and “face retribution in the infinite wave arena.” It’s unclear exactly what this entails, but it certainly sounds like a special challenge reserved for the strongest-willed Elden Ring players out there.
You can get the Elden Ring Invasions mod at Nexus Mods. Clever suggests that it should likely be used as your base mod, with any other additional ones merged into it afterwards, because its relative complexity means that a lot of files are altered. Get out there and prove why you’re the most feared Elden Lord in all the lands!
Our pick of the best Elden Ring builds should be perfect to help you tackle these newfound foes, and we’ve got you covered on the best Elden Ring classes to pick to get set up for success. If you’re after more ways to mix things up in one of the best open-world games while we wait for more news on potential Elden Ring DLC, check in with the full overhaul project Elden Ring Reborn, which aims to update every aspect of the FromSoftware epic.