Technologies

Elden Ring Nightreign: 7 Tips to Beat the First Boss, the Nightlord Gladius

The Tricephalos boss is the real proving grounds of Elden Ring Nightreign, and many of the game’s features are hidden behind beating it.

Elden Ring Nightreign, the newest multiplayer action RPG from FromSoftware, tosses you into the thick of battle and sets you up to die to a familiar face in its tutorial (it’s Margit, and he still takes ages to bring his hammer down on your head).

But the real proving ground is the Tricephalos expedition that ends with the triple-headed dog boss, Gladius. It’s the first journey you’ll embark on in the game, putting your skills to the test as you learn the flow of the day and night cycle. Speed is key here, and you can’t spend a second lollygagging around in this version of The Lands Between.

There are key features locked behind the first boss: Most of the game’s other expeditions unlock after you beat the first one, new items unlock in the Small Jar Bazaar to advance your meta-progression and beating the first Nightlord aspect is a surefire way to unlock the first secret Nightfarer class.

If you’re having trouble overcoming the game’s first expedition, it’s probably because Nightreign is much faster-paced than other Souls games. But there are ways you can level the playing field and better prepare yourself for the fight against Gladius.

Shoot for level 12 as you farm runes

The level cap for a Nightfarer on an expedition is 15 — but you’ll hardly ever reach that level as you dash around the world farming runes and powers before the third night approaches. A much easier goal to shoot for is level 12 — which you can attain if you move quickly and prioritize clearing out camps and bosses.

Crucially, you generally don’t want to waste any precious runes on merchants you find during day one and two. If you purchase items, you might find yourself several thousand runes shy of eking out another level before the final boss. There’s a merchant available before the Nightlord fight in night three, so pack in as many levels as you can and then spend your leftover runes in that shop at the end.

Find a holy weapon before the final night

Each Nightlord aspect in Elden Ring Nightreign has an elemental weakness you can exploit — you can view these weaknesses from the expedition screen before you embark on your mission.

Gladius, the fiery dog awaiting you at the end of the Tricephalos expedition, is weak to holy damage. Hitting him with holy-imbued attacks creates additional stagger windows, giving the team more time to whale on the boss while one person strikes the critical hit.

You can consistently find weapons with elemental infusions by beating certain enemy camps and fortresses around the map. If the location has an icon for the elemental type next to it, you’ll be rewarded with a weapon that deals that type of elemental damage once you slay the final boss there.

Keep in mind that Nightreign has inherited Elden Ring’s icons for weapon affinities, and the elemental signifiers can be confusingly similar. The lightning affinity icon is a pale yellow blade stuck in the ground with crackling bolts around it, while the similar-looking sacred (holy) affinity icon is a more golden blade stuck in the ground with a circle.

Grab other weapons that you won’t use

While you’ll probably want to wield a holy weapon when you’re face-to-face with Gladius, it’s well worth it to stock up on other weapons as well. There’s no equipment load in Nightreign, so it’s purely beneficial to fill up all of your inventory slots during an expedition.

Melee-attacking Nightfarers could benefit from picking up a bow to revive their allies from afar, and ranged-attacking Nightfarers might be able to use a dagger in a pinch. More importantly, though, are the bonuses that extra weapons confer upon your character.

When you pick up a new weapon, you’ll see a list of passive bonuses underneath the weapon stats and art of war. These bonuses apply to your character even when you’re not wielding that particular weapon (with rare exception), so stocking up on armaments will snowball your power before the final fight.

Invest in fire and physical damage negation

The final boss of the first expedition is a fire-spewing cerberus, and he hits like a truck. Nightfarers who have dodge rolls and other abilities that provide generous invincibility frames will likely be able to avoid the hits in this boss fight, but it won’t be nearly as easy for tank characters to do so.

During the first two days of your run, you’ll still have the option to invest in passive abilities that will help mitigate some of the damage the boss can mete out, selecting dormant powers instead of weapons from certain boss rewards. Night bosses provide especially powerful passive buffs, so if you can snag fire or physical damage negation passives, it’ll help soften some of Gladius’ blows.

Stock up on flasks at churches around the map

Even if you take passives that help you tank Gladius’ attacks, you’ll inevitably end up taking a few hits. That damage adds up, and you’ll need to heal through it. You start with three flasks and get two more by beating the bosses during the first two nights, but managing a Nightlord with only five flasks can still be a bit tricky.

That’s why churches are so important to find during day one and two of a Nightreign expedition. They appear as golden, glowing structures on the minimap, so you won’t have a hard time plotting a course to these locations — they look just like the churches that you can get flask healing upgrades from in Elden Ring, too.

Each church will up your flask count by one. Walking into a Nightlord fight with eight flasks instead of five makes a massive difference, especially since that’s effectively nine more opportunities to heal across an entire squad of Nightfarers. Churches aren’t a distraction from rune farming: They’re an investment in your survival.

Watch out for Gladius’ massive chainsword attack

Nightlord Gladius loves fighting in melee distance and spewing fire, which gives ranged Nightfarers ample opportunity to lay into him with holy damage from afar. When the boss charges away from the fight rather than into the party of Nightfarers, you’ll know he’s up to no good.

One of the hardest hitting attacks in this boss fight has Gladius grab the chainsword off of his back with one of his heads, swinging it as the blade extends across the ground. Original Dark Souls players will probably get flashbacks to fighting Great Grey Wolf Sif, but Gladius isn’t a good boy at all.

This sweeping attack covers a massive area of the arena and Gladius can use it multiple times in a row. The good news is that it’s pretty easy to dodge through, if your character has a roll with decent invincibility frames. The hardest part is identifying when this move is about to be unleashed — so keep an eye on how far away from you Gladius is trying to fight.

When the boss splits up, don’t let your party follow suit

Once you beat Gladius down to half health, he adds a new move to his repertoire. The Nightlord will occasionally split into three fireballs that rocket across the arena — you’ll want to dodge roll through these — before turning around and returning to the party as three separate dogs.

These canines are no less fiery than the cerberus-form, and they’ll usually each target a single member of the party. Just because the dogs are split up doesn’t mean your team has to, though. Ranged Nightfarers like Ironeye or fragile glass cannons Nightfarers like Duchess and Recluse might have trouble once they’re singled out, so it’s best to group up and repel this phase of Gladius as a team.

Note that in its separated form, each dog takes damage for the full boss, so big attacks targeting an area like various Nightfarer ultimates (Ironeye and Raider especially) are potent here.

Once enough time passes, Gladius will fireball around the map once again and return in his cerberus form (unless you manage to defeat him before he switches phases once again). When he takes on his larger base form, you can revert to your original strategy to swiftly take down this very bad dog.

With Gladius defeated, a whole host of new expeditions will become available to you and your squad. Even though you’ve finally bested the real tutorial, you’ll probably benefit from our beginner guide as you set out on some of the more challenging Nightreign adventures. Good luck out there, Nightfarer.

Technologies

Did You Download the White House App? Here Are Its Hidden Security Risks

Cybersecurity researchers have serious concerns about how the app was built.

The White House mobile app has been available for both Android and iOS users for over a week now, and the Trump administration is proudly touting that the app has received 2 million downloads on the White House Instagram page. However, the app’s threats to your personal data, online security and privacy concerns make it something you should think twice about downloading.

The White House announcement says the app’s goal is to deliver «unparalleled access to the Trump administration.» However, there are many security concerns, including location tracking and sketchy features. The White House has not responded to a request for comment.

The big question is, should you download it? I don’t recommend it. Here’s why.

What’s in The White House App?

When I downloaded it soon after its release, the app opened with music and a brief collage video of President Donald Trump. It has pages on affordability, including the prices of things like eggs and milk (but not gas). There’s an overtime calculator. And there are links to articles from Trump’s favored news outlets, like Fox News and Newsmax, along with White House press releases.

The app also features livestreams and videos of press briefings, links to the White House’s social feeds and photos of the president.

Why I deleted The White House app so fast

Behind all those tabs are hair-raising privacy and security issues that have the internet and experts alarmed.

One X user, @Thereallo1026, decompiled the White House app and blogged about it, reporting that the Android app tracks your location as often as every 4.5 minutes and shares a lot of other information, like your notifications and perhaps even your phone number, with a third-party server.

Another red flag is that the code for YouTube embeds comes from a personal GitHub account. Thereallo said that if that GitHub account gets compromised, it can affect every user of the White House’s app.

Another cybersecurity researcher, Atomic Computer Services, posted similar concerns about the iOS app. The researchers found that the app reported to the App Store that it did not collect location data, when in fact it included the capability to do GPS tracking. It’s unclear whether that tracking actually happens, but the code is there, Atomic Computer said.

Other concerns identified by Atomic Computer included the removal of privacy consent banners from third-party content viewed in the app and minimal security protections. «We’ve audited apps for startups with three employees that had better security than this,» Atomic Computer wrote.

Pieter Arntz, a researcher at the cybersecurity software provider Malwarebytes, said in an email to CNET that the White House app relies heavily on third-party sources for things like notifications and widgets.

«In practical terms, that means external providers can influence what data is collected and when features like location‑based messaging are enabled, because much of that logic is configured on their servers rather than baked into the app code itself,» Arntz said. «For a high‑profile government app, the more these decisions sit with outside companies, the harder it is to guarantee strict data‑minimization and full transparency to users about how their information is handled.»

Government-sponsored apps to inform people are commonplace, but this one poses significant risks, experts said. A spokesperson for the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for transparency and privacy in government technology, told CNET that «mobile apps can be a helpful tool for making government more accessible. But this administration has given people a lot of reasons to worry about their privacy, and this app only raises more questions about what the federal government is doing with our personal data.»

For me, this app is a hard pass. I deleted it 10 minutes after downloading it.

Technologies

Amazon Is Pulling Support for Kindles From 2012 or Earlier. What to Do Now

If there’s a book you’ve been waiting to read on your old Kindle device, make sure you download it before May 20.

That Kindle device you’ve been holding onto for 15 years now has an expiration date, as Amazon will end support for Kindle models from 2012 or earlier on May 20. An Australian Kindle user first reported the change before Amazon confirmed the news to PCMag and said it will soon email users in the US.

The books that you already downloaded on your Kindle device won’t disappear after next month, but you won’t be able to connect to the network to buy, borrow or download new ones.

If you still have a book that you want to finish reading on one of these devices, make sure that you don’t deregister the device or do a factory reset. In the email shared by an Australian user on Reddit, Amazon says if you deregister or reset the device, you won’t be able to re-register the device or use it at all afterward.

A representative for Amazon has not yet responded to a request to comment from CNET.

The company also included a promo code in the email for 20% off select new Kindle devices and an ebook credit that’s added to your account after you purchase a new device. However, there’s no word on whether this discount is limited to Australia or if a version will be offered to US users.

Switching devices

Kindle devices released in 2012 or earlier will lose the ability to download books after May 20. The devices that will be affected are:

Kindle 1st and 2nd Generation
Kindle DX and DX Graphite
Kindle Keyboard
Kindle 4
Kindle Touch
Kindle 5
Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation

The first-generation model for Kindle was released in 2007, and e-readers have improved a bit in the time since. Amazon told Engadget that fewer than 3% of its users still use these old devices.

In the email to customers, the company said users will still be able to access their Kindle library and the Kindle store using the Android, iOS or desktop app. You can still read and download books by using the Kindle app on your phone or PC.

If this service loss feels like a good time to move on from the Kindle world, there are other e-reader options. Calibre is a free, open-source ebook manager that offers a range of features, like reading and organizing ebooks from multiple sources, as well as downloading news articles and websites.

If you’re looking for a newer Kindle model or a different reading tablet, check out the CNET list for this year’s best e-readers.

Technologies

Overwatch’s Next Hero Is Sierra, but Does That Mean the Rumors Were Wrong?

The new damage hero joins the roster next week, but lore and gameplay details are still under wraps.

After adding five new heroes in February, Overwatch just gave players another look at the new hero coming in season 2 next week. While we didn’t get gameplay details, the new hero trailer revealed that hero 51 is Sierra, and season 2 will be titled Summit.

The game dropped its first look at Sierra last week, and a few details in the new artwork seemed to be in line with expectations that she’s an ally of damage hero Ashe. Ashe’s Deadlock Gang is mentioned in the new trailer, although Sierra is working with Overwatch in trying to stop them. We don’t know yet whether Sierra has ties to other Overwatch heroes and factions.

Alec Dawson, Overwatch’s associate game director, said in February that the next hero would be another damage hero with a «really satisfying skill shot,» which we maybe glimpsed in the trailer when Sierra fires some kind of homing dart onto Emre after he steals something from Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. We also see her use a fully automatic rifle as well as tether to her drone for some aerial maneuvering, which could be hints at the rest of her kit.

While I do love a good skillshot, I also feel like the game has been struggling with damage hero releases over the past year — particularly heroes who have the ability to quickly eliminate someone out of nowhere. The newest damage heroes Anran and Emre didn’t have this problem, but the previous two, Freja and Vendetta, were consistently banned after release because of their quick time to kill, combined with their ability to consistently surprise enemies. I’m hoping Sierra’s skillshot is less bursty.

Even before the art was revealed last week, fans had started to speculate that Overwatch’s season 2 hero would be Frankie, a member of Ashe’s Deadlock Gang. She appeared in the Deadlock Rebels novel by Lyndsay Ely, which follows Ashe and the hero now known as Cassidy early in their outlaw careers. In the book, Frankie makes contact with the two characters by sending them a tiny fly-like drone — perhaps a smaller version of the drone in Sierra’s character art.

Respectfully… y’all aren’t ready for this one 😮‍💨🔥
Join us Apr 8 at 9am PT for the premiere of our latest Hero Trailer as we kick off the next chapter in the Reign of Talon 💪 pic.twitter.com/1Etxn68tax

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) March 31, 2026

The trailer shows Sierra working to stop the Deadlock Gang (who are helping Emre and Freja steal weapons for Talon), but it’s unclear whether Sierra is another character entirely or whether she’s Frankie after taking a different path.

The game’s Reign of Talon season 1 is wrapping up in the next week. The current season kicked off the year-long storyline about Vendetta taking over Talon and also introduced five new heroes into the roster. Devs have promised another new hero each season during the storyline, and today’s hero trailer gives us a few more hints about Sierra.