Elden Ring Nightreign: Beating the Great Hollow Crystal Curse

The Great Hollow in Elden Ring: Nightreign – The Forsaken Hollows is one of the DLC’s most distinctive events. It adds a roguelike-style exploration zone with a nasty twist: a Crystal Curse that can permanently halve your maximum HP in certain regions until you complete a specific objective. Unless you understand how this mechanic works, it is very easy to wander into the wrong castle, wonder why your health bar suddenly shrank, and get obliterated by enemies that would normally be manageable.

This guide explains in detail how the Great Hollow event functions, how the crystal curse is applied, where to find the resonating crystals you need, and how to unlock the Favor of the Great Hollow buff that lets you ignore the debuff and fully explore the cursed areas.

Overview: What Is the Great Hollow Event?

The Great Hollow is a large, self-contained event zone in the Forsaken Hollows DLC map. Think of it as a repeatable challenge area layered over the open world, with a central objective that alters the rules of play while you are within its influence. As you move through the Forsaken Hollows, you will see a vast chasm-like area dominated by a colossal blue crystal in the middle of the map. That is the Great Hollow’s focal point, and it is tied directly to the crystal curse.

Key traits of the Great Hollow event include:

• Large central crystal: A massive crystal at the center of the map, initially inert and sealed.
• Resonating crystals: Medium-sized blue crystals scattered across the Great Hollow area that you must shatter or interact with.
• Area-based HP debuff: Entering certain major points of interest before resolving the event applies a harsh maximum HP reduction.
• Permanent rewards: Completing the event grants Favor of the Great Hollow along with other high-value items.

Although the event is embedded in the world like any other region, its structure echoes roguelike design: you make repeated trips, gradually learn the layout, unlock shortcuts, and optimize your route to the objective. This mirrors the way FromSoftware has historically folded experimental structures into their action-RPG design, particularly with DLC that adds layered challenge encounters and new progression vectors.¹

Understanding the Crystal Curse

The centerpiece mechanic of the Great Hollow is the Crystal Curse. It is not a simple status ailment like poison or bleed; instead, it functions as an area-specific debuff that dramatically alters your survivability while you remain within affected zones.

How the Curse Works

When active, the curse:

• Reduces your maximum HP by approximately 50%. Your health bar is effectively halved compared to its normal length.
• Applies only in marked regions. The debuff triggers when you cross into specific castles and strongholds tied to the Great Hollow.
• Persists while you stay inside the cursed area. Leaving the afflicted zone restores your HP cap, but returning will reapply the curse until it is broken permanently.

This design is meant to push you away from certain high-level locations until you engage with the Great Hollow event. It has a similar gating effect to other FromSoftware mechanics, such as enemy scaling or key-locked shortcuts, but executed through a visible, mechanical debuff. Developer interviews and prior FromSoftware design analysis have highlighted how they use soft gates like this to subtly direct players without hard-locking content behind linear walls.²

Where the Curse Applies

While the exact map layout is unique to Nightreign, players generally report that the curse affects:

• A large fortified castle complex in the southeastern region of the Forsaken Hollows map.
• A second castle and adjacent tower to the northwest within the broader Great Hollow zone.

Both of these areas contain tougher enemies, field bosses, and major loot. Entering them before resolving the crystal objective turns every encounter into a high-risk fight where even minor mistakes can be fatal due to your reduced HP pool.

Resonating Crystals: The Key to the Puzzle

At the heart of the event is a simple but easy-to-miss puzzle: the central Great Crystal can only be accessed after you deal with a series of resonating crystals scattered around the area.

How Many Crystals You Need

Across multiple community guides and gameplay footage, players have observed that:

• In solo play, you typically need to interact with or destroy three resonating crystals to unlock the central crystal.
• In some co-op or group runs, the requirement can increase to four crystals, reflecting how FromSoftware often scales objective thresholds for multiplayer to maintain challenge.

Because the game’s messaging is intentionally vague, it is best to assume you may need up to four crystals in group sessions. In solo, you can usually consider three your baseline goal.

Identifying the Correct Crystals

The Great Hollow contains many crystalline objects, but only some of them count toward the event. The relevant crystals generally share these traits:

• Dark blue coloration: They are deeper and darker than the ambient crystals dotting the environment.
• Medium size: Larger than small shards but smaller than the colossal central crystal.
• Distinct sound and interaction prompt: When you get close, you may hear a faint humming and receive an interaction prompt or break animation.

Later in the cycle, the game assists you by marking these crystals on the map, signalling where you can progress. This mirrors map-marking conventions used in many modern open-world titles to steer players toward side objectives once they have explored organically.³

Step-by-Step: How to Break the Crystal Curse

To dispel the crystal curse and unlock the full benefits of the Great Hollow, you need to work through a sequence of actions. Below is a concise route you can adapt to your build and comfort level.

1. First Entry: Avoid Cursed Castles

On your initial arrival in the Forsaken Hollows and Great Hollow zone:

• Stay clear of the large southeastern and northwestern castles until you deal with the central event.
• Focus instead on peripheral camps, open fields, and minor ruins to gather runes, early gear, and upgrade materials.
• Look for early Sites of Grace around the perimeter to establish fast-travel points.

This early diplomacy with the map—probing the edges before diving deeper—is a key part of how FromSoftware expects players to acclimate to DLC difficulty spikes. Their prior expansions, like Dark Souls III: The Ringed City, do something similar by presenting tough enemies that reward cautious pathing and gradual mastery.⁴

2. Hunt Down Resonating Crystals

Once you have a basic foothold:

• Scout the outer and mid layers of the Great Hollow, watching for dark blue medium-sized crystals.
• Whenever you find one that offers an interaction or shatters when attacked, make sure to fully complete the interaction until any on-screen confirmation appears.
• Prioritize staying alive over speed; losing a large rune stash early can slow your progress significantly.

Repeat this process until you have triggered at least three crystals (or four in group play). You will know you are done when you receive a notification that the central Great Crystal reacts or the crystal visibly changes in the distance.

3. Return to the Central Great Crystal

After meeting the resonating crystal requirement, head to the middle of the Great Hollow where the enormous central crystal is located. You will notice visual changes—cracks, altered light, or particle effects—indicating it is now active.

Approach the crystal carefully:

• Use Spirit Springs and elevated roots or ledges to reach the crystal safely.
• Take out nearby enemies or ranged threats before stepping onto the crystal’s surface.
• Interact with the crystal or simply stand on its trigger point, depending on how your game presents the prompt.

Completing this interaction rewards you with Favor of the Great Hollow, and the Crystal Curse is considered broken for the afflicted areas.

Rewards: Favor of the Great Hollow and More

Finishing the Great Hollow’s Shifting Earth event is about more than just getting rid of an annoying debuff. The rewards you receive can meaningfully change how you approach the rest of the DLC.

The signature reward, Favor of the Great Hollow, also includes a buff to your Ultimate Art gauge when all Sacred Flasks are empty, incentivizing aggressive play in protracted battles and rewarding players who push a fight to the edge rather than retreating immediately.

Strategy Tips: Making the Most of Your First Run

The Great Hollow is designed to be replayed and re-routed as you learn it, but there are a few strategic guidelines that make the very first run far smoother.

Recommended Early Priorities

• Secure healing and resources: Track down additional Sacred Flasks, upgrade materials, and basic utility items before diving deep into the Hollow.
• Boost defensive stats: Investing in Vigor before and during your first Great Hollow foray helps offset the difficulty spikes and makes post-curse exploration much safer.
• Experiment with mobility tools: Spirit Springs, Torrent’s jump, and vertical routes are crucial for both reaching crystals and escaping bad fights.

Build Considerations in Cursed Zones

If you insist on tackling cursed castles before breaking the crystal:

• Favor ranged or hybrid builds that can pick off threats without trading hits.
• Use summons or spirit ashes to absorb damage your halved HP bar cannot afford.
• Stack damage mitigation talismans and armor; with half HP, effective damage reduction becomes much more valuable.

However, for most players, the safer and more efficient approach is to clear the crystal objective first and only then attempt full clears of cursed areas.

Post-Curse: Exploring Cursed Castles and Towers

Once the curse is broken and Favor of the Great Hollow is active, the previously lethal castles become challenging but fair endgame-style dungeons. At this stage, your priorities shift:

• Clean up remaining bosses within the formerly cursed areas to collect unique weapons, spells, and upgrade items.
• Seek out Dormant Power and other DLC-specific progression currencies to further enhance your build.
• Experiment with Weapon Duplication and your newly acquired rune-like reward to tailor your setup.

The Great Hollow event thus serves two roles in the DLC’s pacing: first as a soft gate that shapes your early path, and later as a power spike that primes you for the toughest late-game encounters the Forsaken Hollows can throw at you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to complete the Great Hollow to finish the DLC?

Strictly speaking, no single side event is usually required to complete a FromSoftware DLC, and the Great Hollow appears to follow that tradition. However, skipping it means:

• You will miss Favor of the Great Hollow and other major rewards.
• Exploring certain castles remains significantly harder due to the permanent HP debuff while inside.

For most players, completing the event is strongly recommended.

Can I remove the crystal curse in any other way?

No consumable, spell, or talisman is known to cancel the crystal curse. It is tied directly to the event state of the Great Hollow. The only way to disable it permanently is to trigger enough resonating crystals and then interact with the central Great Crystal to gain Favor of the Great Hollow.

What happens if I die while the curse is active?

You still follow standard Elden Ring rules:

• Your runes drop at the place of death.
• The cursed area remains cursed until the event is completed.
• Re-entering the cursed zone re-applies the HP debuff until the curse is broken.

Is the curse harder in co-op?

The crystal curse’s effect (halving HP in specific areas) is the same, but co-op sessions may require one extra resonating crystal to unlock the central Great Crystal. Enemy health and aggro are also naturally tougher in multiplayer, which compounds the impact of having half a health bar.

Can I repeat the Great Hollow event?

You cannot reapply the original crystal curse once it has been dispelled, but you can revisit the Great Hollow for farming, exploration, and to experiment with different routes. The buffs and permanent rewards remain unlocked for your character once obtained.