There’s been some (rightful) confusion around The Duskbloods and what it actually is, largely thanks to FromSoftware’s general reluctance to talk about their next big swing. Aside from a few trailers that are even more cryptic than the studio’s usual fare, Miyazaki and co have been generally vague about the experience. This is notable for a few reasons: one being that The Duskbloods is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, but also because this is Miyazaki’s first directorial credit since 2022’s Elden Ring, some four years ago – not an insignificant amount of time when you look at how frequently he was directing in the 2010s.
Instead of a slow drip-feed of information like we’d normally get, though, FromSoftware is pulling back the curtains in a big way with a closed network test. After spending eight or so hours with The Duskbloods, I’ve come away wanting to play more. It’s a strange and experimental game, melding seemingly disparate elements into a cohesive multiplayer experience that feels like it could only be cooked up by FromSoftware. In saying that, there’re some big fat question marks around a few key elements of the experience that need to be answered for The Duskbloods to succeed in a big way.
The Duskbloods is set during events known as the Twilight of Humanity – end times set in different eras and places where Bloodsworn are summoned to compete for First Blood. While the full game will launch with more maps with distinct architecture and design language, the network test only features one map, Lowanro City. Lowanro City is a grim and gothic Victorian setting, fitting the game’s vampiric inspirations like a glove. It’s a layered and complex map, hiding secrets everywhere, from its sewers all the way to the top of its monolithic bell tower.
The gist of it is that you’ll compete against other Bloodsworn in a PVPVE match that’s comprised of four phases. The first three have you competing for Virtue through various means, with the lowest-scoring Bloodsworn getting culled from the match at the end of phases two and three. The top three Bloodsworn are dumped into an arena for phase four, where they duke it out for victory. To help you in combat and get around the map, every character has a quadruple jump, as well as an air-dash, making for thrilling movement in and out of combat.
It sounds simple, but the depth comes in how you can accrue Virtue. Repulsion Virtue, for example, is earned by felling powerful foes and bosses, while Flame Virtue is collected by finding unlit braziers in a specific area of the map. Phases two and three up the ante further by introducing Pledge Sites, where you can Pledge to monuments in a specified portion of the map for a large amount of Pledge Virtue, the trade-off being that you’re often clashing with other players in PVP. PVP is usually pointless in these early phases, but getting kills in Pledge zones also scores you Virtue.
Another layer of depth comes through the Bloodsworn. They aren’t too dissimilar from the Nightfarers in Elden Ring Nightreign, each with preset loadouts featuring their own melee weapon, ranged abilities, alongside passive and active skills that determine their playstyle. The charming Albert wields a saber and a submachine gun, with ranged blood slashes and arcane magic for his skills, whereas Zork relies on his huge stature to stagger enemies by turning into a literal human rocket. They’re all a great deal of fun to play with, and I can’t wait to see what other Bloodsworn will come with the full release.
Perhaps the most experimental aspects of The Duskbloods come in the form of its social elements. You can propose alliances with Bloodsworn you run into in the wild, which automatically disband upon the commencement of phase four, and the biggest bosses send out a cooperation request to all remaining Bloodsworn when encountered, meaning everyone can cash in on the Repulsion Virtue. These things aside, the other way Miyazaki shakes up the social part of the game is through Sigils.
Sigils are goals you can complete within matches to net additional Virtue, and they often encourage you to interact with other Bloodsworn. There are simple ones, like hunting down a specific Bloodsworn on the map, but others will ask you to find a long-lost love and enter an alliance with them. It creates some unique and emergent gameplay moments, and the network test supposedly only features a few Sigils, with more on the way that are supposed to be even more outlandish in their requirements.
While I enjoyed this core loop once it clicked, I do wonder how much retention The Duskbloods is going to have. As a point of comparison, Elden Ring Nightreign tasks you with taking down all the Nightlords, The Duskbloods is strictly focused on the core PVPVE mode. I’m sure that has a great deal of appeal to Souls PVP diehards, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a broader narrative or meta-progression around it all. I’m not saying there has to be, but with an already limited pool of players due to platform exclusivity, The Duskbloods needs to make sure it finds a player base and keeps it engaged.
My other major point of concern lies with The Duskbloods’ technical state. While I’m fully aware that this is a network test, it can’t be stressed enough how important a high framerate is for a competitive experience like this. While docked seems to be uncapped and sits at around 40 FPS, handheld usually hovers at about 30. The game looks great so far, and it’s lovely to be back in an environment adjacent to the gothic horrors of Bloodborne, but I’d much prefer the experience to be smooth as opposed to pretty when things get white-knuckled.
A different side of this is the netcode and online performance, which isn’t great. It’s definitely functional – I never had any disconnects or excessive lag and always managed to find a match. The issues lie primarily within latency and input delay. Aside from it feeling janky in the way Souls PVP often does with input delay, there are so many times that I dodged something on my screen, only to get hit by it anyway. It doesn’t feel great to die to Zork’s Human Rocket when you see him clearly fly right on past you.
My urge to play more of The Duskbloods in spite of these issues shows how strong the core idea is. It’s a novel gameplay loop that I’m genuinely interested to see develop in the final release with more Bloodsworn, Sigils, and maps. I can only hope that its technical shortcomings are rectified to preserve the integrity of its competitive PVP nature, and that there’s deeper motivation to keep coming back when I otherwise would’ve had my fill.
The Duskbloods is launching in 2026 for Nintendo Switch 2.
