Dark Souls developer FromSoftware surprised fans — and perplexed some — with this week’s reveal of a new competitive multiplayer game for Switch 2, The Duskbloods. Alongside Elden Ring Nightreign, it’s the second multiplayer-forward game coming from the studio, which is best-known for its immersive role-playing games.
But there’s a reason why The Duskbloods director Hidetaka Miyazaki is focusing heavily on competitive multiplayer. In a new interview with Nintendo, the game director and FromSoftware president says, “I’ve always found the PvPvE structure very interesting. It allows for a broad range of game-design ideas, while also letting us leverage our experience of designing challenging enemy encounters.”
Miyazaki unpacks those game design ideas in the interview, saying that the playable characters in The Duskbloods, which are known as Bloodsworn, have abilities that lend themselves to multiplayer action, including dashes, double jumps, and long-range attacks.
The Duskbloods’ setting, he says, “allows for the depiction of firearms and such, and every character is equipped with some means of attacking from a distance. I feel this is one of the game’s unique aspects when compared with our previous titles. I hope these new action elements are one area that players will enjoy.”
The eight-player PvPvE structure of The Duskbloods will follow a last-player standing rule set, for the most part. But the win conditions in the game’s multiplayer matches vary; players may need to eliminate a specific player or team up with another to take down a boss. Or, they may receive new orders from that creepy moon with wings seen in the game’s reveal trailer.
Miyazaki says that, like past FromSoftware titles, “We’ve therefore designed the PvE boss encounters to present a tough challenge and a sense of accomplishment upon defeating them.”
He also confesses to being “not much of a PvP person,” explaining that The Duskbloods’ boss battles should satisfy the FromSoftware fans who come to their games for PvE. “Regardless of whether it’s PvP or PvE, the idea is to provide players with an experience that allows them to learn and hone their skills as they play,” Miyazaki says.
Miyazaki also acknowledges the PvP haters, promising that FromSoftware is not retreating from the tough, single-player focused games that made the studio a household name. “[The Duskbloods] is an online multiplayer title at its core, but this doesn’t mean that we as a company have decided to shift to a more multiplayer-focused direction with titles going forward,“ Miyazaki says. “We still intend to actively develop single player focused games such as [Elden Ring] that embrace our more traditional style.“
FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is coming to Switch 2 sometime in 2025 with an updated Tarnished Edition. The Duskbloods will be released in 2026.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-switch-2/553022/duskbloods-pvpve-from-software-interview-multiplayer
