What Elden Ring Nightreign Players Should Expect From The Duskbloods

The Duskbloods is quite an interesting FromSoftware project, even if its multiplayer-centric formula isn’t so shocking in the wake of Elden Ring Nightreign. Like Nightreign, The Duskbloods is designed around co-op exploration and combat, but it has a number of important differences that promise to set it apart from anything FromSoft has ever done before, for better or worse.

I’m not just referring to the fact that The Duskbloods is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, either. Of course, this alone is rather fascinating. FromSoftware has shied away from console exclusives since the release of Demon’s Souls on the PS3, with the only exception being Bloodborne for the PS4 in 2015. Especially notable is that these two exclusives were for Sony platforms, and that most FromSoftware games don’t ever release on Nintendo’s systems, regardless of their availability elsewhere. At any rate, this new territory isn’t all that’s worth talking about, and if you’re a fan of Elden Ring Nightreign, you may be surprised to learn just how different The Duskbloods purports to be.

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I’d still be skeptical about the Nintendo Switch 2 if it wasn’t for one exclusive, but even then, I wonder if I’ll be met with disappointment.

The Duskbloods Is a Co-Op Multiplayer Game

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The Duskbloods is indeed a multiplayer game with baked-in PvPvE, as opposed to Elden Ring Nightreign’s more straightforward PvE structure. Like in Nightreign, The Duskbloods will ask each participant to select a character before embarking on a level, although even this element is a bit different in the upcoming game (more on that in a bit).

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

The PvPvE structure of The Duskbloods is fundamentally different from that of Nightreign, not only because players can fight each other, but also because matches can support up to eight players instead of just three. Moreover, different matches present different victory conditions. For instance, there are PvP matches that reward the “last man standing,” but also more cooperative matches, where victory hinges upon defeating a boss as a group. Duskbloods also features a hub area where players can customize different characters, although it’s not yet clear what exactly this will look like.

Despite releasing so shortly after the multiplayer-oriented Nightreign, The Duskbloods does not indicate a greater shift towards multiplayer games for FromSoftware, according to Hidetaka Miyazaki.

The Duskbloods Will Feature Multiple Playable Superhuman Characters

The other obvious parallel between The Duskbloods and Elden Ring Nightreign, as previously mentioned, is a diverse cast of playable characters. In The Duskbloods, these avatars are called Bloodsworn, beings augmented with “special blood” that gives them powerful superhuman abilities. This will manifest in gameplay, which Miyazaki describes as “more dramatic than anything seen” in previous FromSoftware titles.

These “dramatic” actions include a double jump and a “super jump,” which sounds like some kind of especially big leap, perhaps on a cooldown or activated after a charge-up sequence. When discussing these elements, Miyazaki said that they are “designed to be dynamic and stress-free,” suggesting greater freedom of movement and less of an emphasis on stamina management. Assuming this is the case, it’s a natural progression from Elden Ring Nightreign, whose Surge Sprint mechanic allows players to cover great distances with ease and without having to worry about endurance. Blending these elements with diverse character archetypes should make The Duskbloods considerably more mechanically distinct than Nightreign, which is simply an Elden Ring spin-off.

The Duskbloods Will Have an Original Story in a New FromSoftware World

The most exciting part of The Duskbloods, to me at least, is that it is a brand-new FromSoftware story and world. Naturally, this distinguishes it greatly from Elden Ring Nightreign, whose additions to Elden Ring lore are cursory at best. In typical FromSoftware fashion, details about Duskbloods‘ story are scant, although we do know that it will revolve around the “Twilight of Humanity,” and that the game’s heroes are competing for “First Blood” across a variety of different locations and time periods. It’s essentially a time-travel adventure narrative with a Gothic vampire theme, which sounds very cool indeed.

It also sounds a lot like Bloodborne, FromSoftware’s beloved but oft-neglected PS4 exclusive. That game has the same dark, Victorian-inspired aesthetic and blood-centric symbolism as Duskbloods, but with a famous dive into Lovecraftian horror around its midpoint. Perhaps The Duskbloods will feature similar cosmic-scale themes in addition to its obvious vampiric references—the game’s emphasis on the end of humanity and the creepy moon-like being depicted in its reveal trailer certainly seems to indicate as much.

And after two non-Miyazaki FromSoftware games in a row (Armored Core 6, Elden Ring Nightreign), the auteur director is returning for Duskbloods. Miyazaki is credited with effectively inventing FromSoft’s singular style of storytelling, and he’s intimated that this formula will return in The Duskbloods, saying that the game will feature a breadcrumb-style narrative delivered via small clues that players have to piece together themselves, with a lot of aspects presumably left up to interpretation. One interesting departure is that storytelling will be decidedly character-centric, with character customization items revealing lore about a given Bloodsworn’s fate and history.