The Nintendo Switch 2 May Pay a Heavy Toll if Duskbloods…

After waiting years for its leaks and rumors to materialize, the Nintendo Switch 2 is finally in players’ hands. It's still early, but after shattering multiple sales records in its first week, the Nintendo Switch 2 seems to have been worth the wait. There's more to come too, not only from additional first-party games in the Switch 2’s first year, but also in some later titles, The Duskbloods being chief among them. As FromSoftware’s next game, The Duskbloods has already turned many heads, but it's not just leaning on its legacy to succeed.

Like most of FromSoftware's games released since Demon’s Souls on the PlayStation 3, The Duskbloods follows the studio’s Soulslike formula, but not like any of its predecessors have. Following up Elden Ring Nightreign, which experimented with teams of players navigating a roguelike, Soulslike, and battle royale hybrid, The Duskbloods has eight players entering various maps to complete different objectives. Essentially, The Duskbloods is a compact extraction shooter merged with a Soulslike, and is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive on top of that. It’s a risky venture, and The Duskbloods’ success or failure could have wider consequences for its platform of choice.

The Duskbloods Could Be the Bloodborne Successor We've All Been Waiting For

A new FromSoftware title for the Nintendo Switch 2, The Duskbloods has more than a few callbacks to a classic Soulslike of the past decade.

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By Emma Neeson

The Duskbloods Releasing Exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 Is A Big Deal

Lots Of FromSoftware Fans Could Show Up For The Duskbloods Alone

That may sound like a stretch, especially given that The Duskbloods isn't even a first-party Switch 2 title, but FromSoftware has become a big deal in recent years thanks to Elden Ring selling over 20 million copies. Its name now carries enough weight to buoy atypical titles like Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon and Elden Ring Nightreign, and the same could happen to The Duskbloods. For a brand-new console like the Nintendo Switch 2, that's a big deal, as it means a fair number of people are going to buy a Switch 2 just to play The Duskbloods, at least initially.

Players that come in for The Duskbloods have the potential to stay in Nintendo’s ecosystem, especially now that the Nintendo Switch 2 is strong enough to run more multiplatform titles. There hasn't been a notable collaboration between FromSoftware and Nintendo until now, so The Duskbloods could also lead to more FromSoftware games either migrating to or being designed for Nintendo platforms. Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition is already joining Dark Souls Remastered on the Nintendo Switch family’s hardware, and there could be more where that came from if The Duskbloods guarantees that interested parties are present.

Poor Sales For The Duskbloods Could Hit The Switch 2 Hard

All of that is a big “if” right now, though, as The Duskbloods needs to prove itself. Having a compelling third-party game on the Switch 2 that brings its fans with it is a great proposition, but the game needs to be compelling for that to work, and The Duskbloods is not playing things safely. Many players come to FromSoftware titles for their single-player experience, and while The Duskbloods may have that, like Nightreign did, it doesn't appear to be designed for solo play, again like Nightreign. Thanks to its chosen genre, The Duskbloods already has a diminished pull on Soulslike players.

The Duskbloods Is Playing A Dangerous Game With The Switch 2’s Livelihood

More risks could also affect The Duskbloods’ success, including the extraction shooter genre only having a couple of long-term success stories like Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown, and the need to pay for Nintendo’s potentially rough online servers to try FromSoftware's potentially rough netcode. If these issues render The Duskbloods a failure, people who would have bought a Switch 2 for it wouldn't, and that's a hefty audience to lose. It’s also not a good look for one of the Switch 2’s biggest early third-party games to flop. The Duskbloods and the Nintendo Switch 2 have a lot to gain from mutual success, but just as much to lose.

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