FromSoftware’s first closed network test for The Duskbloods was supposed to be the moment the Switch 2 exclusive stopped being a trailer and started being a game people had actually played. Instead, the opening session on August 21 became several hours of players staring at a main menu while the login request failed over and over.
The session opened at 3:00 a.m. PDT (11am BST) and, as far as anyone could tell, essentially nobody got in. FromSoftware’s player support account acknowledged the problem publicly, saying it was “experiencing issues with logging into the ‘The Duskbloods’ Network Test Ver. game server” and asking for patience while it investigated.
Patience ran out first. Roughly two hours in, the studio gave up on the session entirely. “We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to those who were waiting for the first The Duskbloods network test due to game server issues,” it said. “We regret to inform you that today’s session is now closed. We will continue to work on improving the servers and will announce future schedules at a later date.”
Five windows, one very bad start
The test was structured as five four-hour windows spread across the weekend, deliberately staggered to cover different regions:
- Friday August 21, 3:00–7:00 a.m. PDT
- Friday August 21, 7:00–11:00 p.m. PDT
- Saturday August 22, 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. PDT
- Sunday August 23, 3:00–7:00 a.m. PDT
- Sunday August 23, 7:00–11:00 p.m. PDT
Sign-ups ran from July 22 to July 28, with selected participants notified on August 7. It was Switch 2 only — original Switch owners were never eligible — and it was closed, meaning the pool was already deliberately limited. Which is precisely what makes the login failure sting. This was a controlled population on a single platform, and the servers still folded on contact.
The mitigating read is that this is exactly what a network test is for. Finding out that your login service cannot survive a few thousand simultaneous Switch 2 consoles in August is considerably better than finding out in front of everyone at launch. The uncomfortable read is that FromSoftware has never had to run infrastructure like this before, and The Duskbloods is entirely built on it.
Miyazaki spent the weekend explaining the matchmaking
While the servers were being sorted out, the embargo on hands-on previews lifted, and Hidetaka Miyazaki used the interview run to address the question that has followed the game since its reveal: what stops a PvPvE FromSoftware game from becoming a slaughterhouse for anyone who is not already excellent at FromSoftware games?
The answer is skill-based matchmaking, stated plainly. “We definitely plan on having the matchmaking system work in a way so that it’s ranked,” Miyazaki told IGN, “and players who are really good tend to be matched with other players who are great, and players who are new tend to be matched with other new players.”
That is a notably unambiguous position for a studio whose multiplayer has historically been defined by the possibility of running into someone vastly better than you. Miyazaki framed it as a two-sided problem rather than a newbie-protection measure: the aim is for the system “to be positive for both players,” with “veterans to feel like they’re contributing to the newcomers and the newcomers to feel like they’re being accepted and having fun with others.” The failure state he named was segregation — “making sure they’re not split to where they don’t want to interact with each other.”
Matchmaking will also weigh playstyle and preference, pooling like-minded players rather than sorting purely on win rate. And for anyone who wants none of it, private lobbies with friends are confirmed.
What the previews actually revealed
The hands-on coverage filled in a lot of blanks. Matches run around 30 minutes and are structured closer to a battle royale than anything FromSoftware has shipped before: players accumulate Virtue through PvE objectives, eliminations happen at two set intervals, and the last three standing fight it out in a final arena.
Crucially, dying during the main rounds does not remove you — you respawn. Only the final phase is properly lethal, and even there you get three lives before elimination. It is a much gentler failure structure than the studio’s reputation would suggest.
Six characters were playable in the test build, and they are considerably stranger than the marketing implied: Albert with dual sabers and a submachine gun, Bloodhand Jan with an axe and fire, Senator Samir Patres wielding a rapier and turning into a dinosaur, Trang Lanh with a ring blade and invisibility, Sniper Layla with a rifle and an insect swarm, and Zork, who fights with electric cables and missiles.
Every character can bite a staggered enemy’s neck to drain blood, dealing damage and restoring health, and weaker enemies bitten this way convert into temporary allies. Players can propose temporary alliances that prevent mutual damage until the final round dissolves them, and a Duos mode makes those partnerships permanent. Summonable NPC companions called Kin emerge from portals and grow stronger over the course of a match — the roster reportedly includes a suplexing singing monster and a fireball mage.
Sigils hand out specific objectives mid-match, like killing a particular player or forming an alliance, and pay out substantial Virtue when completed. Three maps are in rotation, transformed mid-match by events such as rains of fire and lightning teleportation. Character customisation was not in the preview build but is confirmed for launch.
Still no date
The Duskbloods remains scheduled for a worldwide 2026 release on Nintendo Switch 2 with no specific day attached. A September 24 date circulated recently and was reported in error; treat it as unconfirmed.
FromSoftware has not yet announced when the rescheduled network test sessions will run, saying only that it will share dates once server work progresses. Given that the whole point of the exercise was to stress the infrastructure, the studio arguably got its answer — just not in the shape it wanted.
Miyazaki also used the previews to head off the obvious worry, stressing that FromSoftware is not pivoting away from single-player. Making a multiplayer game, he suggested, mostly makes you want to go and make a single-player one again.
