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One of the biggest surprises of the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct this week was its exclusive FromSoftware reveal, The Duskbloods. It's a PvPvE game developed by the Soulsborne studio, but director Hidetaka Miyazaki said this doesn't mean the company has shifted direction moving forward.
In a new interview with Nintendo, Miyazaki spoke about the decision to make The Duskbloods a PvPvE game. The director said he's "always found" the structure interesting, as it allows for a broad range of game-design ideas while also letting FromSoftware leverage its experience in designing challenging enemy encounters.
"As a side note, please allow me to address one thing," Miyazaki said. "As we previously mentioned, this 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."
He continued: "The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Elden Ring was also announced, and we still intend to actively develop single-player focused games such as this that embrace our more traditional style."
Since the release of Elden Ring in February 2022, FromSoftware has certainly experimented a bit. Its DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, tried out some interesting new power scaling methods in the form of Scadutree Blessings. There's also Elden Ring: Nightreign, an upcoming co-op survival action game that blends the usual Souls style with an encroaching storm, loot, and character archetypes. The studio even went back to its mecha days with Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.
So with The Duskbloods, FromSoftware is trying something a little different again. In the interview, Miyazaki said the company's outline for The Duskbloods was "still very bare-bones" when the team presented it to Nintendo — "more a loose string of ideas than a proper presentation," and the concept was "different from anything [FromSoftware] had done before."
Nintendo was interested in making it happen though, and while a small team started the project for the original Switch, Nintendo approached FromSoft with the idea of moving to the Switch 2 instead. "The new hardware's focus on online features allowed us to stay as true to the original vision as possible, which was very good news for us," Miyazaki said.
So while The Duskbloods might be a little different from the usual FromSoftware game, it sounds like the studio isn't completely leaving the "traditional" style you'd expect behind. Put differently: let FromSoft cook on this one.
But what could FromSoft's next single-player focused game be? Miyazaki has said the developer is not currently considering making Elden Ring 2, but late last year left the door open to the possibility in the future. It's probably not Bloodborne 2, either, much to the frustration of fans.
For more on the Nintendo Switch 2, check out our round-up of everything announced at the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct this week, and read over our recent chat with analysts about the sticker-shock of both the Switch 2 console and some of its games.
Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.
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