The Duskbloods Network Test Crashed After 2 Hours, But FromSoftware's New Game Is Winning Praise

The first session of The Duskbloods' closed network test, FromSoftware's new game for Nintendo Switch 2, collapsed after two hours under overloaded servers. Players couldn't log in from the moment the test opened on August 21 until the studio closed the session and pushed it back to that same evening. The rest of the weekend's schedule, four more test windows running through August 23, went off without major outages, and the game itself, once it was actually playable, picked up fairly positive first impressions.

The demand behind the test says a lot about how much FromSoftware now has riding on the launch of a brand-new IP: sign-ups for The Duskbloods reportedly outnumbered those for Elden Ring Nightreign, the studio's current multiplayer hit.

It's also the first time since Bloodborne that FromSoftware has tied one of its major releases to a single platform instead of launching multiplatform from day one. The Duskbloods is a console exclusive for Nintendo Switch 2, which makes it one of the console's more important image-defining titles, not just another game in the studio's catalog.

What it actually is: eight players, four phases, one crown

The Duskbloods is an eight-player PvPvE game in which every match, called a Dusk Battle, unfolds across four phases with escalating pressure toward elimination. Players pick one of a dozen-plus vampire-like fighters called Bloodsworn, each with a unique weapon and skill set, then farm a resource called Virtue by killing other players and bosses, exploring the map, and finding Virtue-marked corpses. Winning takes three survivors, not one, which is exactly why temporary alliances and betrayal are built into the core loop rather than bolted on.

Each player's personal goal, called a Sigil, can get genuinely strange: one objective available in the test asks a player to "marry" another participant and stay bonded to them until the final phase, while another casts them as a heretic hunter stalking specific people in the lobby. None of that could really be judged from trailers alone - it needed hands-on time, which is exactly why this particular network test mattered more than a standard promotional demo.

What held up, and what still raises questions

Outlets and players with test access mostly praised the smoothness of it: the netcode held up well even in full eight-player fights, an above-average result for a network test. Reviewers also liked that the game doesn't feel like a copy of anything already out there - the non-linear path to victory and the phase structure make a Dusk Battle read as something distinct from a standard battle royale.

There are real concerns too. Character progression through so-called Blood Rose upgrades leans toward incremental stat boosts rather than playstyle-altering changes, which some testers read as a risk of repetitiveness over a longer session. Ranged weapons and skills came across noticeably stronger than melee in player feedback, to the point where PvP duels sometimes turn into a jumping-and-shooting exchange instead of the close-quarters sword fights the studio is known for.

A failure FromSoftware has already been through once

The server crash on day one already has a precedent in the studio's own history - the exact same thing happened during the Elden Ring Nightreign network test, and FromSoftware made up for it back then with an extra, unplanned test session. Seeing the same problem repeat on a brand-new IP suggests demand keeps outpacing the studio's infrastructure planning, not that this was a one-off incident.

For anyone weighing a purchase, the practical read is simple: The Duskbloods' actual launch day could inherit the same server strain seen here, just at a larger scale. FromSoftware has a track record of shipping on schedule even after rocky tests, so the more likely outcome is a release that holds its date while the studio patches infrastructure live, rather than a delay.