Frequent FromSoftware director and Dark Souls mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki insists that the iconic studio still plans on creating single-player-focused games like the ones that made it a household name, despite Elden Ring Nightreign and The Duskbloods' going down the multiplayer route.
Elden Ring Nightreign is, of course, an upcoming co-op take on the studio's mammoth open-world romp that sees up to three players battling enemies, collecting loot, and trying to defeat an end boss before bringing their valuable rewards back to a homebase. It seemed like a quirky experiment from the studio and a good excuse to re-use some Elden Ring assets.
But heads turned when it was recently announced that The Duskbloods – the next game from the director of Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, and Elden Ring – was also a multiplayer-oriented PvPvE game, making it seem like online games were the company's new MO.
Speaking in an Creator's Voice Nintendo blog, Hidetaka Miyazaki explains that that's not the case. "As a side note, please allow me to address one thing," he says. "As 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. 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."
So, why was The Duskbloods made to be a multiplayer game in the first place? Miyazaki explains he's always found PvPvE games "very interesting" because they "allow for a broad range of game design ideas, while also letting us leverage our experience of designing challenging enemy encounters." And if you don't really play FromSoft games to get beat up by other people, don't worry – there's lots of objectives around the map that don't involve PvP, and some matches even make you team up with friendly faces.
See what other upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games are joining The Duskbloods next year.
