Earlier today, a wave of hands-on previews for FromSoftware's The Duskbloods went up around the internet. One of them claimed that the upcoming Switch 2 game is due to be released on September 24. Now, Nintendo says that information is "inaccurate," but it's done so in the least convincing way possible.
"The release date is inaccurate because there is no information regarding [the] release date of the Duskbloods," a Nintendo spokesperson tells Eurogamer. I don't know about you, but that's such a bizarrely specific framing that it almost inclines me to believe that the September 24 date is real. Like yeah, sure, maybe the date is "inaccurate" in Nintendo's eyes because it's not officially been revealed yet.
At least, that was my first reaction – my less conspiratorial side is starting to win out. The September 24 date was originally published in a Duskbloods preview by The Guardian, as a footnote at the end of the article. Author Kirk McKeand later posted on Bluesky that "the editor added that in by mistake. It's not accurate and they're amending it."
In my mind, there are two possibilities for how this date slipped into that preview. One is that September 24 is the real release date, and it was meant to be revealed as part of a later embargo. The other is that an under-informed editor thought the article should note the game's release date, then somehow stumbled upon an inaccurate date and simply inserted it. There are, after all, plenty of other notable games launching on September 24, including Control Resonant and Silent Hill: Downfall, so there's plenty of room for confusion.
Ultimately, I do now think the release date was a true mistake, not a leak. Since the launch of the first Switch, Nintendo has tended to release one game per month for the platform. The Duskbloods isn't technically a first-party launch, but it is a big Switch 2 exclusive that Nintendo is marketing heavily. I suspect that the company's partnership with FromSoftware goes far enough that neither would want to step on the other's toes – and with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave set to be released on September 17, a September 24 launch for The Duskbloods would certainly be a poor dance partner.
The Duskbloods is officially set to launch in 2026, but we've not yet gotten any information more specific than that. There are only two months in Nintendo's 2026 release calendar left unaccounted for, and only two big 2026 Switch 2 games left to fill them. I think the real question is whether we're getting The Duskbloods or the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake first.
