Duskbloods (Fromsoft game, Switch 2 exclusive)

[Jamalisms]

I participated in the Duskbloods playtest on the Switch 2 this past weekend. Intriguing game Fromsoft has cooked up. 

 

It's a multiplayer game and they've got a handful of characters with different abilities (they each play pretty differently as a result). Gameplay loop is you basically just rush around, killing mobs to level/power up as fast as possible. But certain tasks also give you points and every 8 minutes or so the people with the lowest points are eliminated, so you've got to kind route yourself efficiently. At the end, it's 1v1v1 with two lives each and whoever wins that fight wins the game (about 30 mins / game). There are certain bosses that will trigger an option for others to teleport in and join you co-op to help you take it down and share points. Smaller bosses you just fight alone. You can also run into one another and PvP during the match with benefits from small to large depending on events that are live at a given time. And then there's also a summon that everyone can find in the map and level up over the course of the game (meaning 1v1v1 at the end is kinda 2v2v2 and it can be messy).

 

I played docked and performance was pretty good. A bit of input lag sometimes but mostly tolerable. People trying handheld seemed to report more issues.

[Jamalisms]

Forgot to add, this game has a lot of Bloodborne DNA. I happen to much prefer the build meta in Dark Souls over the gameplay of Bloodborne (which felt much more basic to me) but the character design and gameplay are definitely more in the vein of Bloodborne and the aesthetics have the gothic vibes people seemed to enjoy in Bloodborne.

 

One character (Jan) almost seems a "here, this guy is your Bloodborne default" feel.