FromSoftware Won’t Build Games Around an Audience, Miyazaki Says
The director says The Duskbloods and Elden Ring Nightreign were planned independently, while FromSoftware remains focused on single-player games.
FromSoftware is not designing its games around a particular audience, even after Elden Ring became the studio’s biggest commercial success. President and longtime Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki says the team’s starting point is much more personal: creating something it genuinely wants to play.
In an IGN interview, Miyazaki explained that the studio does not begin development with a specific group of players in mind. “We don’t really have a set audience in mind at the start,” he said. “It’s very much showing that this is what I wanted to make; the motivation is that this is a game I want to see exist.”
The Duskbloods was not part of a larger multiplayer plan
The comments arrive after an unusual stretch for FromSoftware. Following Elden Ring in 2022, the studio released Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon in 2023, choosing to return to one of its older series instead of producing another fantasy RPG in the same mold.
Elden Ring Nightreign then pushed the Elden Ring formula toward multiplayer PvE through three-player expeditions and a condensed survival loop. Each three-day expedition features randomized maps, bosses, and loot, while the game can also be played offline in single-player. The Duskbloods is being built as a vampire-themed, multiplayer-first dark-fantasy action RPG combining PvP and PvE, and is planned for release later in 2026. Its Nintendo partnership also makes it FromSoftware’s first exclusive game since Bloodborne, with the project planned as a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive.
Miyazaki said the two multiplayer projects were not evidence of a studio-wide change. Nightreign and The Duskbloods had different directors, and their concepts happened to overlap in timing rather than following one coordinated strategy.
“There was never really any big plan that these two games [Nightreign and The Duskbloods] would both release next to each other,” Miyazaki said. “It’s not necessarily some big reveal saying that this is the direction we plan to go moving forward. We still have a heavy focus on single-player content as well.”
FromSoftware is still following its own ideas
The Duskbloods reportedly grew from concepts that had been discussed years earlier but did not fit the worlds or systems of Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls. That helps explain why the project looks so different from the studio’s recent single-player releases without pointing to a full change in priorities.
In a separate conversation with Inven Global, Miyazaki repeated that the studio’s approach had not changed: “We make the games we want to make.” He added that The Duskbloods entered development before Nightreign, even though Nightreign reached players first.
Miyazaki also said the team has enjoyed working on multiplayer and is looking forward to seeing how players respond. He described the experience of developing multiplayer for a long time as something that “scratches that itch only to want to make something single-player again.” The studio’s interest in that format is real, but its commitment to single-player games remains in place.
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The Duskbloods
Developed by FromSoftware
An online multiplayer PvPvE game where players vie for supremacy among themselves and against challenging foes. Play as the "Bloodsworn"; a group that has transcended human strength thanks to their special blood, and throw yourself into a violent fray for "First Blood" as the twilight of humanity approaches. The moontears will flow for one and one alone.
- Platforms Nintendo Switch 2
- Perspective Third person
- Modes Single player, Multiplayer
- Release December 31, 2026
- Publisher FromSoftware, Nintendo
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Age Rating
