The Duskbloods Turns Eight-Player PvPvE Into a Ruthless Virtue Race

The Duskbloods is not Elden Ring with eight players dropped into the same open world. Its competitive structure makes every fight a scoring decision: players need Virtue to survive the culls, while direct PvP pays off only under specific ritual conditions.

Each Dusk Battle begins with eight Bloodsworn and runs through four timed phases. Death is not immediate elimination; players respawn with their Virtue intact. The decisive cuts happen between rounds: the two lowest scorers fall after phase two, three more are removed after phase three, and the final three enter the Moon Blood Bestowal duel. That turns the match into a race for objectives rather than a conventional battle-royale kill count.

Virtue comes from several routes. Sigils give each fixed network-test character a personal task, ranging from revenge targets to a marriage proposal. Players can also collect items, defeat AI enemies and bosses, capture ritual points, or pursue specialized Virtue types. Pledge Virtue comes from holding an altar for roughly 10 seconds, while Sword Virtue requires defeating another player inside a ritual circle. Outside those zones, player kills do not award Sword Virtue, preventing the whole map from becoming a permanent gankfest.

The combat still carries FromSoftware’s familiar weight, but mobility is far less grounded than Dark Souls. Bloodsworn can vertical jump, triple jump and air-dash across the map. Zork uses an electrified undersea cable, jetpack movement and missiles; sniper Layla swaps between a rifle and close-range blades; Trang Lanh can summon a snake. Players also level during a match, gaining health, stamina and new abilities, while summonable kin can provide attack or support utility.

Random events, including zeppelin strikes and teleporting lightning storms, further disrupt route planning. Ritual zones also damage anyone outside their boundary, forcing late-phase encounters into contested spaces where altars, buffs and PvP objectives collide.

The network test runs August 21-24 in five four-hour sessions for selected Nintendo Switch 2 owners with Nintendo Switch Online. The key issue to watch is whether Virtue objectives create meaningful alliances and betrayals, or simply funnel every match into the same ritual-site brawl.