*The Duskbloods* Exclusivity Has Angered Players — Will It Really Backfire This Time?

The moonlight lay like a very thin layer of frost, settling on the cloak, the stone steps, and the edges of the ruins, giving the whole promotional image a quality that makes you instinctively stop to take a screenshot. As someone who looks for camera spots first whenever entering a new map, I admit that The Duskbloods is attractive at first glance. Its cool tones and sense of oppression feel like the wind of a late autumn dawn brushing against your skin. But this time, what exploded around it first was not its art, atmosphere, or music, but a more practical issue: it is a Switch 2 exclusive.

Based on the information currently available, FromSoftware’s new Switch 2 exclusive has been generating a lot of discussion lately, but the sentiment from overseas players has been far from friendly. The core of the controversy is not complicated: many people immediately think of Bloodborne being stuck on the Sony platform for all these years, with remasters and new versions always seeming endlessly out of reach. Against that backdrop, FS choosing exclusivity once again naturally feels like an old wound being torn open. As a result, a large amount of boycott rhetoric has appeared on social media, with some of it even aimed directly at Hidetaka Miyazaki himself.

Some people say that even if they like FromSoftware’s games, they will not buy a Switch 2 for The Duskbloods, and will use their actions to express that refusal. There are even harsher remarks, such as “I hope this game fails completely so Miyazaki never dares make an exclusive again.” At that point, it is no longer just disappointment, but more like hard ice after a cold wave rolls in—an extremely blunt expression of emotion. Another line of criticism frames the issue more broadly: now that Elden Ring has already proven FS to have global-level influence, what people expect are multiplatform works aimed at more players, not another barrier being erected.

Returning to the game itself, this is exactly where The Duskbloods is most awkward right now: the more its artistic temperament resembles a gloomy old castle you want to move into, the stronger the sense of rejection caused by platform restrictions becomes. Players do want to see it, and they do want to play it—they just do not want to go through the frustration yet again of having something right in front of them, only to be cut off by platform boundaries. For FS, this is also different from the earlier era of simply doing platform-exclusive partnerships. Today, emotions spread faster across player communities, and boycotts are much more easily amplified.

Beyond the visuals, though, I think this also sends a very clear signal about the trend: in the era of blockbuster games, the attention brought by exclusivity may no longer reliably convert into goodwill. This is especially true for a studio like FromSoftware, which has already built up a core cross-platform user base. Players naturally see it as a producer whose works “should belong to a broader audience,” so the moment it goes in the opposite direction, the backlash is more obvious than it would be for an ordinary developer. As for purchase advice, if you were already planning to get a Switch 2, then The Duskbloods is certainly worth continuing to watch. But if you are thinking of buying the console only for this one game, I would not recommend making an impulsive decision at this stage—at least wait until more of the gameplay and content have been revealed.

I have always felt that a new FS game ought to first get people talking about the damp yet dangerous beauty of its world, level design, and BGM, rather than whether it is worth paying for a platform just to play it. Some players are already declaring that The Duskbloods may become FromSoftware’s first major flop. That judgment may still be premature, but the atmosphere has undeniably turned heavy. For a game that has not even fully revealed itself yet, the greatest pity is that before anyone has even stepped into that stretch of night, the arguing has already started at the door.