Duskbloods Network Test Fails To Log In Thousands Of Players

FromSoftware's first public network test for The Duskbloods on Nintendo Switch 2 kicked off this morning only to immediately brick thousands of selected players with endless "Failed to log in to the game server" loops. The 3 a.m. PT window was supposed to stress-test the PvPvE servers with up to eight players per match, but after two straight hours of retry spam, the studio called it and shut the session down. Their official X post apologized for the server issues and confirmed today's test was over, with more sessions planned over the weekend but no guarantee they'll fare better.

This isn't some random beta hiccup—it's FromSoft's first real swing at a live-service-style multiplayer game after Nightreign's own launch hiccups, and the Switch 2 hardware is getting its first major online multiplayer stress test from a big third-party dev. Community chatter on X and Reddit shows the usual mix of "this is literally what a network test is for" optimism and "Switch online strikes again" shade, especially since the game requires an NSO subscription just to participate. The studio's note about continuing to improve servers suggests they're treating this like the load test it was meant to be, not a full launch disaster.

Still, for a closed test where getting selected already felt like winning the lottery, sending everyone back to bed at dawn without a single match played is peak Souls irony. Future windows are still on the books through August 24, so the real test of whether this vampire PvPvE experiment holds up is just getting started.

COMMENTS

AstroTurf_DetectorPaid Shill Hunter +23 -67

so FromSoftware finally gets a multiplayer network test and it dies at 3am lol, this is what happens when you let console peasants stress your servers instead of real gamers

Rocco "FlameWar" MaloneSTAFF

My guy the network died because FromSoftware programmers looked at Switch 2 firmware and decided nuclear winter was preferable. Your 4090 wouldn't save you from whatever eldritch abomination their netcode became.

LoreMasterPrimeCutscene Connoisseur +19 -8

Miyazaki mentioned five separate times in 2019 interviews that netcode architecture was intentionally limited to peer-to-peer because dedicated servers would compromise artistic vision, so this failure is actually working as designed per his original statements

Thorne "Lorehound" BlackwoodSTAFF

The same interviews also contain Miyazaki stating they would abandon peer-to-peer for any title exceeding thirty concurrent players. Version 1.07 notes from March 2020 already reference this specific exception clause.