The Duskbloods PvPvE Breakdown — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:04] we were able to explore in our preview of the Dusk Bloods. As you can see, it's very easy to move around this city thanks to the new jumps every character has in combat. Every character is also capable of this a roar that if properly

[00:21] timed allows you to stagger enemies and feast on them, converting them to your side for a time. The character currently being played is named Albert. Like many characters, he has a melee weapon in his right hand and

[00:37] a ranged one in his left. He also has a suite of passives and abilities. But there's more I need to talk about than just the combat. I need to explain what kind of game this is and what we're fighting for right now. To that end, I'm

[00:53] going to try and walk you through what a typical match looks like from start to typical match looks like from start to finish. So, let's leave Loenro City and go back to the Dusk Bloods hub area. It's called the House of Night.

[01:09] Here in this demo at least, you can select from one of six blood sworn, browse this ever growing archive of information, and practice all of your character skills against a target dummy in the courtyard. Then, once you're

[01:25] ready, you can either opt into a ranked or casual match. Here's how it works. Each match features eight players playing in three rounds, but only three can make it to the final battle. At the end of the first round, players can all

[01:40] get stronger without punishment. But at the end of the second round, the two players with the lowest amount of what are called virtue points are culled and removed from the game. And then at the end of the third round, the three lowest

[01:55] scoring players are again culled, leaving only three to do battle in the final round, where their health totals are boosted by the amount of virtue points they have. How do you get virtue points, you ask? Well, let's pretend

[02:12] we're just starting a game, and it will become clear. You start matchmaking by touching the wheel of blood in the House of Dusk. And once the system has put eight of you together, you are all shown the map divided into four quadrants. You

[02:27] all have to choose which quadrant you'd like to spawn into for this round. Now, you can't choose exactly where you'd like to spawn. For example, if I chose this top quadrant, aiming for the city streets, I might end up spawning here

[02:43] closer to the cave. That's what happens to who has spawned just outside the city streets. This works out perfectly for her though because do you see those golden spires down in the streets? Those are landmarks

[02:57] you absolutely want to aim for early in the game.

[03:14] So these golden spires, these are where you pull allies from. here, sister of the bri. My life is yours to command. >> These are like summoned spirits in Elden Ring, except these are fullyfledged

[03:27] characters with voice lines and maybe even story lines to go down as well. There are eight allies to be found in this demo, and the spirit you get is somewhat randomly generated depending on the symbol of the golden spire you

[03:43] pulled them from. To level your allies, you have to find these sites marked on the map. But beware, because if you switch allies, the old one and their levels will be lost. So, taking the time

[03:58] to find the ally you like can be a waste of time. And in a game like this, time is everything. Luckily, to save you time, you can teleport basically anywhere on the map instantly as long as you're out of

[04:14] combat. I love this system. I love how this opens up the map in the Dusk Bloods because it makes your routing options so much more interesting when you could be anywhere on the map at a moment's notice. This player, for example, has

[04:29] found their way to the sewer. If you recall, there was a purple icon next to the sewer on the map, which marks that a type of virtue called flame virtue can be found here. You can actually see it off to the left ahead of us there. This

[04:45] is a corpse sitting in a chair with a purple aura. And it's one of many in this area. So, this area is worth coming to, especially in the early stages of the game, because in my experience, it would ensure that you would make it

[04:59] through the first few rounds without being culled. Claiming these is easy. You don't have to kill any bosses, and notably, claiming them denies other players from claiming them as well. It's so important to play efficiently in this

[05:15] so important to play efficiently in this game. Take Zork here for example. Not only does he use one of his abilities to cover ground and attack, but mid combat he takes a break to upgrade his weapon with the fire

[05:28] affinity. There are four different weapon upgrades you can find. There's weapon upgrades you can find. There's iron, poison, lightning, but is fire, which means his weapon now inflicts burning if he hits enemies enough.

[05:46] senator, who was my favorite character in the demo. He's hunting a blood sack right now so that he can upgrade one of his two abilities in some way. These abilities are blood stake and saran form, which you'll see later on.

[06:02] Upgrades to abilities can also be found in marked sections of the map. In this courtyard below, for example, you can see a red upgrade orb behind these towns folk. And thanks to Chang's passive ability, she can turn multiple enemies

[06:18] ability, she can turn multiple enemies to her side at once. Chang's L2 throws rings at opponents swiftly and consistently, which makes her a huge threat at mid-range, and especially when she's in the air.

[06:32] everything you could hope to achieve in one round. So, let's pretend that round one round. So, let's pretend that round one is ending and round two begins. Now, at the start of some rounds, a sort of tarot card will be revealed, informing

[06:48] you of some worldaltering event currently taking place. In this round, a Limaran zeppelin will be prowling the skies, and every character will have a transmission box in their inventory with which they can call upon a sea of flame

[07:04] which they can call upon a sea of flame wherever they want. this demo. Sometimes a magnetic storm would strike, forcing players to swap

[07:16] places with each other. Sometimes stars would fall from the sky, encouraging players to claim and hold on to them until the end of the round. Sometimes you'd be rewarded for ringing the bell at the top of the clock tower. And I

[07:31] even had one event where blood sack enemies would spawn all over the place, allowing us to fully upgrade our abilities. These were all so fun to interact with, and they would really change how you moved around the map. In

[07:47] round two, my character would also start feeling much more powerful. So, I would prioritize taking on certain bosses. In the Dusk Bloods, these are called trespasses, and they're marked by purple skulls on

[08:01] your map. Some are tougher than others, but luckily, you don't always need to take them down on your own.

[08:18] receive a call for help. And if they accept, they will teleport to your fight as a phantom returned to where they were if they die or if they where they were if they die or if they manage to defeat the boss.

[08:37] both of their abilities unlocked, the missile barrage being one of them. That means this player has spent more time killing enemies and leveling up, and they might not have as much virtue as a result. However, the extra power they

[08:52] get from leveling up might actually help him get more virtue if that extra power translates into killing difficult bosses more easily. That's what felt beautifully designed about this game. Everything you do seems to lead to

[09:07] virtue in one way or another. At the end of the round, players who killed the most enemies or collected the most items can even receive commendations, which is the third way I've described of getting virtues so far. This rewards players who

[09:21] are single-minded in their goals at the expense of all else. Basically, no know what you're doing, it feels like you do get virtue if you play well. And

[09:33] I liked that. Of course, you can still make bad routing decisions. There was nothing worse than when you would bite off more than you could chew, challenging a difficult boss

[09:47] before you were strong enough, or counting on another player coming to help you, only for you to have to fight it alone. It's not just the threat of dying and losing virtue that would be scary. It's also the fear of a fight

[10:01] going on too long to where your time might have been better spent doing something else. Not that that's a problem for this senator player. They finish off this boss with blood stake and they get to claim a power of blood

[10:17] from it. These are passives that allow you to further customize your character a little bit midmatch. It's around this time that round two would be ending. And

[10:29] now things really start heating up. The players with the two lowest virtue counts are culled and the six remaining players move into round three. In the top right this whole time there has been a clock which helps to give you an idea

[10:45] of how much time is left in a round. But that's not all it shows because in round three, a ritual site will be established. This is an event that's marked not just on the clock, but also on the map,

[11:01] on the clock, but also on the map, encouraging players to teleport over and lose themselves in the chaos as you all meet in the same place. The first thing you want to do at a ritual site, ideally, is to locate

[11:15] either the gold stones or the red stones. This player has gone straight for the red stones, which when held increases the amount of virtue they receive for killing another player at the ritual site. This is called sword

[11:30] virtue, the fourth type of virtue I've explained so far, and the most fun to explained so far, and the most fun to collect in my opinion.

[11:57] approach this golden cross. This is a place that you can pledge to for even more virtue. And if you're sneaky enough, you don't even have to fight at all to claim it. I like how you have options. Are you

[12:12] going to try and steal the pledges unnoticed? Or are you going to try and take out all the other players so that you can claim them? Or are you going to avoid the ritual sites completely and take advantage of the rest of the map?

[12:26] I'll let you enjoy this fight without commentary, though, as these six players battle desperately to try and avoid being culled.

[13:29] experience is. The game starts out interesting and tense with little skirmishes with other players, but then it builds up to this ritual fight where you all face off against each other and then culminates in this moon blood. The

[13:46] final fight where three players face off against each other. has come. >> These fights were so hype. Everyone is fully powered up with unique abilities, summons, and even health based on how

[14:01] much virtue they accred. With three players in the arena, there's enough chaos that anything can happen, even to more experienced PvP players. But each player also has two lives, which helps to mitigate a bit of the frustration you

[14:16] can feel when you're third partied by someone else's powerful ability. The dinosaur definitely gave me more wins than I deserved.

[15:20] This is an exciting end to what is An extremely well-paced game in my opinion. The victor is then rewarded with this cutscene and that's it. For the demo, there's more to this game that we haven't yet seen. In the full game, for

[15:35] example, Grail battles aren't the only final round you can get. We've been told that there will be ways for you to customize your character to be more likely to encounter a co-op boss battle, among other things. for the final

[15:51] encounters rather than the PvP round you just saw. In the full game, there's also just saw. In the full game, there's also going to be more potential for story and character progression back at the House of Night between Dusk Battles. So, even

[16:06] if you don't place first, you're still going to feel like you're getting stronger every time you play and like you're progressing the story as well. I'm intrigued to think how much they might develop the story in between

[16:20] battles. In the full game, there's also going to be more than 10 characters to choose from. And in the hub world, supposedly you're able to customize them more as well. There's also going to be three maps that ship with the final game

[16:36] three maps that ship with the final game apparently. And there's also a final type of virtue that I didn't really get to show off. and it's one that I don't think anyone at the event really experimented much with. It's virtue

[16:50] through achieving your sigil goals. Sigils equipped before a match give you specific goals to try and achieve in the match. Take Jan here for instance, who

[17:02] has the sigil of the eye of Morales equipped. equipped. >> Come I come see. This makes him a hunter in this game. And the sigil will pair you with a heretic to try and take out

[17:18] during the game. Another thing I forgot to mention is the alliance system. You can queue up with another person you know at the start of the game and play through the whole game that way. Uh if you set your parameters correctly, or

[17:33] you can actually ally with other people midame who you don't know as well. You can either do this by emoting at them basically when you meet them in game or after you've encountered another player, you can open a menu that will allow you

[17:47] to propose alliances to people that you've met. Under these alliances, all virtue is shared between you and you're in it till the end. Well, then you kill each other. I just want to say I feel so privileged to have been able to

[18:03] experience the Dusk Bloods and to share it with you all. I'd like to give a special thanks to everyone at Nintendo and from Software who helped to organize this event. It went really smoothly and it was an amazing experience being able

[18:18] to get a few wins with like the whole room cheering behind you. I won't soon forget it. So, look forward to more content on the Dusk Bloods when it releases. This game would really benefit from a beginner's guide. So, I'm going

[18:32] to work on that because there were Nintendo reps and From Software reps at the event who did a really good job explaining everything. And I think everyone watching would benefit from that kind of explanation as well. If you

[18:45] have any questions about the game or how I felt about it, leave them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them all because this video really wasn't long enough to get all of my thoughts and knowledge out there.

[18:57] Thank you for watching though and I'll see you in the next one.