Parts of The Duskbloods are "very similar to a lot of RPG elements you might find in a tabletop RPG," says FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki
Some elements in The Duskbloods were pulled straight from director Hidetaka Miyazaki's experiences playing tabletop RPGs, which might just explain why you can propose to an enemy player mid-match.
Speaking to IGN, FromSoftware boss and game director Hidetaka Miyazaki says "there are two points I would say that can specifically be pulled from the board games." Instead of winning multiplayer matches by simply beating everyone else to a pulp, The Duskbloods asks players to earn Virtue by completing side objectives or killing mini bosses that stomp around the map or holding king of the hill-style zones, let's say.
"That's something that isn't as direct as just battling against each other, right? It's not directly a PvP thing. It's a common system in a lot of board games and something that through my own experience of playing board games has definitely rubbed off on me and it's been something that I've constantly thought about. I didn't watch those a lot," Miyazaki explains.
The second bit of TTRPG inspiration came from the game's Sigil system, which essentially creates match-specific relationships and objectives between players. One Sigil might let you propose to another player with a bouquet of flowers - naturally, they can reply with the pointy end of their sword - while a different Sigil might put you at odds with a specific enemy player.
Miyazaki calls the system "very similar to a lot of RPG elements you might find in a tabletop RPG," although, "in the past when I played games like that, a lot of it was basically rolling dice to determine certain aspects of your character, and that was pretty much the extent of it." With The Duskbloods, Miyazaki "wanted to have a way of controlling not just that, but the relationships between players and a variety of other elements that might be out of the scope of a TTRPG."
The Duskbloods' closed network playtests are rolling out now before it comes out in full sometime later this year as a Switch 2 exclusive.