The Duskbloods Release Date: Nintendo Denies the September 24 Claim

Nintendo has told reporters that The Duskbloods release date of 24 September is inaccurate, and that no launch date for the FromSoftware game has been announced at all. The statement follows a preview article that carried the September date, which spread quickly among Nintendo Switch 2 owners waiting on the studio's first console exclusive.

The Duskbloods remains a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, and the only timing Nintendo and FromSoftware have publicly stood behind is a 2026 window. The official Nintendo store listing for the game still shows "2026" in the release field rather than a day or a month.

What Nintendo actually said about The Duskbloods release date

Asked whether 24 September was correct, Nintendo said the date was inaccurate because there is no information regarding a release date for the game. That is a denial of the specific date, not a delay announcement — nothing in the statement moves the game out of 2026.

Treat the September date as dead. Anything circulating that claims a firmer window than "2026" is unconfirmed until Nintendo publishes it on its own channels, and the publisher has a long record of holding dates back until a Direct.

The closed network test starts on 21 August

The denial lands the day before the game's closed network test opens. The test runs across five timed sessions, and the servers are only up during those windows — logging in outside them does nothing. The schedule is:

• Friday 21 August, 3am–7am PT / 6am–10am ET
• Friday 21 August, 7pm–11pm PT / 10pm–2am ET
• Saturday 22 August, 11am–3pm PT / 2pm–6pm ET
• Sunday 23 August, 3am–7am PT / 6am–10am ET
• Sunday 23 August, 7pm–11pm PT / 10pm–2am ET

Two of the five sessions are early-morning slots in North America, which is what a global test looks like when it is scheduled around Japanese peak hours. Each window is four hours long.

Who can actually get into the test

Access is not open. You need a Nintendo Switch 2, an active Nintendo Switch Online membership, and a registration that was accepted during the sign-up window that ran from 22 to 28 July. Nintendo notified selected participants on 7 August. There is no way to join now if you did not register, and the test client is not on the eShop for general download.

Nintendo Switch Online is a hard requirement rather than a nicety here, because The Duskbloods is built entirely around online sessions of up to eight players. If your membership lapsed, that is worth checking before the first window opens — the same subscription that gates Nintendo Switch Online's scheduled maintenance windows gates this test.

Switch 2 owners who missed out have had a better run with other beta programmes lately. Access to the Minecraft closed beta on Switch 2, for instance, was considerably easier to get into, and it more than doubled render distance on the hardware.

Confirmed, rumoured, and what to ignore

Confirmed by Nintendo and FromSoftware: a 2026 launch, Switch 2 exclusivity, online play for up to eight players, and the five network test sessions above. Confirmed as false: the 24 September date.

Unconfirmed and worth holding at arm's length: gameplay clips of the game that began circulating ahead of the test. Footage recorded from a pre-release build tells you nothing reliable about the final release date, the content of the launch version, or pricing, none of which Nintendo has published.

There is also no announced price. Nintendo has not listed one on the store page, and any figure quoted elsewhere is a guess. The same goes for file size — Switch 2 downloads have varied wildly this generation, from DayZ at 15.9GB to Oblivion Remastered at 61.5GB, so there is no useful baseline to extrapolate from.

What happens next

The realistic next milestone is a Nintendo Direct. A game launching inside 2026 with no date announced in late August needs a marketing beat soon, and Nintendo has typically paired FromSoftware's Switch 2 exclusive with its own broadcasts rather than standalone press releases.

Until then, the answer to the question people are searching is short: there is no release date. Players who want a hands-on comparison in the meantime can look at how other big betas have run this month, including the Modern Warfare 4 beta preload schedule, which notably skipped Switch 2 entirely.