The Switch 2 Is About to Face Its Toughest Challenge Yet

3 hours ago 9

Published Aug 29, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT

Arise now, ye Tarnished

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Nintendo’s Switch 2 has passed a lot of tests in its first year (and change) on the market. It has proven that you don’t need a 3D Mario or new Zelda game to sell a system. It has repeatedly shown that Nintendo can indeed make a technically proficient console. And it has won over key third-party publishers like Capcom and Square Enix, winning an existential war Nintendo has been fighting since its Wii days. Now, it’s time for a real skill check.

All eyes have been on one developer for the past week: FromSoftware. After a delayed arrival into the Switch 2 generation, the acclaimed Dark Souls studio finally made its debut on Nintendo’s new console. That started with a network test for the Switch 2-exclusive The Duskbloods last weekend, and it culminated with the long-awaited release of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition this week. Both of those games are a big deal for Nintendo; locking down FromSoftware as a go-to partner would be a cathartic victory for Switch 2.

Long before Dark Souls, FromSoftware and Nintendo briefly had a relationship brewing. The studio gave Nintendo two solid GameCube exclusives in Lost Kingdom and Lost Kingdom 2, a pair of dark action RPGs that, in retrospect, laid some groundwork for 2009’s Demon’s Souls. That budding partnership was very short-lived. Aside from developing a few Nintendo DS games, FromSoftware abandoned Nintendo entirely once the Wii came along. That wasn’t much of a big deal at the time considering that FromSoftware’s output was eclectic and inconsistent in the 2000s, but the long-term loss could be felt as soon as Dark Souls mania set in. There was a big hole in Nintendo’s ally list, and it was only growing wider.

For a moment during the Switch era, it looked like the two were ready to reunite. Dark Souls Remastered’s 2018 Switch release felt like the start of a renewed effort to get the studio’s games on a Nintendo platform, but nothing else came of that move. It seemed clear that FromSoftware’s games were just too technically ambitious to play nice with Nintendo’s held-back hardware. That became painfully clear when Elden Ring launched in 2022, and Nintendo missed out on a generational moment.

That’s why it’s so important for FromSoftware’s 2026 Switch 2 debut to go off without a hitch. So far, we’re off to a promising start. Reviews for Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition are positive, with critics noting that the open-world game feels right at home on a handheld. The tradeoff, though, is a performance drop that will be noticeable if you’re used to playing on PS5 and Xbox Series X. That’s a little worrying considering that FromSoftware’s games only tend to get bigger and more ambitious as time goes on, but it does seem like the studio has found how to make reasonable compromises for now.

The Duskbloods – Nintendo Direct _ Nintendo Switch 2 1-39 screenshot

The Duskbloods, on the other hand, is shaping up to be a true wildcard. We finally learned exactly how the mysterious multiplayer game works this past weekend, and it’s quite the creative swing. It’s somewhere between Elden Ring: Nightreign and Kirby Air Riders’ City Trial mode — a casual-hardcore elimination game where you fight to collect more points than your rivals and survive a final PvP battle. Feedback from the network test is all over the place, with some fans adoring it and others feeling that it doesn’t play to FromSoftware’s strengths enough. It’s certainly shaping up to be the studio’s most polarizing game, which is saying something considering that Nightreign wasn’t exactly universally praised upon release.

And so, Nintendo and FromSoftware’s continued relationship hinges on some big questions. Will a technically compromised Elden Ring be successful enough to make sure FromSoftware keeps its future games port-able for portable? Will The Duskbloods convince the studio’s biggest soldiers to buy the Switch 2? And can Nintendo’s online ecosystem even support something like The Duskbloods? (A rough start to the network test raised a few red flags last week.)

If those two launches go off without a hitch, Nintendo may finally nail down an important partner that has fallen through its fingers over the past two decades. At that point, the Switch 2 would feel unstoppable.

eShop games of the week: Blood Dungeon

There are plenty of games out there that iterate on Vampire Survivors’ winning formula, but Blood Dungeon might be the best riff yet. Created by Messhof, the developer behind Nidhogg, Blood Dungeon takes the fundamentals of the “bullet heaven” game and applies it to a 2D platformer that looks like it was made in Microsoft Paint. It’s lo-fi, crude, and joyfully dumb. I dare you to beat my high scores.

Nintendo Classics game of the week: Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link

Whenever I think about Elden Ring, with its brutal difficulty and wide-open world, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link comes to mind. In retrospect, Nintendo’s polarizing Zelda sequel pioneered a formula that FromSoftware would much later perfect. It’s a tough-as-nails action RPG that gives you a lot of freedom to sniff around for well-hidden secrets. It’s worth revisiting it in the Soulslike era and considering if Nintendo was too ahead of its time in 1987.

Nintendo Music track of the week: “Battle with Sentinel” from Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Image: Camelot Software Planning/Nintendo

All this talk about blood and dungeons has me listening to Golden Sun: The Lost Age’s pulse-raising battle themes. “Battle with Sentinel” is my favorite selection from the soundtrack available on Nintendo Music, a song that sounds like a Faith No More track recreated with MIDI. The fierce composition, filled with heavy metal drumming and screeching organs, will really get your blood pumping. (There's a playlist of all of Switchboard's music picks here.)