A game developer accuses Escape from Tarkov of causing irreparable damage to gaming and being responsible for why Duskbloods is not Bloodborne 2.
Who is it about? The game developer Dave Oshry was a guest on the “Quad Damage” podcast on YouTube and talked there about upcoming games like Doom: The Dark Ages, the new Painkiller, and Duskbloods. The latter is the new game from FromSoftware and was announced along with the release date for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Oshry is one of the founders of the indie developer studio New Blood Interactive, which designed the two boomer shooters Ultrakill and Dusk. Both games have a total of around 160,000 reviews on Steam, with 97% positive ratings. We reported on Ultrakill in 2024 when the shooter surprisingly had 19,000 players on Steam after an update.
With this trailer, FromSoftware announced the new game Duskbloods for the Switch 2:
Developer disappointed that Duskbloods is a multiplayer game
What was discussed in the podcast? During the podcast, Dave Oshry and the podcast hosts “Midnight Medium”, “Deadforge”, and Robert Yapp discussed Doom: The Dark Ages. Deadforge then said he was more excited about the shooter Painkiller, also announced for 2025.
Robert Yapp then opened the topic of co-op/multiplayer vs. single-player. In his opinion, Painkiller should be a single-player game, yet the shooter opts for co-op matches instead.
This brought Oshry to talk about Duskbloods. He initially felt very happy about the announcement and thought: “Hell yeah, Bloodborne 2!” However, it then turned out that Duskblood is not a typical Soulsborne and therefore not Bloodborne 2, but rather a PvPvE multiplayer game. This disappointed him.
The spinoff Elden Ring: Nightreign is also a multiplayer game:
Because of Tarkov, everything has to be an extraction shooter
What did the developer say about Tarkov and the gaming industry? Oshry blames Escape from Tarkov for the trend towards extraction mechanics or even being extraction shooters:
Tarkov has caused irreparable damage to the gaming industry because everything has to be a fucking, what do they call it, extraction shooter? I just like normal games, but I’m old. I understand, I’m not the target audience for these games.
Dave Oshry on the podcast “Quad Damage”
Oshry is referencing an interview with FromSoftware head Hidetaka Miyazaki with IGN in 2023, in which Miyazaki spoke about technologies, trends, and ideas in gaming that he finds inspiring or exciting. In the interview, he responded that he is very interested in multiplayer elements and has a special interest in extraction shooters: “Especially Tarkov, for example. So I generally pay attention to these elements as a creator and fan of the game.”
Oshry implies that based on Miyazaki’s statement from 2023, Tarkov and other multiplayer games were likely an inspiration in the development of Duskbloods, making FromSoftware create a multiplayer game rather than Bloodborne 2, “because everything has to be an extraction shooter.”
In recent years, many extraction shooters and battle royales have emerged, and numerous developers have attempted their hand at the subgenres. Even Destiny developers Bungie are making an extraction shooter with Marathon: Destiny 2 is known for great gunplay – with Marathon, Bungie shows if they still have it
