An Overview of the DNF Duel Open Beta Weekend

Throughout this past weekend, Arc System Works released the open beta for their next fighting game, DNF Duel. During the three days, PlayStation owners were given the chance to try their hand at and get excited for the Dungeon Fighter Online-based game which still has yet to receive an official release date. The beta consisted of ten characters and six stages and songs, was exclusively online, and relied entirely on outside resources to learn about the game’s mechanics and character moves. Over the weekend I managed to play every character and understand the game’s basic information in this current build. This article is going to go over my thoughts on the beta over the and what I’m looking forward to with the future of DNF Duel.

For starters, the DNF beta was online only. There was no single-player content outside of customizing a player card, so any matches that you could play were against other people online. There was no tutorial, arcade mode, or training mode available for players, so going into the game meant having whatever buttons you could figure out and picking whoever you thought looked the coolest. The characters’ movesets were posted to Twitter around the start of the beta, and some YouTube videos were posted going over the game’s basic mechanics like HP and Conversion. These were the only learning materials available and practicing was done during your match. It felt like playing in an arcade, pressing buttons and picking cool-looking characters again and again until you find that one button sequence that works, then you just keep hitting it until you have to figure something else out. And honestly, I didn’t mind this at all (for reference, the KOF XV beta was also out at the same time and had training mode AND offline vs). The lack of information combined with the simplicity of commands in the game made it so that this was never an overwhelming experience, and playing with people who were on the same level as you never got frustrating.

However, while I found this arcade-style venture into a new game fun, it still proved to be a nuisance when encountering other players online who had become more comfortable with the game or spent more time in the beta. The inability to explore options and combo routes was a challenge that didn’t get rid of itself until you did that bit of outside research and messed around with a character enough. However, the simple inputs make up for potential difficulty and the information required doesn’t feel like it’s over saturated with content and mechanics.

The first night of the beta was halted by connection issues resulting in randomly leaving lobbies mid-match, but this seemed to be fixed when I tried to play again the next day. During the online maintenance, players were forced to play random characters against computers if they wanted to play the game. Having this opportunity meant being able to try out characters and see what they do more easily, and this emphasized the need for a single-player mode in the demo in some way, whether it be training mode, arcade, or offline versus.

The online lobbies themselves worked just fine, being very reminiscent of Guilty Gear Rev 2 and Granblue Fantasy Versus arcade cabinet style which allowed for easy access and direct cues. [insert picture of lobby] Visually the game looks stunning, resembling GBVS and that classic Arcsys fluidity. Each of the 10 available characters has its own unique design and all of the animations, intros, and endings are flashy in their own way. Visually, the game is another strong showcase of Arcsys’ artistic skill when creating fighting games.

DNF Duel is not an input-heavy game: the game uses four buttons (A, B, Skill, and MP Skill) and both types of Skill buttons each have their own forward, back, and down commands. MP Skills have the traditional Quarter circle and Z-Motion, but these are interchangeable with forward, back, and down. Linking basic combos together typically followed a quick A-A–B-Skill-MP Skill cycle, and you can cancel Skill moves into other Skills, so getting used to this Gatling system wasn’t very difficult. MP Skills rely on an MP meter; while MP Skills cost certain amounts of meter, you will always be able to use one of these moves as long as you have meter. You can also trade a part of your health for more MP through a mechanic called “Conversion”, but I found myself rarely using this when I played the game. With only three directions needed for all the specials, the execution barrier is on the floor. I feel like this balances out with the game’s flashy nature making moves feel cooler and more rewarding, and the free form nature of combos still being present. While there is a Gatling system, it allows for unique mixing of attacks and makes playing this without a ton of information beforehand still fun. To add to this, rolling is present as a movement option allowing you to close in on an opponent or cross them up. The majority of the cast has great range that reaches far out and helps reinforce the slower pace of the game. The game right now feels like there is still a ton of room for depth and exploring characters and their options.

The game’s neutral feels very slow until you connect a hit that allows you to extend a flashy combo out, and there isn’t much room to do things on wakeup after you get knocked down. Supers are linked to one button and are not invincible, meaning that if you get hit by an opponent at a safe distance, your super won’t come out. Supers, dubbed “Awakening Skills”, are also only available when your character is “Awakened”, where their health gets low enough past a certain threshold. After hitting the button for Awakening, it either hits or it goes away and you lose access to it for the rest of the match. In terms of defense, there is a block macro, but no kind of burst options or other defensive tools. With these elements, I feel like certain things are/aren’t present from the current build that I hope to see in the future. There isn’t any air blocking, so getting hit in the air is just getting hit unless you can tap your opponent first and cancel their attack. The lack of defensive options makes the game much more neutral-heavy, so it’ll be interesting to see how they work with this nature of the game in the future. I managed to play every character a handful of times, so here are some short thoughts on each one that was available in the beta:

• Berserker [Has big hitboxes and a strong projectile, but was a little underwhelming after playing against him a few times. Hope to see him become more of a threat in future builds.]
• Crusader [Imagine Jesus, but swole and with a giant hammer. One of the most interesting heavies I’ve seen and enjoyed playing as when that type is far from my usual play style.]
• Dragon Knight [My personal favorite. All All-Rounder with medium range and a unique flight mechanic to get in on the opponent, out of block situations, or adjust your spacing in the air. Dragon assist helps to apply pressure and can be angled when used.]
• Grappler [A slept on character with charge inputs. His Charge mechanic is about buttons, not directions, has the least amount of range, and has to do the most work out of the cast. Still not bad though and is just as flashy and entertaining as the rest.]
• Hitman [The best character in the current build, has a lot of range and strong moves that beat out most others. Moves stick out for a little while longer and have huge hitboxes.]
• Inquisitor [Like a better Vanguard, has a Burning Wheel projectile that puts you in extreme blockstun and applies a lot of pressure. Dope character that can abuse the blocking mechanics for mixup potential alongside her long-range.]
• Kunoichi [Rushdown, has some cool mixup and pressure options with her specials. Has a large Flame Tornado that cannot be jumped over and pushes you back while it moves across the stage. The best close ranged character in this current build.]
• Ranger [The only projectile zoner, calls out jumps well with his normals, looks and feels like Dante in MvC, just slower.]
• Striker [The character that I liked fighting against the most, gets the most off of Conversion when linking specials. I think this is who people will gravitate towards at the beginning of the game.]
• Vanguard [Visually boring compared to the rest of the cast but still cool and strong with great range and specials, will be the other character people will either gravitate towards or never touch upon the game’s initial release.]

Overall, I found myself extremely enjoying this first taste of DNF Duel. I hope that even if there isn’t a second beta, we get the chance to see events like player invitationals. A Summer 2022 release date has been confirmed, as well as more characters that weren’t present this weekend. I still feel like there is something that this game is missing to tie everything together, but I can say that I confidently enjoyed what we have right now with DNF Duel and can’t wait to get my hands on it again.