This guest post is written by Ian Walker.
We still know next to nothing about “The Duskbloods,” an upcoming Switch 2 game from “Dark Souls” and “Elden Ring” developer From Software, but somehow the obnoxious “artificial intelligence” summary that appears at the top of every Google search appears to have all the answers.
“The Duskbloods” was first revealed as an exclusive for the then-upcoming Switch 2 console in April 2025, and last month’s Nintendo Direct came and went with very little in the way of an update apart from the reveal of a network test planned for August (thank goodness). But if you, like me, are hungry enough for “The Duskbloods” to randomly Google the title in the hope From Software’s finally dropped a delicious morsel of gameplay for you to devour, you’ve probably run into details about the multiplayer game the search engine presents as authentic.
Like, did you know you can find the Myrmidon of Loss in a disgusting area known as the Pus Mines?
Maybe you’ve heard the Blood Mistress Elizabeth fight is “fast-paced” and “fan-service heavy” with mechanics reminiscent of “Dark Souls 3” boss Sister Friede?
How about Lycan Vrykolakas? The werewolf-like boss is considered “the hardest and most cinematic” in the game due in part to a second-phase, area-of-effect attack “capable of wiping out multiple players simultaneously.”
Does that ring any bells? Well, it shouldn’t, because it’s all bullshit. If you follow the links Google provides to its sources, you’ll find this information originates almost entirely on r/TheDuskbloods, the subreddit established by eager From Software fans on the same day the game was revealed. Apart from posts bemoaning the lack of news, the forum is also full of users engaging in what the community calls “Duskposting,” or shitposting that includes a kind of shared creative writing exercise wherein folks pretend as if “The Duskbloods” is already out.
A user by the name of Dead_Bai_Sled, for example, invented the Myrmidon of Loss as part of a larger, fake guide to help a fellow player defeat another fake boss, while both Blood Mistress Elizabeth and Lycan Vrykolakas were derived from a fake list of the game’s hardest fights by Southern_Copy_6173. Another post frequently cited by Google’s AI assistant, titled “Giorgio the Slurping Skulker is the worst boss in the game and I’m done pretending he’s not,” fashions itself as a rant against the eponymous baddie, no doubt inspired by complaints that have been levied against “Souls” games for over a decade.
“Oh god, his dialogue, it’s so annoying,” the post finishes after describing a litany of made-up gameplay mechanics. “I GET IT GIORGIO, YOU DON’T NEED TO SAY, ‘I’m hurtin’ for a slurpin’!’ EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TIME I DIE, YOU ASS.”
From Software diehards have been known to engage in this kind of highfalutin shitposting. In the lead-up to the launch of “Elden Ring” bored Reddit users produced a ton of fake lore for the open-world game when the stream of official information dried up, inventing characters, bosses, items, and more to slake their thirst. But this was back in 2019, before AI had infested everything from social media to fast food drive-thrus. What was simply a fun way for folks to waste time with like-minded fans just a few years ago has become an accidental misinformation campaign due to the careless way Google AI relays whatever text it happens to grab online as fact.
A recent study by researchers at Cornell Tech found it takes as few as 13 words to “poison” sources of user-generated content — Reddit, Wikipedia, Facebook, and the like — Google AI is known to scrape for results with planted data and trick the search engine into disseminating fake information. By adding simple phrases to the end of Reddit posts in simulated environments, the researchers were able to get Google to recommend a dating app for divorced men over 50, a restaurant near Austin, and a Minneapolis-based alternative to the American Automobile Association, none of which exist.
This is something companies are already doing to improve their visibility in search results, and since less than 1% of Google users click through the AI’s source links, most people seeing this information have no idea it might be at best juiced and at worst fake. And if that’s not worrisome enough, study co-author Tingwei Zhang told 404 Media that Google AI considers Reddit posts and official sources like government websites as nearly equal in terms of credibility.
“[Large language models] export their trust to external content moderation strategies that exist on sites like Wikipedia or Reddit or Quora or StackExchange,” said Hal Triedman, another of the Cornell researchers. “So these deep research systems are increasingly relying on the judgment and taste of subreddit moderators or Wikipedia editors, and at the same time those websites are increasingly under strain from people and companies trying to manipulate them.”
I don’t think anyone will (or should) lose sleep over some fake “Duskbloods” details seeping into search results, but Google’s propagation of online Duskposting as fact before the game has even come out is symptomatic of a much more serious problem. Thanks to the rapid spread of AI, all of us are going to need to be more diligent about fact-checking the information we receive from the internet, whether it’s about how to beat a boss in the next From Software release or the goings-on of politics and society at large.
Image credit: “The Duskbloods”
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