Bloodborne is an incredible game. I added it to my library while it was free for PlayStation Plus members, and didn’t think much of it until I was looking around for a new single player game to sink my teeth into. Having only played small amounts of Dark Souls, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was hooked instantly by arguably the most atmospheric game I’ve ever played. It’s a third-person RPG set in Yharnam, a city besieged by an unknown plague that transforms its victims into hideous beasts. You play as a hunter, a man or woman whose goal is to discover the mysteries of this gothic world and ultimately find the source of the plague.
The game throws players into the deep end right from the outset. I wake up in a hospital bed; some sort of wolf-like creature crouches in the room ahead. It’s contently tearing at the flesh of the poor soul that must’ve passed through here before me. I am currently unarmed. “But the wolf only has half-health,” I say. “I can take it,” I say.
Bloodborne is hard. Really hard. But don’t let that put you off — it makes it that much more rewarding to play through. The game is best described as challenging; you don’t have to be a pro gamer to play it. If you pay attention and learn from the subtle lessons it provides, you’ll be cutting down monsters like an expert in no time. Bloodborne has some of the most intelligent game design I’ve experienced. The whole point of making you fight – and get killed by – the lycanthrope at the beginning is to teach you what happens when you die, and to show you the Hunter’s Dream. This is your hub area, and where you’re given weapons so you can go back to Yharnam and take on the lycanthrope again. Not so scary once you have a saw cleaver and a blunderbuss in your hands.
When it comes to fighting, attack is often your best — and only — form of defence. There’s no hiding behind shields, and your main means of escape is rolling around with such perfect timing that you dodge attacks. But if you get hit, there’s a short period of time in which you can hit back, to harvest the blood of your enemies and restore your own life. Alternatively, you can run away as fast as you can while guzzling blood vials — the choice is yours. This style of combat can be incredibly rewarding. If you’ve put the hours in, you start to learn enemy patterns, how to parry attacks, and when you should just sneak past rather than fight.
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Bloodborne’s currency is similar to that of the Dark Souls series, but rather than souls you collect Blood Echoes. These can be used either to level up or buy items and weapons in the Hunter’s Dream. You harvest them by killing enemies, and should you be killed, you’ll have to return to the site of your death to collect them again. It’s a brilliant system that again teaches you to really pick your battles. There was nothing more soul-destroying than when I died again on my way to recover 60,000 Blood Echoes, losing what could have levelled me up four times. It was almost enough for me to turn the PS4 off there and then, but I learned my lesson not to go charging into places I wasn’t prepared for after that.
At first, I felt a bit like Bloodborne was just a reskinned Dark Souls, but it really is much more than that. From Software have reused features from Dark Souls that work, yes, but it’s not overdone. They bring back cooperative multiplayer, and I’m eternally grateful to all of the players that helped me fight bosses I was struggling with. It’s surprising yet heartening to see how many people are still playing Bloodborne — I almost always managed to summon someone in to help when I needed it. But of course, opening up your world to strangers is an invitation for some to invade. In some areas of the game, there are enemies that ring what’s called a “sinister bell,” allowing hostile players to enter your game world to fight you. For the most part, these encounters could be quite fun, however I found that when this happened in late-game areas, it was incredibly frustrating having to fend off some phantom with weapons you didn’t even know you could get, while also being hounded by the other monstrosities around you.
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I think Bloodborne would’ve scared me a lot more had I not been able to play it with others. Walking around a dark corner and not knowing what might lie in wait for you is anxiety-inducing to say the least, but I found playing online with the ability to see other players’ notes quite comforting. Players in other worlds can leave each other small messages, sometimes funny, sometimes helpful, sometimes giving little clues to the lore. Alternatively, you can look for red puddles that show you how and where a player died in the area. Thanks to players across the globe, I’ve managed to find hidden paths and secret areas that I would never have found on my own. You can’t trust all of them, though: “secret path ahead” on occasion has meant “I wonder how many idiots I can make walk off of the edge to their death here.”
It’s not just the other players that help you out in Bloodborne. There are many characters with rich stories that you can stumble upon at any moment. Frightened residents can be spoken to through their windows and doors, on occasion offering life-saving items or advice. You can also meet other hunters throughout the game; some are enemies and will attack you on sight, while others are peaceful and will offer you gifts or new side quests. There’s a rare feeling of relief when you find these people; after hacking away at beasts in blood-soaked streets its pleasant to chat to the softly spoken blind man in the Cathedral Ward, to hear his excitement that you’ve returned, or his heartbreak at the events that occur.
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While it’s not obvious if you aren’t paying attention, Bloodborne has a truly vast lore. For the longest time, one character kept mentioning a castle and some backstory as to what went on there. I was sure I’d missed a section of the game, until I spent some time looking at the descriptions of some of the items I’d collected. Lo and behold, an invitation to Cainhurst Castle. I’m not even sure where I picked it up; I must’ve ignored it and dismissed it as another random item at the time. The plot for this game is hidden in plain sight and it’s a wonderful feature. Thanks to some inquisitiveness, I discovered an entirely new map section with an awesome boss fight and an end to a character’s storyline that really made me stop and think for a while.
The level design in Bloodborne is outstanding. Its semi-open world map is fun to traverse and filled with all manner of weird and wonderful monsters. The map is made so that you can fast travel from the Hunter’s Dream to other areas by lamp. You can find convenient little shortcuts and hidden areas that help you get around should you want to avoid anything, or quickly return to somewhere you may have lost some Echoes. Finding these secret routes is really important to the gameplay as they can link areas that you’d never expect could be linked. There’s nothing more comforting than seeing the faint white lamp glow that means you’ve reached a safe area — after all, they are your only form of checkpoint. The downside to the lamp system is that you can’t fast travel directly from one to another. You must always go back to the Hunter’s Dream to get anywhere else, sitting through two uncomfortably long loading screens on the way. These didn’t bother me too much, however; if anything they gave me a chance to let out the breath I’d been holding for an entire boss fight.
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The creature design is certainly not something to be forgotten. At the beginning of many boss fights, I found myself in awe of the beast in front of me. Learning which limb you had to hit to do the most damage or figuring out what item would be most effective is exhilarating. These battles are so epic – well, except that one where I almost rage quit and never played the game again, but in my defense, the boss kept running around in a nightmare maze and I couldn’t find the jerk. Despite this, winning these encounters is incredibly satisfying. Even the regular enemies have brilliant and varied designs. Some are used in more than one area of the game, but it’s mixed with such a variety of new content that it doesn’t feel cheap or overused.
Bloodborne makes you work hard to earn progress, and as such, it’s earned my respect. While its loading times are less than ideal, the game’s deep lore and intelligent, beautiful design make it well worth waiting for. Despite being three years old now, the game still has a very active player base, and that must speak volumes on its own. Bloodborne is truly one of the greats, and you’re doing it a disservice to leave it in your backlog.
– I
procrastimating.net 