And for Bloodborne’s first trick: you awaken in a Victorian surgery after undergoing a blood transfusion administered by a shady, wheelchair-bound man. Suddenly you hear banging, then a guttural growl that chills the bones. A wiry, fur-matted werewolf stoops menacingly over a prone body, blocking the only exit. You've got two fists and a dapper suit - what to do? Well, die. Doing so transports you to hazy netherworld the Hunter's Dream where you're stocked with weapons and sent back to kill the great beasts of Yarnham. Turns out it wasn't a trick at all - it was a lesson. That short loop was the game in a microcosm: teach, then test. You don’t so much play as learn. From Software doesn’t stray far from its lineage, and as with Demon’s Souls and both Dark Souls games before it, Bloodborne follows a fundamental pattern: you cautiously enter a new, very scary area filled with fresh challenges and tough enemies. Dying often comes next. But then you return with conviction, armed with the vague understanding of enemy placements, traps, and attack patterns. Repeated visits firm your grip. Knowledge is power.
If you've played those games, it's incredibly easy to adjust to this one. Take the concept of blood, acting as both life force and currency. It lets you level up, fortify weapons, and purchase items. The catalyst of cautious play, fear of losing your bounty - you drop it when you die, and get one shot at retrieval - naturally increases the more you have, fuelling compelling rounds of risk and reward. Dark Souls’ iconic bonfires are replaced by lamps, used for warping back to the Hunter's Dream (be warned, this replenishes the world with enemies). Get online and you’ll see ghostly recordings of other players doing their thing in other worlds, only now they’re called spectres. Leaving messages on the floor for the community to read isn’t done with soapstone, but a notebook. The effect is reassurance rather than repetition. As with Assassin’s Creed, familiar mechanics are transposed wholesale on top of different settings and styles. The apparatus is universal, even if the universe changes.
And what a universe. The bleak, oppressive, but somehow innately beautiful world of Yarnham aligns so perfectly with the disturbing energy of Demon’s and Dark Souls that it feels like the series’ spiritual home. It's both lulling dream and waking nightmare. Great black cathedrals rise to meet a low dead sun, damp cobblestone alleys reflect a forlorn moon, and thick mist envelopes innumerable crusted tombstones, tangled forests, and shrouded paths. Still, I found myself stopping to drink in every view, and that isn't an accident. From Software composes each scene to show what lies ahead and behind. Look down and you’ll see the bridge you battled on hours ago; look to the horizon and the giant crumbling windmill you're trying to reach will loom like a beacon. It’s Bloodborne giving you pause to appreciate how far you’ve come. Nothing is empty set dressing. Contrasting where you stood at the start, a clean and cowering runt with hand-me-down weapons, to your later fearless, blood-caked hero who’s survived whip-cracking NPC invaders, conquered wolf-infested hamlets, and trounced a parade of harrowing bosses, gives a real sense of progress. You don’t really have a motive, besides a vague opening line about unravelling the mysteries of blood ministration, but that mystery provides ample impetus.
Bloodborne lies somewhere between Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, better than the latter but not quite as good as the former. The fourth time following the same template means the master strokes, however masterful they are, are anticipated. But take nothing away from this brilliant, brooding, brutal reinvention, because almost as great as the best game ever is pretty bloody great.
