Compared to the previous games from FromSoftware, Bloodborne is different not just in appearance but in feel. The gothic horror setting is fully rendered and comes to life in such a way that the depth of its insanity and such visions as the werewolf-like monster that you first encounter sear themselves into your memory. And you just know that you’re not going to be able to go back and unsee them. Then, of course, there’s the combat system, which is faster and much more aggressive than anything else the studio has produced but, in typical FromSoftware fashion, demands strict adherence to a set of unyielding rules. These two elements—setting and style—immediately mark Bloodborne’s as an identity that stands apart from even the previous Dark Souls games.
The plot of Bloodborne is as complex as it is unsettling. It takes many cues from the work of Lovecraft but then builds on them considerably. For a video game, the storyboard attempts something ambitious: not just telling a story but also layering the narrative in a way that gives you the creepy sense that something truly unnatural is going on just out of sight. You discover many different terrors just waiting to be revealed. You find that the so-called beasts are only the first layer of horror. You realize that by delving into the history of Yharnam and the goings-on of its human inhabitants, you’re spinning farther and farther down a twisted path of no return.
Bloodborne represents a shift in the player’s relation to combat. It redefines what these titles have been about in that regard. From the very first encounter, you’re almost panicked into the realization that the core tenets of the series serve no purpose here. You can’t play this game like it has “slow, careful, and panicky” combat. Those tenets serve no purpose in your survival. From the very first enemy, you’re made to feel that you have to get on the offensive to an almost ludicrous degree.
When you first reach for a weapon—either the Saw Cleaver, Hunter Axe, or Threaded Cane—Bloodborne immediately conveys that you must not hesitate. You almost have to scold yourself for being slow because every moment in the game is marked by its breathtaking urgency. Yharnam’s inhabitants are not ballet dancers of dark fantasy’s past but are instead blazingly fast and ferociously stubborn. Even to be efficient, one has to be somewhat aggressive, always moving, always knowing. Part of knowing is understanding the kind of terrible thing you are fighting and the kind of terrible thing you might become. The system is so direct and engaged with the horror trope that it forces you to be direct and engaged, too.
A mechanic that epitomizes this philosophy is the “Rally” system. If you get hurt, you regain health by quickly countering in a “don’t let the enemy smell blood” kind of move. Health regen ain’t new, but few games have made it as core to their systems and structure as this one. The dynamics are wild. To heal, you can never go defensive or play the waiting game. You have to stay aggressive, keep countering, and so not play like a wuss. It’s a brilliant way to keep engaged and on edge while making you feel good when you’ve beaten an enemy down even though they had the first-hit advantage.
The game’s atmosphere of non-stop nail-biting tension comes from its in-your-face combat. In Bloodborne, you can never let your guard down—especially not in the Hunter’s Dream, the game’s hub world, where the moon’s presence constantly overhead is a reminder that the nightmare can come back at any moment. The combat is not just “mind the gap” dodge and whack to take out a foe. It’s about not being made mincemeat of in a world that seems to want you ground down to powder—and to smash through the world’s relentless distractions by way of your survival.
Few video games contain as many unnerving, ghastly characters as Bloodborne. The foes encountered throughout the indie darling are some of the most outrageous and outright awesome seen to date. Nothing, however, quite lives up to the sheer terror that is Old Father Gascoigne. When first coming upon this master of the art of beheading, it is impossible to tell what kind of being he is; all that is known is that he is out to get you, and boy does he get you good the first time around.
The character design for this enemy is off-the-charts well done with a P-6 hit at the behest of Julian for the illustration.
Bloodborne maintains a consistent and fresh sense of horror throughout the entirety of the game. Just when players think they’ve witnessed the worst to come out of Yharnam, the game pushes something even more gut-wrenching. Moreover, it feels as if game’s ascends further and further into the unsettling depths of an almost indescribable nightmare, with each new area seeming more perilous and more grotesque than the last.
When I immersed myself in Bloodborne, I understood that Yharnam’s real terror emanated not just from its grotesque creatures or the punishing efficiency of my character’s death-causing weaponry, but from the play’s profoundly unsettling foundation. H.P. Lovecraft is often cited as the grandfather of video game horror, but if Bloodborne is any indication, the storytelling of FromSoftware, the game’s developer, has attained a level of cryptic profundity that deserves celebration.
The plot of Bloodborne is not simply laid before you. Instead, it demands that you pry it loose from the game through sheer persistence—item descriptions, environmental storytelling, and reverse interrogation of the game’s characters provide the narrative in a form most players are undoubtedly unaccustomed to. The main story conceit is that of forbidden knowledge, and its unfurling is deliciously Lovecraftian; the player learns about the world of Yharnam in a way that makes one appreciate the sheer horror of the situation.
Bloodborne’s unsettling nature stems from its elusiveness; it is hard to pin down why precisely the game holds such an unnerving quality.
One of the most disconcerting aspects of Bloodborne is how it makes you question the certainty of your character’s reality. The world is one where the physical and metaphysical are barely separated—where the characters’ collective mental health is in a sharp decline. You begin the game in a seemingly rational, albeit sick, world brimming with gates and doors, the maze of which you’re meant to navigate. But the deeper you go, the more you begin to question whether it’s the world that’s sick or just your mind and the minds of the characters trapped within it. In that way, Bloodborne is far more effective at getting under one’s skin than even the most grotesque visuals could accomplish.
The Bloodborne mythology is rich with metaphor and thematic substance, exploring powerful ideas about the nature of blood, how it binds us, and the dire consequences when its power is misused. At the core of the myth is the idea that blood gives life and that, in the wrong hands, it can also take life. In Yharnam, the very substance that gives its citizens life is also the thing that is going to make them die or, worse, turn them into rampaging beasts. And isn’t it also a little bit reflectively uncanny that game mechanics in Bloodborne echo this theme? Blood is your means of attack throughout the game, but it’s also your primary means of healing. Both uses staggeringly close to the line where you start going mad and might just end up being the best metaphor for the story itself: Blood Makes You Mad!
A particularly captivating aspect of Bloodborne is how it encourages the players to come up with their own interpretations of its story and themes. In Yharnam, nothing is obvious, and all you get are tantalizing hints and hints you have to work to understand and rearrange. This facet of the game makes its narrative truly engaging because you feel like you’ve solved a mystery by game’s end.
The world of Bloodborne is one that you want to make sense of, if only so you don’t have to go mad in the attempt.
In my view, the pinnacle of horror in video games is represented in Bloodborne. It’s a game that requires you to meet the challenges it sets not just at the physical level but at the mental and emotional levels, as well—almost like a psych “confronto” therapy for fear and excusable game weakness. The world of Yharnam is a hellish place of secrets, full of twisted nightmares that would test anybody’s sanity. Yet it’s also a world that has an aesthetic beauty, a wondrous quality, from which I felt it completely okay to extract some pleasure as I reveled in the game’s many mysteries.
To sum up, Bloodborne is a piece of art in the horror genre that merges gothic and cosmic horror elements with a narrative that moves between long-form college essays and poetic fragments from one page to the next. And then there is the combat. Bloodborne’s hyper-fast, almost frenetic, intensity only serves to pace equally unsettling moments of calm when wandering through the game’s world. It’s a world that sticks with you long after you hit “game over” and puts considerable distance between you and the controller.
