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Bloodborne

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As noted elsewhere on the site, the single best thing I bought in 2015 wasn’t an album, or a movie, or even a book. It was From Software’s absolute masterpiece of a video game, Bloodborne. Caveat: before you go any further – yes, I’m going to geek out here, and very few of you are likely to be interested in what follows.

What is Bloodborne? It’s a third person adventure game, set – initially, at least – in a weird Victorian-looking city named Yharnam, wherein people are doing very strange things with blood, citizens are suddenly morphing into horrendous lycan creatures and most folk are simply hiding behind locked doors while vigilantes known as “Hunters” attempt to cleanse the streets. So far, so video-gamey. What’s unusual is how the story progresses. You’re never really told what’s going on. There are clear plotlines, and themes, but zero in the way of real exposition, and you’re left to piece it all together at your own pace. As you proceed through the game, you discover the ancient catacombs under the city, in which were found the remains of dead gods, and all manner of other nastiness. You learn what the residents have been doing with the blood of those dead gods, and the side effects it’s been having.

So, what makes this so damn good? Bloodborne sets out its flag early on. It has no truck with modern video game stalwarts such as regular save points, or difficulty modes. From the very first moment, it challenges the player to “git gud” (as the Bloodborne community saying goes), and punishes them brutally where they fail to do so. It’s a throwback to the classic video gaming era of the 80s, where players needed to invest a bit of thought and hone their skills – there is no hand holding and you will die constantly, because dying is how you learn. Oh, and when you die, all the enemies you’ve killed are brought back to life, forcing you to confront them again, to fight harder and to improve. This might sound boring or choresome, but fortunately Bloodborne is full of genius game mechanics, which keep things compelling, even as it’s kicking your arse.

I’m just going to stop here and list some of the things that I’ve enjoyed about this incredible game.

• The art style. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The environments are incredibly atmospheric and varied, there are dozens of enemy types and you never feel less than totally involved in the world around you.

• The risk/reward balance which underpins the entire game. Someone hit you? Hit them back within a couple of seconds and you’ll recover your lost health. Die? You’ll have dropped all your blood echoes (the in game currency, accrued every time you kill an enemy and tradeable for weapons, goods and abilities), but you can win them back by respawning and killing whatever it is that killed you before you die again. Playing the game makes you outright nervous – you constantly have something on the line, and yet another death is never more than a heartbeat away. You’re encouraged to be aggressive at all times, but you’re penalised for being careless. I’ve been more tense playing this game than any other time I can remember, and friends of mine admit to having simply cracked at times and run blind through levels hoping to find a way out before being inevitably hunted down and destroyed.

• The weapons. There are dozens of them, and they’re nearly all amazing. A sword that turns into a jagged metal whip? A giant metal motorised pizza cutter? An electrically-charged magic mace? The severed arm of a dead god? They’re incredible, and your choice of weapon will massively transform how the game plays – this sounds like classic marketing spiel, but on this occasion it’s actually true. I’m currently on my third straight play-through, using Beast Claws and Ludwig’s Holy Blade. I’ve also just discovered that it’s possible to play the game as a werewolf.

• The lore. Oh god, the lore. There is a hell of a lot of back story here, and it’s amazing. I’m normally someone who totally zones out on game storylines, because I think they’re almost always rubbish, and the trend to making games more and more like interactive movies sucks donkey balls. This is something else entirely. The stories here are on a mythic level; there are churches, and cults, and ancient insane royal dynasties, insanity, Eldtrich truths, assassins and everything in between. While some of those things are massive clichés, they’re delivered with so much style and originality as to make them feel fresh. You swing back and forth between the real world and the nightmares of its inhabitants, and game gets deeply, deeply trippy. The themes and imagery alone should tell you we’re not in Kansas: expanded consciousness, eugenics, an obsession with eyes and their removal, pregnancy and miscarriage, the tension between wisdom and bloodlust, etc. I can’t even begin to do justice to it all – everything is connected to everything else, and the game has delivered so many “holy sh!t” moments I’ve stopped counting. About halfway through, the game full on wigs out, changes tone dramatically and more or less invites you to commune with the cosmos. It’s awesome, and essays are currently being written online about what it all means. Here’s “The Paleblood Hunt” – a 90 page analysis of the game’s story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JL5acskAT_2t062HILImBkV8eXAwaqOj611mSjK-vZ8/edit Just have a flick through that and say you’re not curious as to what on earth he’s on about.

• The boss fights. Oh god, the boss fights. I’m including below a video of one of them. They’re hard as nails – you’re expected to fail, and fail often. It’s quite common to kill one of these things, and realise that your heart is beating at a hundred miles an hour and your hands are shaking – the fights can last upwards of ten minutes and the adrenaline rush is enormous. The bosses also have some of the greatest names I’ve ever seen anywhere. Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos? Rom the Vacuous Spider? Mergo’s Wet Nurse? The Cleric Beast? Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower? The Celestial Emissary? Ludwig The Holy Blade? Martyr Logarius? Orphan of Kos? Vicar Amelia (seen in action in the video below)? Too cool.

• The sheer depth of the game. There are a million nooks and crannies you’ll never fully explore, but unlike most RPG type games you’ll actually want to. There are entirely hidden levels. And then hidden levels within those hidden levels. You can play through the whole game and miss out entirely on the existence of some of the best areas, weapons and enemies in the whole game. Likewise, there are stats out the wazoo, but you can choose to ignore them, or go as deep as you want – the game flexes to allow for both. A friend of mine is on his fourth play-through. He is still trying to properly understand the way that bloodgems (collectible items which enhance the power of your weapons) work. In his own words, researching this subject online is like reading an advanced maths text book, and he’s having to take notes. I skipped all that and just went “cool – this one make my giant metal hammer catch fire when I hit things with it”. I’m probably about a hundred hours into this game now. I own a hardback copy of the player guide (beautifully presented with original illustrations and enough info to teach you to fly Concorde). I’ve listened to hours and hours of podcasts of people just discussing the game and its themes. I still haven’t seen everything, and I basically feel like I’ve not even scratched the surface.

• It has the best level design of any game I’ve ever played. Can’t really explain it in words, you have to experience it for yourself, but it makes it feel like every other game simply hasn’t been trying. Speaking of which; Bloodborne will ruin you for other games – it’s like watching Pulp Fiction and then heading straight into Carebears: The Movie.

• The fear factor. It’s not a horror title, but I’ve never been so on edge playing a video game. Every dark corner is terrifying, every new enemy intimidating. Ditto the sheer difficulty. This is a famously tough game. It’s incredibly daunting when you start, and the feeling of achievement as you progress is palpable. Brilliantly, when it’s over, it invites you to simply restart and play again, each time with the difficulty ramped up a further notch. It challenges you constantly, and has absolutely perfect balance.

• The “Insight” mechanic. Throughout the game you collect “Insight”. At first, you have no idea what this means, but with time you come to realise that it reflects your understanding of the universe, and that as your Insight score climbs you begin to see things in the game (many of them quite horrible) that weren’t there previously, and the game gets harder for it. I’ll say no more for fear of spoilers.

• The blood. Oh, the blood. So much of it. The game fully lives up to its title. It’s not gory, just horrific. Want to wade through a literal river of blood, pursued by gigantic nightmare tic-creatures, dragging their distended, blood-filled abdomens behind them? This is the game for you. Want to literally dance in the raining blood of a defeated boss, as the game slaps the words “PREY SLAUGHTERED” across the screen in capital letters? Help yourself. The game’s freaking mantra is “Fear the old blood”. I’m throwing up devil horns just writing this stuff.

• The sense of joy. I’ve been playing games since I was a little kid. Recently, parenthood has meant I’ve played a lot less of them, and it’s at least a decade since I’ve really been absorbed in one. This has had me, hook line and sinker, as you can probably tell from the above. Best of all, I’ve been able to play through it with some old mates – each of them, I forced to play Bloodborne with the line “this is the best game I’ve ever played”. High bar. Each of them scoffed: “it can’t be better than ” (usually, Ocarina of Time). Each of them gradually came round to admitting that – yes – this is the best game ever. Best of all, it’s easy to play communally – you can share info without really spoiling anything, you take pleasure in one another’s achievements, and the game also has a healthy online mode: players can leave notes for one another (some of which will inevitably contain lies), and invade one another’s games to either assist or attack.

• It just has that X factor. That release of endorphins when a game works exactly as it should and is fine-tuned to perfection. The sheer amount of love, craft, Lovecraft and attention that has gone into this thing boggles the mind. The graphics compliment the music, which compliments the gameplay, and so on and so on. It’s pretty close to perfect. I’ve drifted away from gaming a little in recent years, partly because the industry has become fairly conservative, and partly because I always get the sense that developers aren’t exploiting the capabilities of the medium to anywhere near the extent they might. This game represents a step-change in all that; it demonstrates what can be done, and it has me really, really excited.

So, there’s my breathless, giddy blurb. Suffice to say, words cannot do justice to the experience of playing this game, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone brave enough to tackle it. Do bear in mind: it starts tough. Many people give up in the first couple of hours, and it will take you a while to figure out what the hell is going on (give it at least until you’ve killed the first boss). There is no tutorial, and a lot of it is “work it out as you go”. If anyone does get stuck in, please do come back and let me know how you find it – I’m happy to give tips if they’re needed.

If we’re looking for a musical reference (and I suspect we must): imagine if Slipknot covered Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow, and in doing so produced an album universally acclaimed to be better than Astral Weeks. Oh, and here’s the video to Kill v Maim by Afterword favourite Grimes – the “You Died” at the very end is the screen you’re shown in Bloodborne after each and every one of your many deaths.

Happy hunting.

1

Comments

  2. “Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos? Rom the Vacuous Spider? Mergo’s Wet Nurse? The Cleric Beast? Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower? The Celestial Emissary? Ludwig The Holy Blade? Martyr Logarius? Orphan of Kos? Vicar Amelia”

    aka Vertigo’s band roster circa 1972…

  3. Oh alright then, I’m in. Once I’ve finished the Uncharted Collection (I had an Xbox 360 last gen, I’ve never played them before) I’ll get stuck into this. The eldritcher the better as far as I’m concerned.

    You should give Witcher 3 a go, by the way. Far and away the best game of last year for me (not having played Bloodborne)

    • It’s extremely Eldritchy. Particularly the latter half of the game.

      Witcher 3 is on my list. I’ve heard the storyline is incredible, but some of my mates who’ve been playing Bloodborne have found the W3 combat system hard to get on with.

      Just a few more months of Bloodborne and I’m in.

  4. Excellent review Bingo. As an observer rather than a hard-core gamer. I think I followed most of what you describe. It’s the graphics and the plotlines that interest me the most.

    And there’s no way that watching a few clips onthe Tube will ever give someone any understanding of how rich, sophisticated and complex the games of today are. Or the amount of talent and money involved. A new release will cost as much as a major feature film, And they can get the likes of Kevin Spacey to do the voice acting. The games companies are not short of cash.

    As a layman, it’s interesting to me how gaming has made an appearance in other genres.

    Scott Pilgrim vs The World is the first movie that comes to mind.

    And then there are novelists who are gamers, like the wonderful Christopher Brookmyre, Aspects of games apperar in several of his books and I’ve just learnt that in his novel, Bedlam, it’s the central theme. Hadn’t realised he’d written sci-fi.

    Here he is talking about five major gaming moments in his life.

    https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/Articles/Christopher-Brookmyre-Gaming.page

  6. A genuine inquiry on games from a sympathetic observer. Are there games out there that allow the player to immerse themselves in a well-imagined and illustrated world, but whose objective isn’t about killing things?

    That may make me sound like a wuss, so let me put down my organic genmaicha tea and explain myself. I love the idea of these games with finely detailed cities and landscapes that allow you to immerse yourself. But I’ve no interest on slaying dark elves or medieval assassins. What’s out there?

      • Thanks Bingo! That sounds interesting, though I only have a PS3. I see though that the developer have a previous game called “Dear Esther” that’s set on a Hebridean Island, and is tagged on Steam as “walking simulator”. This is pretty much my level (though I do want it put on record that I was able to do the flying drop kick on The Way of the Exploding Fist on the Spectrum 48K).

      • Disappointing, I know, that Mario and Luigi don’t have to wade through rivers of blood and climb mountains of skulls. But I still think Super Mario Galaxy is wonderful stuff.

  7. I posted here for recommendations for PS3 games last summer, having just bought one for my boy. I looked at the recommendations and ended up with my own first choice anyway Skyrim, and haven’t actually stopped playing it since August. I don’t dare get a PS4, because the amount of actual life I have to spare to take on bigger open worlds is just….psshh. My best mate reckons I’d live inside Witcher 3.

    As it is Skyrim is still the game I waited my whole life to see. And now I want to see this game. God I remember the pain of insta-death games.

  10. And now a generation gap thing.

    I can easily understand the pleasure of going to a concert of game music. But one thing I don’t get is a huge arena full of people, watching somebody else playing a game on a gigantic screen.

    This seems to be rather popular with games like League of Legends.

  12. Sorry! You’ve lost me Locust. Please elucidate. Was it my comment about him being a Christian? I thought it odd that someone with religious faith should write music for a game so full of diabolic imagery.

    Trying to find the programme for last night’s concert, which Mrs KFD rather enjoyed, and I stumbled across this (far from new) site about game music. In Swedish unfortunately.

    http://spelmusik.net/

    It mentions this choir, Orphei Dränger, who have released an album of game music.

    • I think he was saying if you look ‘up there’ , Bingo posted a clip of the performance you’re talking about. Pretty impressive it is too. Can’t say I was particularly bowled over by the battling the boss clip though, but I was just watching it on an iPad, not playing it on a big screen I guess.

      • That’s a fair shout. I watched that clip back after I’d posted it and realised that it doesn’t actually look all that impressive in isolation. Unfortunately, there isn’t one video or image I can post that shows why the game is so good – it’s more in how it all hangs together and the atmosphere as a whole.

        Hopefully I’ll have managed to induce someone else on here to give it a go, and they can verify that these aren’t the witterings of a madman!

  13. Great review, Bingo. I’ll read more about it, as I enjoy this kind of lore, rather than play it – as I don’t have the cash to buy the game let alone a PS4! I also find I don’t have the patience for serious gaming.
    One question – why’d you say ‘it’s not a horror title’?

    • Cheers, dude!

      It’s not generally considered a horror title because it doesn’t rely on pre-orchestrated jump scares. There’s maybe one of them in the entire game. Technically, it’s an action RPG with a creepy vibe: it’s focused more on unsettling you and making you feel intensely vulnerable than it is making you jump out of your seat.

      Regarding the lore, here’s one of numerous attempts to explain the storyline. It’s quite long, but gives a sense of what’s out there.

      • Wow.
        Thanks for that.
        To me, the fighting is the least interesting part. I thought that the fast action and dark back grounds might be hiding a lot of fudged, under-developed locations – repeated tiles, trees etc, but that video shows how wrong I was. The buildings and environments are beyond convincing – the mould, slime, drizzle and puddles give a sort of life to the decaying world. Character designs are superb (I watched this full-screen on the iMac) – the monster that appears around the one minute mark is fabulously indescribable, Queen Yarnam is heartbreakingly haunting. One small criticism – the characters that ‘you’ play all seem to be the same height and body type, whether male or female.
        The storyline is fascinating, and I need to know more. I don’t think I’d enjoy playing it – I’d get too frustrated by my frequent deaths and beginagains, but I enjoyed that video a lot and intend to watch the others.

        • Excellent – glad you liked it, and agree entirely about the design. An insane amount of love has gone into this thing.

          The central character is insanely customisable at the very start of the game, and throughout, although height and build stays fairly static. There are people who have played through the entire game with their character virtually naked and using only their bare fists, which is insanely impressive, when you look at how hard this is even with full armour and powerful weaponry.

          The creature a minute in is Ebrietas, the game’s most obvious Lovecraft call out (she kind of looks like Cthulu crossed with some sort of insect). Before the recent expansion, she was widely considered the toughest boss in the game, and fighting her first time round was a massive high point, for me.

          Enjoy the other videos. For what it’s worth, my favourite boss fight of all is Ludwig the Accursed – his design, location, music, and the cut scene halfway through are utterly superbly. The first time I fought him I was completely overwhelmed by it all, and dead within about ten seconds.

  14. Thanks for clearing up my confusion BAD. I now see that Locust and I must have commented on that TV show at almost the same time. Which might explain why I missed her comment.

    I think it’s interesting that SVT devote two and half hours of prime time Saturday evening viewing to gamer music. It’s definitely not a niche interest any more.

    Your explanation about it not being a horror title was interesting, Bingo. Gore, bloodworm a few years, gauging, monsters ……but not horror??

    Just pulling your leg. I understand that there are titles out there that really aim at scaring the shit out of the player rather than creating a creepy ambience. We’ll give those a miss for a few years.

        • OK. It’s going to be like that for a little while: the awesomeness doesn’t really begin until you’ve got past that first level.

          A few tips (that the game doesn’t make obvious):

          1. You should have equipped weapons by now. Learn to parry using your gun (shoot an enemy as they’re poised to attack). Particularly effective on the big troll enemies.

          2. You can use blood echoes to level up. But only once you’ve gained an insight point. You can either get this by finding a boss or searching in the sewers. Once you can level, focus on vitality to start with.

          3. Watch out for gates that can be opened. The game is full of short cuts.

          4. Do not give up until you’ve killed the first two bosses, because that’s when the penny drops for most people.

          Happy hunting!

  17. Just a quick heads up that the next game by From Software, Dark Souls III, is released today.

    This one is one Playstation and Xbox, so all you Microsoft kids now have the opportunity to be reminded of the good old days when games didn’t feel the need to do you any favours.

  18. NIGHTMARE SLAIN

    Got the third ending a few hours ago.

    A couple of observations – everything Bingo says about the level design is right. One of my favourite moments of the game is right in the first area when you suddenly realise how all the different parts of the level you’ve seen fit together. The sense of achievement in reaching the various shortcuts through each level is quite something.
    The difficulty – is it me, or does the game get quite a bit easier as it goes on? I mean, at no point is it a walk in the park, but I don’t think any of the bosses caused me as much grief as the Cleric Beast or Father Gascoigne did early on (apart from the Shadow of Yarnham. Bastards, all of them). I suppose it’s to do with learning the mechanics, and getting to grips with what the game expects of you.
    What a terrifically deep backstory. I enjoyed puzzling out what was going on (eyes? implanted on the inside of the skull?) but I have only the haziest idea of why I have ended up as a big slug.

    I am tempted to go on and aim for the platinum trophy, but that looks like an awful lot of Chalice dungeons. I’ll probably get the DLC first. I should really be doing the Witcher DLC story first, but I have a nasty feeling that if I step away from Bloodborne and then return, I will lose my mojo and find myself getting slaughtered as much as I did early on….

    • Excellent. Just excellent.

      Yes – it gets easier later on. The game is deliberately an absolute bastard at the start, but it trains you up well, and once you get properly levelled you can move through pretty quick.

      Level design – I think Central Yharnam is the cleverest level of any game I’ve ever played. The design is genius, and while it’s punishingly hard and knocks a lot of players out early, it’s also extremely effective at teaching you the game’s core mechanics.

      Did you find all the hidden areas? Forsaken Castle Cainhurst? Upper Cathedral Ward?

      The DLC is sensationally good, even better than the main game, and with three of the greatest boss fights you’ll ever see. In terms of difficulty, it’s a spike, and you’ll also be in NG+ now, which is harder. You can use the chalice dungeons to level quickly from here if you’re so inclined.

      Well worth going for the Platinum – I loved every minute, and on a second and third run though the game you can experiment with new weapons and really delve into the lore, which gets cooler the more you dig.

      In terms of toughest boss, I think Father G is well and truly up there, but (excluding the DLC) I’d probably say Ebrietas, or the horrendous version of amygdala you’ll find in the depths of the chalice dungeons.

      God, I love Bloodborne.

      Also: I’ve finished Church & State, so will update the thread ASAP. SO good.

      • I got lucky with Ebrietas. It was possibly a glitch, but somehow I found myself in a position behind her where she could not reach me, and as she shifted I shifted with her, and so I took half of her half bar down without taking any damage myself. I found the Shadow Of Yarnham very difficult, until I killed Darkbeast Paarl and unlocked the bolt paper.

        I think I found all the hidden areas, certainly the only boss trophy I don’t have is the one for Queen Yarnham. Just typing it is making me want to do the Chalice Dungeons. I definitely did Cainhurst (actually, Martyr Logarius was a swine as well, now I think of it), and the Upper Cathedral Ward, where I lost an awful lot of insight to those brainsucking creatures.

        • Ah, I’d forgotten Paarl. My personal nemesis first time round – couldn’t kill him for the longest time, mainly because I was using a saw cleaver.

          Other hidden areas are Nightmare Frontier, and if you get kidnapped early on you can get to the Hidden Village. Sounds like you probably hit them all.

          The chalice dungeons are well worth doing – there are bosses that aren’t in the main game, and the last couple of dungeons are a serious test of skill. Also worth going through NG+ to experiment with your build, start trying out some of the arcane stuff, etc.

          Second time round, I played as a werewolf, using beast claws and a special rune. Totally different game experience.

          You gotta do the DLC next though – so good.

          Also; I was up far too late last night playing Dark Souls 3. It is starting to become quite magnificent.

          Ebrietas – you can get trapped in that spot in her tail. Did you notice that she was mourning the corpse of Rom when you first arrive? And that to get to her you run across the top of the massive cathedral room you fought Vicar Amelia in? The little details really make the game.

          • Had bit of a break, but I’ve started the DLC now. Ludwig The Holy Blade is now toast.

            Getting back on the blood has made me remember just how magnificent this game is. The game mechanics, the art design, the atmosphere…it’s all genius.

            • Fantastic. Ludwig is probably my favourite boss fight of all time. The setting, the music, the little cut scene in the middle (“my guiding moonlight”), the boss design. It’s all just so good. The Holy Moonlight Sword is also a very cool weapon once you get your arcane stats up.

              I finished Dark Souls 3 after Bloodborne. It’s very good, but it’s nowhere near as good, if that makes sense. It just doesn’t quite have the same magic – with Bloodborne the setting and the lore were just so strong that I couldn’t get enough of it.

              I also finished Doom, and it’s exactly as much fun as people are saying. Well worth playing.

    • Sooooo cooooool.

      I knew they were still finding new stuff in the chalice dungeons, but not that they’d finally tracked down the Flaming Undead Giant (*throws up horns*).

      They really, really need to announce a sequel.

      • oh, I don’t know. A “spiritual sequel” maybe, but I’m not sure the story needs or requires any expansion by the end of the game. I’d rather see those minds turn to something fresh.

        • They’ve made another Dark Souls game since, but that series doesn’t have quite the same magic, for me. The combat is much slower, and much less intuitive – part of the joy of Bloodborne is how everything just sort of flows once you get good at it.

          There are persistent rumours that they’ll make a sci fi game next. That, I would love to see.

  21. Folks. I am being offered a PS4 for Christmas and I’m not sure I “need” it. So I need to know about Bloodborne cos this could be the deciding factor: is it basically one level boss after another that you need the “next” move combo / weapon to defeat? From what I am hearing it sounds quite “Gods of War”-y which got old quite soon.

    • No – apart from having big bosses and involving combat, it’s not much like God of War, and it’s a far, far, far, far, far better game.

      You can kill any boss with any weapon. You can finish the game with your bare hands if you want to – you just need to be super good at it.

      It’s still comfortably the best video game I’ve ever played. You will need a bit of grit to get through the first area though.

    • hmmm, not really. The bosses are like gatekeepers in that, by and large, you have to defeat them to move onto the next part of the world, but even that’s not rigid, and you can tackle different ones in a different order. You can stick with the same weapons you start with at the beginning of the game and just upgrade them, but part of the fun is trying out different tools for cutting up monsters. It’s a long time since I played any God Of War, which I never got on with anyway, but I loved Bloodborne. As far as the playing experience, the atmosphere, the satisfaction of victory go, it’s a whole different game.

  22. @kid-dynamite

    Just a heads up, in case you’re not already on it: Elden Ring is a stone cold masterpiece. Playing through it with some buds and having an absolute hoot. It’s essentially an open world Bloodborne with less gothic horror and more bears.

    • Oh, I’m all over it! Fantastic stuff so far, just got my second Great Rune and learned how to respec (very early on for a From game, so that throws up a lot of interesting possibilities for endgame boss strategies), and am currently distracted by a huge underground city. Think it’s the first of these games I’ve played at launch and the sense of discovery while the wikis are still empty is something special. If you’re on PlayStation and ever fancy some jolly co-operation my character is a samurai called Sailor Twift, look out for her.

      In other news I should have updated this thread last year to announce the crowning glory of my lockdown achievements, which was getting the platinum trophies in Bloodborne, Dark Souls and Dark Souls III. Multiplayer in II was dead on my last attempt so I didn’t quite make that one, but nevertheless I think we can all agree that this is a tremendous feat and in no way a waste of time.

      • Excellent!

        If it’s the same underground city I’m thinking of, the elevator ride alone was awesome.

        Couldn’t agree more re: the wikis thing; I’m looking forward to seeing what insane discoveries are made in the weeks and months ahead. I’m also, as ever, loving the community around this title. It totally inverts the usual spoiler concerns; if you’re not dipping into the community, you’re missing out on a really important part of the whole experience. The memes alone are gold.

        My mind is being blow by the fact that From appear to have simply taken the two best games I’ve ever played (Bloodborne and Breath of the Wild) and merged them into one glorious whole. The universe so rarely delivers these absolute treats.

        Sailor Twift? Outstanding name. I’ll try to find you.

        You platinumed all the Souls games? Holy crap. Pure respect. I’ve finished all of them, but only platinumed Bloodborne (although I have now platinumed it twice). It is my considered view that these games are absolute works of art (except Dark Souls II).

        • aw, I’ve got a lot of time for DSII. Yes, it’s janky and messy, but I reckon it has some of the best locations of the entire series, and really nails the melancholy and haunted vibe of being in a land thousands of years past its prime. It’s the polar opposite of DSIII which is super slick and polished but a wee bit sterile as well. They’re both still great games, but 8 or 9 out of 10s instead of the perfection of DS or Bloodborne, and quite possibly also Elden Ring if it sticks the landing. So far it’s tremendous. Would type more, but this magma wyrm isn’t going to kill itself.

  25. @kid-dynamite

    Oh wow – I hadn’t seen that! I think it may need to be done.

    Since the above thread, I’ve been back through Bloodborne 3 or 4 more times, and am now part of a Games industry Whatsapp group dedicated to the game. Some fantastic content in there, and another group playthrough is never far away. I really enjoyed Elden Ring, it’s a total classic, but it didn’t quite have that same X factor to keep me going back over and over.

    For work reasons I was recently on an introductory video call with a guy who specializes in advising businesses on narrative in Games. We chatted for a bit and then he went “You know what game has an absolutely perfect approach to narrative, and that I always hold up to my clients as a shining example?”

    You can probably guess the rest. What. A. Game.

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