A closer look at From Software's new title Bloodborne

Bloodborne

Bloodborne is the latest title by developers From Software which is set in the 19th century Victorian era and has a very dark gothic style to it. The games setting is quite different compared to From Softwares earlier releases like Dark Souls and Demon Souls, which has a more medieval setting. The games director Hidetaka Miyazaki actually waited a while to create the game as he felt the games consoles at the time were just not powerful enough. Considering how beautiful the game looks, the wait was definitely worth it.

In Bloodborne, you take on the role of a hunter in a world plagued by a nasty infection that affects most of the world’s population. The story takes place in the city of Y'harnam which supposedly has a remedy for this infection. However, upon arriving at Y'harnam, you discover that a horrible epidemic has turned most of its citizens into murderous creatures, making Y'harnam a death trap. So you must now survive as well as find a cure for the disease that started it.

The game is still in alpha stages so it will be getting a lot more tweaks. Players have a number of hunters to choose from which can be customized further as they play through. The generic hunter shown in most footages has a cleaver as a weapon that can be folded by the press of a button. He also wields a shotgun for ranged attacks, but it has limited ammunition so you will have to pick your targets sparingly. Unlike From Softwares previous games, you can lure an enemy out of the horde by tossing a pebble at them to get their attention. That way you don’t have to face a ton of tough enemies in one go and can weed them out one by one instead. Players will however have to find these pebbles so the amount of times you can do this is limited.

The game will contain a tough dungeon and a large map to explore.

Players will have to be careful how the manage resources though. Each Hunter will come with a secondary ranged weapon which means you will need to have a good supply of ammunition to constantly use this weapon.

Bloodbornes map is also going to be quite huge, much bigger than From Softwares other titles. How this happens is that with each entry into a new area, a new environment is generated which will contain more enemies and treasures to explore. Players can also call upon the services of the ‘white hunter’ by ringing a bell in their inventory. This can be done anytime they’re in a tight spot.

The game now contains another new feature called The Chalice Dungeon which is a three tiered dungeon that players can explore. The Dungeon can be solo’d, but its best to form a team as it will be quite difficult. The Dungeon is fixed however, so the level, enemy placement and everything else will be the same each time, which seems like a bit of a drawback but director Miyazaki has stated the following which justifies this decision:

“It's going to remain unchanged for that time. The benefit of that is that it allows us to give the players an opportunity to master the dungeon. You may not do it the first time around, so now that your dungeon is fixed you can try another path or tactic. Just assume that the difficulty level of these dungeons are quite high. It's not going to be easy to breeze through these."

Expect more information in the coming months

From Softwares has not revealed anything on character upgrading and manual saves yet, so this may be revealed at a later stage along with more information of the various features the game will contain. For now, it is certain that the game is going to be one of From Software’s best work yet.

The game is set to release next year on the 24th of March exclusively for the PS4.