Fans of gothic horror rejoice – the new downloadable expansion for PS4 exclusive Bloodborne has been announced. To celebrate, join us as we recap our favourite Bloodborne mindfuck moments. Spoilers abound!
1. When It Trolls You 30 Seconds In
Bloodborne is out to get you from the start. After enduring a mysterious and rather unpleasant blood treatment you are released into an abandoned, blood-splattered operating theatre. Making your way through the darkness you come across an enormous werewolf, casually chomping some poor chump’s corpse.
That’s the moment you realise the game hasn’t given you a weapon yet.
I got eaten too.
2. When Father Gascoigne Is Sicker Than You Thought
Fighting a bandaged, mumbling, slightly psychotic priest is bad enough. Doing so under a bulbous moon in a graveyard in the middle of the night is so gothic it hurts. Having that same priest undertake an explosive, bloody transformation into a werewolf halfway through the fight made me drop my controller in fright.
I got eaten, again.
3. When It Kidnaps You
Bloodborne never lets you settle. You think you’ve got it sussed, wandering through Yharnam enjoying the gothic scenery and occasionally whipping the face off of an inexplicably angry local. You can dodge, duck, dip, dive and parry like a pro and the game is starting to feel, dare I say it, rather easy.
Then the Snatchers arrive.
They appear without warning in areas you have already cleared: tall, menacing grim reapers who like nothing more than to beat you about the head with the sacks they lug around – hard enough to kill you in a single hit. When you die you awake in a jail cell, lost and alone with no idea how to get out. Good luck finding the exit – you won’t be going anywhere until you do.
4. When It Laughs In The Face Of Reality
Early on you encounter several spots where, for no explicable reason, a whirling vortex appears, sucking you up into the sky and inflicting massive damage.
Later, you will suddenly be able to see what was really lifting you up: enormous spider-creatures, latched onto the sides of the cathedral like ticks on a dying dog. There are dozens of them, just waiting to pluck you up and consume you. They were there all along; you just couldn’t handle the truth.
Lovecraft would be proud.
5. When The Moon Gives Birth
The moon almost got a section all to itself. It starts as a pleasant, bright white companion, watching down benevolently over your every move. As the game progresses it grows bigger, redder, and more ominous. Then it gives birth.
That’s right. One boss fight commences when the whole moon is suddenly covered in writhing black energy. A mummified head and torso emerge, dripping with slime, with arms dangling, like a newborn. What first appears to be an enormous pile of clotted afterbirth follows, until you realise that mass of meat is actually the creature’s massive body. The birthday boy is a twenty-foot-tall multi-legged monstrosity of exposed bone and raw, gleaming muscle, and his birthday wish is your prolonged and agonising death.
6. Everything At Castle Cainhurst. Everything.
Castle Cainhurst is one of my favourite locations in gaming: an icy, towering edifice that offers horror after horror. Its grounds are patrolled by giant, bloodsucking flea-women, its gargoyles come to life and try to eat you, and the whole place is infested with the ghosts of murdered women. Who cry.
Everywhere you go in Castle Cainhurst you can hear crying. It starts to play on your nerves, setting your teeth on edge, distracting you from your game. It’s so maddening that you will mess up, and you will die. Which means you have to start again, enduring the crying anew, your own sobs of frustration acting as a bitter, ironic counterpoint.
7. When You Realise You’re The Bad Guy
Bloodborne is all about man’s descent back into beasthood. You are supposed to be a noble hunter of beasts but it hints heavily that you might be just as bad as the beasts you hunt. As you murder legions of Yharnam’s townsfolk they use their dying breaths to scream out that you are the real monster. And you just might be – after all, you can heal your wounds by slashing your enemies open and bathing in their blood, which just screams vampire.
The biggest clue is in the game’s hidden ending. To find it you must consume three umbilical cords – not the actions of a sane person. Once you beat the final boss, you will see your faithful companion scooping up some hideous tentacled monstrosity and cradling it like a baby, before calling it by the same nickname she had for you, the player. You have been reborn as one of the grotesque creatures you fought so hard to stop, creatures who bring nothing but suffering, death, and madness wherever they go.
It’s okay, though. Soon, another hunter will rise up and kill you – only to fall victim to the same curse, ensuring that the bloody night of the hunt never ends. Thanks, Bloodborne, for redefining bleak endings and really screwing with our minds.
