It won’t end nicely. Not this time.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, on a special epilogue episode, we’re going to be taking another look at Bloodborne. This is a FromSoftware action RPG, tragically confined to the Sony ecosystem, but still containing a lot of the genre trappings of the games related to Dark Souls. However, the combat has ben retooled to be faster and more aggressive and the setting has been moved from medieval dark fantasy to gothic and Lovecraftian horror. Similarly to Sekrio, From, even when experimenting with genres and themes outside of their typical wheelhouse, manages to create a shockingly complete package. The mechanics of the notoriously difficult series play into the unfathomable nature of cosmic horror, the gothic werewolf stuff has a consistent narrative throughline into the otherworldly stuff, it’s all very well considered. It still uses the Dark/Demon’s Souls style of storytelling that leaves the burden of interpretation on the player, but it works especially well in a world in which clear answers would run counter to the game’s themes. It’s a fantastic game and one we wanted to take another crack at given that it’s been eight years since our original episode. We’re going to be talking about the interplay between the studio’s signature style and the game’s themes, how the weapon mechanics change the way you approach Bloodborne compared to other Soulslikes, and we give a massive shoutout to our boy Floory.
Thank you for (re) joining us again this week! Without accounting for some anomalies here and there, we’ve released around three hundred episodes of this podcast over ten years and Bloodborne has been one of those that seemed ripe for the epilogue series given its age relative to how much we like it as a game. If you haven’t played the game yet, is it because you don’t own a Playstation? That would be a good reason. If you do own one, what’s up? Do you hate quality? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Discord! Next time is an extremely special episode leading into some also special announcements, given that it is Episode 200 and on the cusp of our ten year anniversary, so we’re finally playing the game that we are the last two people on Earth to have not played, Minecraft! We hope you’ll join us then, and keep an eye out for the upcoming news.
