Yesterday at Gamescom, the Sony press conference was kicked off with a new never before seen trailer for From Software’s Bloodborne, the fast paced successor to the Souls’ franchise. In what is a bit of shocking news, Sony also announced that Bloodborne will launch within the next six months, which places it around this holiday season or early 2015.
The trailer highlights some of the first seen in game footage of Bloodborn that director Hidetaka Miyazaki hopes will be a fresh take on the genre that he created. The player character is shown roaming the streets of a large city infested with monsters straight out of one of Grimm’s Fairy Tales - werewolves, beast, and other horrible creatures that may or may not have once been human. Combat will now focus more on dodging and control as the player no longer has a shield with which to tank, instead they must use an assortment of guns and transformable weapons while they hunt in the night.
The new guns are not intended to be a primary weapon source against the creatures of the night; no they are used to stun enemies that can swarm upon you quickly in great numbers. Enemies will be more aggressive towards the player as they will now react to sight and movement. This differs from the Souls’ games where enemies would wait passively for you to engage them, standing there motionless until you initiated them. The world of Bloodborne is intended to feel more alive with monsters roaming the enviroment, looking to strike first. Fog walls will now appear after you’ve entered a bosses domain, with many roaming the streets randomly searching out prey.
In what is now a From Software tradition, the story elements of the Bloodborne have been kept under lock in key with only a few details released through the trailer. The voice over speaks ominously of “fowl blood” and that every night the hunters return to the dark Victorian city of Yharnam, long since abandoned to the darkness within. The skies are cloudy and filled with billowing smoke pouring forth from factory chimney stacks, and the cobble stone streets are damp from fresh. The visual themes mark a noted turn from the previous Souls’ games which existed in a dark medieval world.
After the press conference, Masaaki Yamagiwa of Japan Studio announced on the PlayStation Blog more details about the combat systems and thematic elements that will focus on “fear and exploring the unknown, intense life-and-death battles, and new and unique online experiences.” The developers know that one of the main attractions of their games is the fear of exploring the unknown worlds they have created, and that anything can lurk around the next corner. The fog wall changes will create a new sense of the unknown as they will no longer herald the upcoming danger looming behind them.
To expand on the combat groundwork of the previous games, new threats will have to be managed with an “evolved” combat style that will force players to be more offensive. Yamagiwa specifically states that “There’s no more hiding behind a big shield waiting for a chance to strike.” Damage taken while in combat can be regenerated by quickly striking back against enemies within a short amount of time. This is part of the new “risk vs reward” system that has become the central design philosophy behind Bloodborne.
Many fans expressed concern of the lack of innovation of weapon types between the Soul’s games, but Bloodborne will have more modern weapons pulled out of the 19th century Gothic setting. It appears that most, if not all weapons, will have three combat styles that they can be transformed into mid-combat. A short range cleaver can turn into a mid-range battle ax to deal with large slow moving enemies, and the ax can then extend into a long range spear depending on enemy type and situation. The different ranges will have their own combat styles, each with their own risk and reward style of play.
Bloodborne is of course shrouded in the usual From Software cloak of mystery, but it is easily shaping up to be one of the more highly anticipated games coming out on the next gen systems. Fans who attended Gamescom were finally able to get their hands on the show floor demo of Bloodborne to experience the new combat systems first hand. With so many details announced all of a sudden it appears that a “within the next six months” release date is achievable. Yamagiwa promised that more details will be released shortly, hinting at a possible release date announcement at the Tokyo Game Show next month.
Enjoy the new trailer while we all wait on further details as they slowly come in.
Brian Kale
@brianwkale
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