The more I sit with it, the more confident I am that Bloodborne may actually be my favorite game of all time. It’s got some stiff competition, but my mind just comes back to FromSoftware’s deeply gothic (and maternal) nightmare more often than it does anything else. It’s also one of the studio’s most accessible games and—in keeping with that sentiment—the first one that I ever finished. It’s a game I’ve shared with loved ones, and the guy who helped me beat it the first time around is now my roommate all these years later. I love that I share Bloodborne with so many people in my life, and now I’m sharing it with you all because it’s on sale.
PlayStation has extended its summer sale into the entirety of the month of August, and as part of the deals on offer, Bloodborne Complete Edition is just $17.49. Considering the base game (which lacks the critically lauded Old Hunters expansion) is just a few dollars more than that, you’re getting more out of this cheaper bundle than you would just picking Bloodborne up on a whim.
You might know Bloodborne because people on the internet have been constantly clamoring for a remake, remaster, or a port to PC for years. This might give the wrong impression of the game, which is totally playable and doesn’t explicitly need to be remade or remastered, though a PC port would be nice. The PS4 version that can be played via backwards compatibility is a perfect version of a perfect game, and you should get to know that firsthand rather than through the stories about it.
Bloodborne marked FromSoft’s first non-Souls soulsike and bears the lessons that the studio learned from their tenure developing the Dark Souls trilogy. Whereas the former series always approached combat as this trepidatious back-and-forth, Bloodborne encouraged aggression. The serrated Saw Cleaver—the now iconic weapon that sits on the game’s cover art— was the perfect tool for drawing the tainted blood of the diseased population of Yharnam, man and beast alike. And god, does Bloodborne feature some of FromSoft’s best and most memorable beasts, like Mergo’s Wet Nurse and Rom The Vacuous Spider, as well as the Old Hunters’ Ludwig and Orphan of Kos. I’d go toe-to-toe with these bosses any day of the week, and it’d still be a thrill.
Due to its emphasis on action, which bled into mechanics such as health recovery, Bloodborne was an immediately gratifying experience. When I first played it as a high schooler, it was exactly the speed of game I wanted, paired with the difficulty and atmosphere of the Souls games that I just couldn’t penetrate at the time. It was gorgeous and haunting, and playing it felt like being seized by the very same fever that ripped through Yharnam. I tore that game a new one, and have repeatedly done so every few years for a while now. You all don’t know me, but I don’t replay games that often. I don’t know man, Bloodborne just clicked in a way that very little ever has.
I didn’t just conquer the nightmares of Bloodborne (of which there are many), I unlocked some piece of myself and my interests playing this game. I think I discovered that I love art that confuses me and asks questions more than it provides answers. I like things that enjoy a certain degree of inscrutability. I love things that are kind of uncomfortable and transgressive. Yes, you slay cosmic horrors left and right, but I also got to cleave my way through the patriarchal institutions that enabled Yharnam’s descent into madness, and that’s a rather liberating feeling at times. Some few games muse on these things, but even fewer let you literally take them to task.
I think Bloodborne is masterful at communicating these tenets in a packaging that could meet me halfway, and because of it I’ve been able to more fully appreciate a catalog of games that have become like treasured belongings to me. It’s the perfect entry point into FromSoft’s oeuvre, and as far as I’m concerned, its crowning jewel still.