Bloodborne Previews and Interviews
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A new and likely last round of previews and interviews for Bloodborne has appeared online in the last couple of days. As usual, we have done our best to round up the new coverage for our readers.
Eurogamer's Aoife Wilson speaks of her experience with the title's first hour of gameplay:
Stumbling out of the clinic, up some carved steps and opening up a heaving, creaking set of iron gates, I suddenly find myself in central Yharnam - its 19th century gothic-inspired streets paved with wrecked carriages, decomposing horses, and rows upon rows of padlocked coffins. It's an incredible sight. Boletaria, Lordran and Drangleic were faded, ancient worlds; crumbling, medieval and melancholy. The twisted streets of Yharnam are something else altogether - dark, diseased, and exceedingly hostile. Gleaming spires, ornate fortresses and once-proud marble throne rooms are replaced by wrought iron spikes, weathered limestone statues and dirty alleyways. Sometimes you'll spy a sliver of light creeping under a door or out of a shuttered window and see a flicker of life inside, hear the murmur of voices within, lamenting the fate of the city but never allowing you to cross the threshold. As a whole Yharnam is a haunting creation, but it depicts a darker, more violent kind of beauty, the sort that'll have you standing and staring as the yellow flames of a bonfire gently lick a mutilated werewolf carcass.
Approaching one such bonfire from afar, I see a large group of standard enemies gathered - citizens of Yharnam that have become infected with a so-called plague of beasts, becoming maddened as a result. Somewhere, a bell tolls, signalling to the congregated mob that its time to resume actively hunting for beasts. I watch them from afar for a time - some stand still, others wander up and down in groups, and still more seemed a touch unpredictable as they didn't appear to have a set patrol path. Whereas before in Dark Souls I'd have attempted to kite enemies, pulling them in one by one to make them more manageable, here that endeavour becomes more difficult. If I'm lucky I can use pebble to distract one, but more often than not you'll grab the attention of two or three at a time.
GameSpot's article focuses on the Chalice Dungeon:
Three bosses stood between me and final conquest. The first was the kind of gargantuan flesh demon I'd come to expect from Souls games, and it didn't take too much effort to end its existence with some well-timed dodges and swings. The second and third encounters were standouts, however. The second boss encounter set me against three rotund attackers at once, one of which had his own firearm at hand. Luckily, the three-tiered arena allowed me to separate them by leading them up and down opposite sets of stairs, and while it took me a couple of tries, I had soon defeated two of them, leaving the shotgunner for last. To annihilate him, I hid behind a pillar and popped out to slash away before tumbling back to safety. Eventually, he ran out of ammo, and chased me around with a giant club until I sent him back to whatever circle of hell he came from.
The final boss was an ancient guard dog, a flaming pup who found all number of ways to burn me to a crisp. It was here that I really began to appreciate how well Bloodborne's combat arenas supported its fundamentally agile gameplay systems. The canine could spread bubbling lava from its mouth, and while there was plenty of room to steer clear, the dog could cover a lot of distance very quickly, which in turn could send me rolling into lava when I tried to avoid it. I also came to appreciate the game's fluid weapon-switching: when he would swing his head towards me, I could get in a swing of my longer, heavier cleaver, while my smaller blade was most helpful when he paused to coat the ground with fire, and I could swing multiple times before dashing to safety.
Some enemies have torches and use them defensively to set me alight when I attack, quickly sapping my health meter. Others wield crude wooden shields, or drag axes along the cobbled streets, betraying their position. One huge sub-boss lurks behind a row of barrels, daring me to smash through them to take him on. I do, and the outcome is quick as it is predictable.
Combat is a touch faster than it is in the Souls games, but the basics are the same: lock on to the enemy of your choosing, avoid damage by jumping backwards or rolling to the side, and attack when you see an opening. Stamina management is all-important, and there are overhead smash and charge-up moves alongside the usual medium and heavy swings. Transforming your weapon does allow for extra range, and I imagine skilled players will thread transformations through long combos to keep enemies in reach.
The dodging seems slightly different, at least from the small amount of time I had to test it. Instead of consistently rolling, your character does a sideways or backwards dash. A lot of the tension of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls could be eradicated by learning what frames of animation during a roll were your (invincible) ones frames that would result in the enemy technically striking you, but doing no damage. Because the animation here isn't so obvious to read, it's a little harder to gauge when you're safe during your dodges.
But apart from larger enemy numbers and changes to dodges, combat follows a very different rhythm in Bloodborne. While you're still dealing with very animation-heavy swings, you're actually compelled to deal with situations a little more aggressively than what you may be used to.
Whenever an enemy strikes you in combat, you have a very brief window to start hitting them back. Doing so will replenish a part of the damage you took, but if you wait too long, the opportunity disappears meaning you'll have to use a precious Blood Vial consumable to restore health. It's an interesting twist on a healing mechanic, where instead of falling back to look for a window of safety to recover, you have to go on the offensive.
Kotaku UK has an interview with director Hidetaka Miyazaki:
(I feel like nobody will believe me when I say this, but I'm a tasteful man and I like to adjust things accordingly; there was very careful management of the boundaries of what is shown,) he says. (Things like what colour the blood would be - we had to really adjust the tone of the red that we were using. But also when creatures are attacked and blood is spilling everywhere, it's adjusted so that it's expressed in more of an artistic way than a violent or gruesome way; it's symbolic. It's expressed in the way that a painting would show something, not a photorealistic representation. That maintains a sense of terror without being gratuitous.
(There were many things that needed to be toned down. Bloodborne is set in a nightmarish world, and that sense of horror needed to be expressed, so there are always going to be things that when first created were rather too over-the-top. Where do you set the limitations of what you show visually? It's something that I had to exercise quite a lot throughout the project. I wanted to take a step into that more sinister, gruesome setting and environment compared to the Souls series, but then you've always got to be careful of how far you step into it - that's something that Sony has helped with. We did discuss what the right boundaries were, what would be too distasteful.)
It's evident from talking to anyone involved with Bloodborne that Hidetaka Miyazaki has taken the same extremely detailed, hands-on approach to directing the game as he did with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls - even though he is now the president of FROM Software. (Director Miyazaki is much like an art director himself the way he works, so he gives the art staff very specific, concrete ideas on what he wants. The team works together with Miyazaki on very specific nuances of how things should look in the design,) one of the lead artists tells me.
MCVUK also spoke with Miyazaki and Sony product marketing manager Joe Palmer:
Miyazaki adds that, while returning Souls players may recognise elements of past titles in Bloodborne, this is ultimately a whole new experience.
(As Bloodborne is a brand new IP, we are not thinking about differentiating between new users and existing users,) he comments. (We have tried to design the game so all users can enjoy exploring the unknown areas like the world or story and learn combat strategies using transforming weapons and guns. However, in that sense, this game may be more interesting for new users as many of its features are still unknown to them.)
Palmer reveals that Sony's marketing of the game will seek out fans of Souls, but also emphasise that this isn't just Dark Souls III.
(The Souls games are phenomenally popular, so ensuring that fans are aware of the common ground they share with Bloodborne is a vital part of our strategy,) he says. (However, it's not just the similarities with previous From Software games that we want to communicate; how Bloodborne differs from the Souls series will be at the forefront of our communications.)
One feature that embodies this '˜familiar yet unknown' approach is Bloodborne's multiplayer, which remains a bit of a mystery. Miyazaki says the mode will differ from that of past Souls titles, which allowed players to invade other games and summon human helpers through the use of in-game items.
(The multiplayer system in Bloodborne differs from those in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls,) he explains. (As for the matchmaking system criticised in Dark Souls II, we are using a level-matching system similar to the previous titles I have directed.)
