Live Magazine September 2014 Volume 9/2014 | Page 42

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BLOODBORNE
Strange afflictions? Check. Scary
world where danger lurks on every
corner? Check. Horrifying monsters
that kill you over 30 times, but you
still say to all your friends that this is
one of the best games ever? These
are the general criteria for a Souls
games, and it looks like Bloodborne
isn’t straying too far away from the
formula.
Bloodborne is an upcoming action
role-playing game from developers
From Software, and publishers SCE
Japan Studio, made exclusively for
the PlayStation 4. From Software
is best known for their collection of
dark fantasy games, Demon’s Souls,
and sequels Dark Souls and Dark
Souls 2, with Bloodborne’s director,
Hidetaka Miyazaki, also involved in
Demons Souls and Dark Souls. For
the gamer with a masochistic streak,
Demon Souls and the Dark Souls
series were games of choice, as
every bad decision and wrong move
was mercilessly punished by the difficulty of the game. The high difficulty and skill threshold has earned
the Souls series a place in modern
gaming history as some of the hardest and most frustrating, yet addictive games we’ve seen yet. With a
pedigree such as that, Bloodborne
has a lot to live up to (or die repeatedly to).
Bloodborne has been explicitly stat-

ed to not be a sequel to the Souls’
series, and as such it is placed in
a different universe where they’ve
moved away from a medieval aesthetic and into a setting that is reminiscent of Victorian Gothic horror. It
is set in the city of Yharnam, known
for a magical remedy to a strange
and terrible affliction that has drawn
scores of infected to now inhabit it’s
sprawling passageways and dark
corners. The player’s character is
one of these infected, and they must
now fight and survive against the
sickening monsters and terrifying
plague.
While the monsters and bosses in
the Souls series were no pushovers, Bloodborne director Miyazaki
has stated that ‘When you face an
enemy, you’re going to face death’,
with each battle a struggle to stay
alive. They plan to do this by treat-

will also become smarter and will
patrol around the city, rather than
merely spawn into place, and will
lurk in dark recesses, ready to jump
out and rip you apart. The environment will also signal danger in other
ways, with the sounds of huge and
hulking beasts in the distance to
announce their coming arrival. And
like with the Souls series, you may
also find allies who may return your
own compassion to lend a hand.
The dark, gloomy atmosphere of
Bloodborne might not give players
cause to praise the sun, but that
might be the game’s intent. From
what’s been shown so far, the game
will be far bleaker than the Souls

“THE BEST BIT OF INFORMATION FROM THE
E3 DEMO WAS THE TECHNICAL SIDE, THE
GAME RUNS INCREDIBLY SMOOTH..”
ing combat with more finesse. The
player character will be dual wielding weapons, with a scythe in one
hand and a shotgun in the other,
moving away from the passive play
style many Souls players used to
defeat enemies from afar. Enemies

series, and while it will be judged
by the shadow of the developer’s
previous games, it may carve out a
new piece of gaming history for the
next generation.

Written by Miranda Nelson

www.stickytriggerentertainment.com