I almost wish they kept the chairs but had a lantern to be lit to activate them instead of a phantom. It's super cool to think you sit down and fall asleep when you go to the Hunter's Dream and your body remains there, only protected by the incense of the lantern.
@@FingerinUrDaughter Is it ever implied that the lanterns we light in the final game are the same as incense pots? I think it would be really cool to have kept the phantom chairs with incense pots near by as the incense are used in the Chapel Ward to keep beast away.
@@erien6769 incense pots? are you high son? there are no such things. the incense in odean chappel is burning from the chandeliers, you can see the smoke coming from them, and breaking pots does not spread any dust around from said incense.
@@FingerinUrDaughter You must be a child since you can't reply to a comment without insulting someone, so I'll keep it PG lol. There's some lore about the Chapel Dweller not being who he says he is. It's implied that the incense is made out of bodies as when you break the pots in the Chapel, they are full of skeletons. All other pots in the game are empty. Only the ones in the Chapel have bones in them. Why is that? It's all the little details that help give this game lore. Also, I don't see any smoke coming from that chandelier. There's a similar chandelier when you walk up the steps to open the gate to the courtyard. Why would there be an incense burner outside?
Willi Bald It's not a teleport, the Hunter sits on those special chairs and falls asleep, thus gaining access to the Dream and the Nightmares, like for example Micolash does. Why wouldn't they make sense? And why do lamps make more sense, can you explain that to us?
lowlize Micolash didn't enter his dream world simply by falling asleep it's way more complicated. There was a huge ritual required to let him connect with Mergo. The Hunters Nightmare was also not entered through sleep or willingly, instead it's a curse on hunters who've "sinned", most hunters we find there are known to be dead in the real world and died BEFORE entering the nightmare. This may have been different at one point but right now the dream worlds aren't as simple as "a place you go in your sleep". Makes sense to make them more complex and harder to enter because otherwise the plot makes little sense and way more people would've succeeded in contacting great ones and ascending like Rom.
Billy Kane I know that. I think it's pretty obvious we're not talking about "normal" sleep in Bloodborne. It's more of a travel through different astral planes, but the terminology is that of sleep nonetheless: we have the Hunters Dream and Nightmare, the Waking World etc.
8:07 This dialogue is very similar to the second dialogue from Gilbert, and this makes me think that the Blood of a Sage may be the alpha concept for Paleblood
I agree. And im glad they changed it to paleblood/moon presence because there is one item in the final game that references a sage. The Sage's Hair, a chalice ritual material whose description states that it was taken from a saint of the church who was sacrificed in search of Truth. The player looking for the blood of a saint of the church is quite boring compared to the blood of an eldritch horror.
I kind of like the warp chair idea, but I'm still split about if it is better than the lanterns. The lanterns can represent insight and travelling the dark and the unknown. The warp chairs seem to emphasize the dream, so it's not as if your body is being pulled into it, but more like your mind is wandering.
So much more has changed than original. I think leaving that lessor Amygdala in Central Yharnam would had been nice. Might had been removed since it was too early for the players to encounter the supernatural beings.
Would expect that they weren't designed to be visible at the beginning and only upon your return, similar to the alien creatures outside Iosefkas Clinic.
All these videos suggest Laurnce was originally meant to be a completely different character. I wonder if his role would have been similar to Oscar's original concept? Both characters come from the same background and have the same goals as each games' protagonists. I wonder if Laurence, like Oscar, was meant to compete with the protagonist?
I was sorta shocked to watch this and hear no mention of how interesting it is that the NPC closed his "leave" dialogue with "umbasa". Big Demon's Souls reference that made my eyes go O.O
Just as a fun little point. That briefcase is rendering fine, there is actually two identical briefcases of varying colour that are occupying the same space :P I found that out whilst making a game, you can't have two textured models overlapping, because they'll fight for visibility!
I actually wondered if that's what's happening there, and it might be the case, but I think it's actually 2 drawparams (The rules for how lighting and various effects work in an area) loading at the same time here. I was able to prove that it's likely the case by disabling the events that cause drawparams to switch and the briefcase renders correctly when this is done.
After seeing a fully functional chair, I am totally sold now on them. They are so much cooler than the lanterns and they also fit much better into the game in terms of lore etc. It looks so awesome activating the chair by waking the phantom up.
Seeing the ghostly outline of the hunter in the chair Maria's cutscene was the first thing that popped into my mind. I wonder why they took out the chairs given how many references still remain in the game. I thought maybe its just the clothe dynamic always dropped through the chair, but that seems unlikely. Or that lamps seem more like bonfires? Anyway I'd love to know their thinking just to get a glimpse of their development process.
I think it might be easier to make a small lamp fit in with the background of each area in the game. Seeing a bulky chair in the middle of nowhere is kind of odd imo. It's a shame though, I really do like the chair concept
@@Fentiman yes, it doesn't make much sense when you think of the gameplay function of the chair. Bonfires make sense because bonfires can be placed just about anywhere. A chair in the middle of the woods? No way. A lantern though.... yes. That works. I will say however, the lore makes more sense. It's just a slight oversight really. I'm still fine with the lanterns.
I just wanna say how much I appreciate these videos, Bloodborne is my favorite game and getting any kind of new insights in the world of Yharnam is super cool Keep up the good work!
They must have pulled the chairs out last minute. Must have hurt them taking it out. Works so much better. I'm guessing they decided to hide the Lovecraft aspect of the plot so it would be a surprise to players - it was - and took out anything in early game that might hint at it. I hope it wasn't a request from marketing. That would make me sad.
Many files in the alpha are labeled with "ds2" in their name, the game started out as a sequel to Demon's Souls. By the time the alpha released though I think they'd gone back on that a little bit, or at least planned for a plot twist revealing that it was in fact a sequel. I think the Lake of Mud that was discovered recently backs that up as well, since it seems like it was intended to be near the bottom of the chalice dungeons and highly resembles the area beneath the Nexus in Demon's Souls.
@@Krystalmyth Bloodborne was in the same situation though; both games were co-developed by Sony Japan Studio and From Software (with From doing the brunt of the work).
12:50 That closer camera perspective and the more action heavy combat with Gascoigne could make for an even cooler game IMO. If they do a sequel or another souls-like game in the future, I hope they make the combat more like that.
I just feel so happy to see all these hidden contents from my favorite game of all time. Huge thanks to you Lance. You shed a light on these awesome contents. Keep up the good work! :)
My guess: if they did any playtesting, people missed the chairs entirely because they weren't visually significant enough. You could mistake them for a regular chair asset and ignore them completely. The lamps were probably implemented because they're visually much more distinct and less easy to mistake for random assets. Lorewise I think the lamps work because there are three bells strapped to the very top of every one, which is probably way there's an idle ringing sound whenever you're near a lamp.
For those who don't know, references to Father Norbert had been found in cut content dialogue files earlier this year, as well as a completely different direction for Lawrence and the story. It's so nice to finally see what some of that would have looked like, in action.
Once again, this version of Bloodborne seems more interesting in my opinion. It may be just because it is different from the final game, but the addition of certain things such as the sleeping giant, Amygala, eldritch creatures and the NPC make Central Yharnum more interesting. It would have been great if the first area was the same as the normal Central Yharnum, following the main street and etc. However, you wouldn't be able to access the Cathedral Ward and would have to go through the Forbidden Woods to progress. I'm not sure where this would all lead, but at some point you would go back to Central Yharnum and find it full of eldritch creatures? Great job with these videos, really great too see all this cut content in action!
This version of the game is FAR more dialogue-driven, and so far the tone is honestly better in every way imo. Yharnam is almost 'cozy' here and it's really good contrast for the latter half of the game when things go awry. It establishes a sense of normalcy beforehand.
It's cool. But I think that introducing the nightmare creatures after defeating rom (or having enough insight) is better so there is a peeling of the world.
Lance McDonald This video also tells us the reason why some Chalice Dungeons - including the original Kos arena - have phantoms in them. The Kos Chalice arena has a chair buried under the sand (old news) and there's a phantom outside of the map. Now we know its purpose.
I'm so curious to see if there's anything interesting in Byrgenwerth, can't wait for you to get there. It's without a doubt the one area that felt the most unfinished in the final game, and if even Central Yharnam, that to me is the best starting area in the series, has so much cut content, Byrgenwerth must have tons. Strangely enough, I wouldn't suggest you to go there at all, I'm rather enjoying this linear progression, from area to area, exploring things as the story goes. I hope you don't jump around too much.
@@tk7977 Both the fact that it's tiny and the redundant shortcuts that will save you all of 5 seconds. The Lecture Building being "adrift in the Nightmare" seems extremely arbitrary in the context of the rest of the game as well. It's not like the Mensis Ritual detached part of Yahar'gul to create its nightmare, or the Cathedral Ward/Central Yharnam vanished once the Hunter's Nightmare was established. There's no consistent reason why it should disappear from Byrgenwerth proper, and the map itself wouldn't comport the larger building anyway, so it was a separate level born from development realities, not a conscious storytelling choice.
Can't wait to see more, very nice work, thanks for this. I can't imagine how much work this must be, or how long it took you to get everything working.
I like the concept of the chairs, especially with how they fit in the lore, but aesthetically I think the lamps are better. They fit in environments better and they're easy to pick out from the background. Chairs on the other hand could be confused with normal chairs in the environment so they have to go out of their way to make them unusual with the Messengers and Hunter ghost. They could probably have different types of chairs to fit each area though which would have been neat. Also I wonder if the sleeping giants go anywhere in their dreams...
Interesting that Micholash is yearning for someone to look into his eyes in a cut dialogue. This always puzzled me. But seeing this animation of the phantom looking up into the player's eyes when woken up hints at more lore. Perhaps in an earlier story draft, Micholash was waiting for someone to wake him up from the Nightmare of Mensis, but something went wrong and his body died in his sleep? And that makes me think of Gherman complaining about what's taking Laurence so long? So long to do what? Gherman is also in a dream and so maybe he's waiting for Laurence to wake him up? If so, where is Gherman's corpse in the waking world? Is Ebrietas trying to look into Rom's eyes on the Alter of Dispair? For what purpose? Perhaps she is trying to disrupt the Mensis ritual herself on behalf of the Choir, since Rom is in a dream, of sorts, protecting the ritual.
I really love the option of the warp chairs in the early versions of the game. It seems so much more fitting with the dreams and nightmares scenario in Bloodborne. Very good work! Go on and best luck for it!
I bet they were going to use the chairs that your character would fall asleep in to access hunter's dream, but at some point they changed it to lanterns to make it closer to the bonfires of Dark Souls. My guess is this change came from someone in management who wanted it to be more familiar towards returning players rather than having it make perfect sense in the lore of the series.
The chair makes way more sense than the lantern. The game has nothing else really involving lanterns, and the place has dream in it's name. Makes no sense how like rubbing the magic fucking lantern brings you into a dream, but sleeping in a magic chair does.
It’s interesting to see that the wolves in the Alpha used to wear clothes. I guess they changed that so it wouldn’t be too obvious that they weren’t just beasts but also people.
Man. These videos are just awesome, I love the work you put on showing us interesting material. Maybe it's asking too much, but it's difficult for me to understand certain dialogues from the cut content as those are British dialogues and I'm not that familiar with their pronunciation. Subtitles for these sections would be marvelous. Thanks!
Im so glad they ditched that fly monster in the beginning because when u first play u expect all the enemies to be like “zombie warewolfs”(for the layman) then all of a sudden you get to a strange area and are greated with fuckin aliens! What a curveball
That npc is done by the same VA as the skeptical man from what I can tell. Makes you wonder how much more work they did that never ended up in the playable game.
I remember seeing early screenshots of the game showing that amygdala in Central Yharnam. Its cool to know that there was not only a functional build with it but that its still in the game aswell.
Although the chair concept is awesome on paper, it would look goofy while playing the game. Stumbling upon a chair out of nowhere is odd enough, but it would look fucking ridiculous if you're desperately trying to get to the hunter's dream while being chased by enemies just to calmly sit down and doze off while they're attacking you.
That npc's cockney accent (like my own), sounds good. And believe it or not there are different cockney accents. ( A true cockney has to have been born within earshot of the 'Bow bells).
What was the lore significance of the Lanterns? We all know what they do, taking us to the Dream and back. But if dreams have such a big importance, why did they replace sleeping in a Chair with the Lanterns; what do they mean?
The lanterns are not just for light, they're supposedly incense burners to keep beasts away. That is, according to some of the design documents given to the guide writers of Future Press. You'll also notice that a lot of the NPCs happen to have incense burners near their doors as well.
In that case I would understand... if they were around areas that you use to warp. To use them to transport to dreams, it doesn't make sense. But if they were around the area of the thing you were using to do so, say the Chairs, then that would make sense.
If the chairs were placed better, I'd probably warm up to them. They might have some lore significance, but I wouldn't be able to take the chairs seriously if they'd just been plopped in middle of nowhere. When I see lanterns, they look so inconspicuous and pretty that I've never really reconsidered placement or aesthetic. Having them be a light source too reminds me of bonfires from DS too, so checkpoints being light sources might be a FromSoftware choice?
Malachi C Well, what about this: for checkpoints, you encounter a building or room (depending on location) that has the glowing lanterns around it, both to signify a location of a checkpoint and to fit in lore-wise as incense burners. In that building/room, you find a chair that you can rest in to go to dreams.
Thomas Chitham Yeah! That'd be a lot cooler, I like this. And if the chair is in a forest somewhere or a big open space (Cainhurt's castle, the lantern in Hemwick), they can just put the lanterns circling around to close off the area a bit. Though, would this mean bosses drop chairs? That'd be hilarious. Takes "I need to take a break after this boss" to a memetastic level.
I wish they left the chair in. That activation sequence, waking the phantom, gave me chills. The lanterns are so out of context too compared to this. I wonder why they decided against this chair idea. Maybe a summoned chair with a phantom in it after killing a boss would've been awkward, or maybe a deactivated (broken?) chair in Hypogean goal makes less sense than a broken lantern. Or maybe having a big chair in the middle of queen annalise's castle would've been absurd (that lantern is unnecessary anyway though). Anyway, this is a much cooler concept than a lantern.
Lanterns make more sense aesthetically as well as lore wise. The lanterns carry incense that wards off the beasts. Seeing a chair in the middle of nowhere would look odd in a lot of the places in bloodborne.
Schmeat Boy that’s one area in the entire game. A random chair in the middle of the forbidden forest would make very little sense. So would a random chair in the middle of oedons tomb. The lanterns make much more sense, as they hold incense that wards off the beasts and mimic the lanterns outside the doors of the yharnam residents, in the first area of the game. From a game design standpoint, the lanterns are much better.
TheTinyTimmyTimTim The same exact logic you are using can be applied to the lanterns, why would I need to ward off beasts in the middle of the Forrest? A random lamp in the middle of a tomb makes no sense. Anyway, the way I see it is that it makes much more sense for someone to SLEEP to go to a place called the DREAM, why would a random lantern in the middle of the city just take you there? Honestly there isn’t a solid lore reason these things could not just be switched out
@@Schmeatboy Actually quite a lot of lore reasons tbh. It would ask many more questions about the nature of our dream; demystifying a lot. Can anyone get there? Who makes the chairs, and how? Who are the phantoms? Why is Micolash dead in his chair; but not many others? Do you even need umbilical cords to go to dreams? Why even use blood then; if every rando can sit on a chair and somehow achieve entrance to higher planes? It would trigger another redraft of the whole lore. Meanwhile the lamps leave the mystery open; dont really seem man-made; but appear instead as some messengers' imitation of it. You light them with a snap; showing that its not just a usual lamp. Theres problems here too; sure; as f.e. other hunters state they know of the dream tho; and it seems the lamps can even be destroyed, but the whole ambiguity of the lamps leaves much more freedom for mystery in the lore and throughout the game while it builds up to turn from hack&slash to grand horror. I think its personal opinion; but the chairs just seem like a combination of too on-the-nose & too literal while also looking really odd tbh
Damm i wish it could be possible to restore all of the games warp chairs and somehow make a mod out of that. I like the chairs so much more then the lanterns
The man you give blood echoes to, past the shortcut house; is that the same voice as the Narrow Minded Man? If so, then that is very, very interesting. Aside from that, these are very interesting
My head cannon is where not actually in Yarhnam, remember there's nothing special about us where just a human i strongly believe are physical body is taken to the Hunters Dream and where actual an astral projection, and when we die in the Hunters Dream the Moon Presence just rewinds time before we died that's why Gehrman can't die or leave if he kills himself the Moon Presence reversion time.
I was going to say, it seems rare, but it does happen. I don't know what conditions may trigger it, but as far as I can remember, it only happened to me once and that was a few months ago by the wolf beasts in the Upper Cathedral Ward.
The chairs are SO... FUCKING... COOL .... as Iconic as the Bonfires if NOT more.... what were they thinking cutting this out? Ugh. Fromsoft just offends sometimes with these decisions.
The chairs just ask too many questions imo; bearing down a brutal weight upon the lore's shoulders from the very beginning. And the very second it would be clear that its not the chair itself that is doing the teleporting; but the act of sitting down and sleeping; or some ritual or whatever; even more questions would be asked; and you couldnt really use chairs or beds in level design anymore. Alternatively; even if the reason is "its the chairs themselves", that would open a wholly different can of worms questionwise. Idk...seems they did the right thing by going with the amibguity & less on-the-nose symbolism of the lamps.
The tone of the game feels different from the cut dialogues in these videos, just a little bit lighter, definitely less "lonely" for the main character to experience.
I almost wish they kept the chairs but had a lantern to be lit to activate them instead of a phantom. It's super cool to think you sit down and fall asleep when you go to the Hunter's Dream and your body remains there, only protected by the incense of the lantern.
Dude yes!
cool to think it sure, but seeing as there is no mechanic that actually stops enemies from entering the area with a lantern, it really makes no sense.
@@FingerinUrDaughter Is it ever implied that the lanterns we light in the final game are the same as incense pots? I think it would be really cool to have kept the phantom chairs with incense pots near by as the incense are used in the Chapel Ward to keep beast away.
@@erien6769 incense pots? are you high son? there are no such things. the incense in odean chappel is burning from the chandeliers, you can see the smoke coming from them, and breaking pots does not spread any dust around from said incense.
@@FingerinUrDaughter You must be a child since you can't reply to a comment without insulting someone, so I'll keep it PG lol.
There's some lore about the Chapel Dweller not being who he says he is. It's implied that the incense is made out of bodies as when you break the pots in the Chapel, they are full of skeletons. All other pots in the game are empty. Only the ones in the Chapel have bones in them. Why is that? It's all the little details that help give this game lore.
Also, I don't see any smoke coming from that chandelier. There's a similar chandelier when you walk up the steps to open the gate to the courtyard. Why would there be an incense burner outside?
I feel like the chairs make more sense with going to the dream than the lanterns do.
yeah that's an amazing concept!
Plus it explain Mensis after you fight One Reborn
Plus it sorta gets rid of the “Woah that’s basically dark souls” feeling
I mean, yeah, it would make more sense, I often drift off to sleep in class sometimes.
Same
I love how that npc talks , it's so much more natural than the other npcs
Really sounds like a side character in a shadows of innsmouth audiobook
You know, if warp chairs were still in the game then Lady Maria's boss cutscene would've made more sense.
samiamtheman 73 but it makes sense in the game now
It's the whole Hunter's Dream concept that would make more sense
Willi Bald It's not a teleport, the Hunter sits on those special chairs and falls asleep, thus gaining access to the Dream and the Nightmares, like for example Micolash does. Why wouldn't they make sense? And why do lamps make more sense, can you explain that to us?
lowlize Micolash didn't enter his dream world simply by falling asleep it's way more complicated. There was a huge ritual required to let him connect with Mergo. The Hunters Nightmare was also not entered through sleep or willingly, instead it's a curse on hunters who've "sinned", most hunters we find there are known to be dead in the real world and died BEFORE entering the nightmare. This may have been different at one point but right now the dream worlds aren't as simple as "a place you go in your sleep". Makes sense to make them more complex and harder to enter because otherwise the plot makes little sense and way more people would've succeeded in contacting great ones and ascending like Rom.
Billy Kane I know that. I think it's pretty obvious we're not talking about "normal" sleep in Bloodborne. It's more of a travel through different astral planes, but the terminology is that of sleep nonetheless: we have the Hunters Dream and Nightmare, the Waking World etc.
how come cut bloodborne sounds like a whole other very interesting alternate universe
Cut bloodborne is Demon's Souls 2. Umbasa.
Because that’s what you think It does
8:07 This dialogue is very similar to the second dialogue from Gilbert, and this makes me think that the Blood of a Sage may be the alpha concept for Paleblood
I agree. And im glad they changed it to paleblood/moon presence because there is one item in the final game that references a sage. The Sage's Hair, a chalice ritual material whose description states that it was taken from a saint of the church who was sacrificed in search of Truth. The player looking for the blood of a saint of the church is quite boring compared to the blood of an eldritch horror.
@@Character_Limit it could very well be that the "sacrifice" would have turned said saint into an Eldritch horror himself
This is so fascinating.
UMBASA
Was Bloodbornes lore originally designed to be linked somehow to Demons Souls?
Git away from me
*ROIGHT NOW*
I kind of like the warp chair idea, but I'm still split about if it is better than the lanterns. The lanterns can represent insight and travelling the dark and the unknown. The warp chairs seem to emphasize the dream, so it's not as if your body is being pulled into it, but more like your mind is wandering.
So the chairs are like, meditation chairs? I wonder if Master Willem's chair was a special chair, too.
Anyone else think these warp chairs may have been related to whatever the Hunter was trying to accomplish in Lady Maria's cutscene?
Good observations
we meet again...
Hello, Dan never misses a comment, the man.
There's also that one in that chapel in Yahar'gul, Unseen Village
So much more has changed than original. I think leaving that lessor Amygdala in Central Yharnam would had been nice. Might had been removed since it was too early for the players to encounter the supernatural beings.
Would expect that they weren't designed to be visible at the beginning and only upon your return, similar to the alien creatures outside Iosefkas Clinic.
Love how with elden ring they just repeated this again kind of. Aliens at the end of the game.
@@Sadeness99 Spoilers but ok thanks
All these videos suggest Laurnce was originally meant to be a completely different character. I wonder if his role would have been similar to Oscar's original concept? Both characters come from the same background and have the same goals as each games' protagonists. I wonder if Laurence, like Oscar, was meant to compete with the protagonist?
I was sorta shocked to watch this and hear no mention of how interesting it is that the NPC closed his "leave" dialogue with "umbasa". Big Demon's Souls reference that made my eyes go O.O
Just as a fun little point.
That briefcase is rendering fine, there is actually two identical briefcases of varying colour that are occupying the same space :P I found that out whilst making a game, you can't have two textured models overlapping, because they'll fight for visibility!
I actually wondered if that's what's happening there, and it might be the case, but I think it's actually 2 drawparams (The rules for how lighting and various effects work in an area) loading at the same time here. I was able to prove that it's likely the case by disabling the events that cause drawparams to switch and the briefcase renders correctly when this is done.
After seeing a fully functional chair, I am totally sold now on them. They are so much cooler than the lanterns and they also fit much better into the game in terms of lore etc. It looks so awesome activating the chair by waking the phantom up.
It also would put more context into whatever the Hunter was trying to accomplish in Lady Maria's boss cutscene.
Seeing the ghostly outline of the hunter in the chair Maria's cutscene was the first thing that popped into my mind. I wonder why they took out the chairs given how many references still remain in the game. I thought maybe its just the clothe dynamic always dropped through the chair, but that seems unlikely. Or that lamps seem more like bonfires? Anyway I'd love to know their thinking just to get a glimpse of their development process.
I think it might be easier to make a small lamp fit in with the background of each area in the game. Seeing a bulky chair in the middle of nowhere is kind of odd imo. It's a shame though, I really do like the chair concept
They could have also put a tall lamppost beside the chair that might be creating this mirage of a phantom in the chair.
@@Fentiman yes, it doesn't make much sense when you think of the gameplay function of the chair. Bonfires make sense because bonfires can be placed just about anywhere. A chair in the middle of the woods? No way. A lantern though.... yes. That works. I will say however, the lore makes more sense. It's just a slight oversight really. I'm still fine with the lanterns.
Hope youse stuck around to the end for a look at some stuff I want to show you in more detail in the future :)
I suppose you refer to you playing as father Gascoigne with his awesome looking hunter axe move. I´m eager to see more!
It makes me glad to see a fellow Australian doing such awesome work on a game I love. Good job!
I flipped my shit when I saw you playing as Gascoigne.
Grant us Micolash now.
I just wanna say how much I appreciate these videos, Bloodborne is my favorite game and getting any kind of new insights in the world of Yharnam is super cool
Keep up the good work!
That npc reminds me of a more rude Gilbert. Do you think that is what eventually became him?
They must have pulled the chairs out last minute. Must have hurt them taking it out. Works so much better. I'm guessing they decided to hide the Lovecraft aspect of the plot so it would be a surprise to players - it was - and took out anything in early game that might hint at it. I hope it wasn't a request from marketing. That would make me sad.
That NPC was definitely an early concept for Gilbert. From the advice to Cathedral Ward to the coughing, it just sounds like an early version of him.
2 alpha umbassas? Maybe the original idea was connected to demons souls
Many files in the alpha are labeled with "ds2" in their name, the game started out as a sequel to Demon's Souls. By the time the alpha released though I think they'd gone back on that a little bit, or at least planned for a plot twist revealing that it was in fact a sequel. I think the Lake of Mud that was discovered recently backs that up as well, since it seems like it was intended to be near the bottom of the chalice dungeons and highly resembles the area beneath the Nexus in Demon's Souls.
@@MistaHoward I think Fromsoft didn't want to bind their game to Demon Souls because of the murky ownership to that franchise.
@@Krystalmyth Bloodborne was in the same situation though; both games were co-developed by Sony Japan Studio and From Software (with From doing the brunt of the work).
12:50 That closer camera perspective and the more action heavy combat with Gascoigne could make for an even cooler game IMO. If they do a sequel or another souls-like game in the future, I hope they make the combat more like that.
I just feel so happy to see all these hidden contents from my favorite game of all time.
Huge thanks to you Lance. You shed a light on these awesome contents.
Keep up the good work! :)
My guess: if they did any playtesting, people missed the chairs entirely because they weren't visually significant enough. You could mistake them for a regular chair asset and ignore them completely. The lamps were probably implemented because they're visually much more distinct and less easy to mistake for random assets. Lorewise I think the lamps work because there are three bells strapped to the very top of every one, which is probably way there's an idle ringing sound whenever you're near a lamp.
THE CHAIR WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT!!
UMBASA!!!
Now the cutscene with Lady Maria makes more sense. The hunter tried "awakening the phantom"..
Very interesting video! The chairs tie nicely together with Micolash and Maria. Keep up the great work!
For those who don't know, references to Father Norbert had been found in cut content dialogue files earlier this year, as well as a completely different direction for Lawrence and the story. It's so nice to finally see what some of that would have looked like, in action.
Once again, this version of Bloodborne seems more interesting in my opinion. It may be just because it is different from the final game, but the addition of certain things such as the sleeping giant, Amygala, eldritch creatures and the NPC make Central Yharnum more interesting.
It would have been great if the first area was the same as the normal Central Yharnum, following the main street and etc. However, you wouldn't be able to access the Cathedral Ward and would have to go through the Forbidden Woods to progress. I'm not sure where this would all lead, but at some point you would go back to Central Yharnum and find it full of eldritch creatures?
Great job with these videos, really great too see all this cut content in action!
Lady Maria's cutscene actually would make more sense if the warp chairs were still in the game.
This version of the game is FAR more dialogue-driven, and so far the tone is honestly better in every way imo. Yharnam is almost 'cozy' here and it's really good contrast for the latter half of the game when things go awry. It establishes a sense of normalcy beforehand.
It's cool. But I think that introducing the nightmare creatures after defeating rom (or having enough insight) is better so there is a peeling of the world.
It's probably just because it's a version of the final game we didn't see.
0:56 they do have that attack in the final game
4:00 "As usual" That lever isn't there in the final game.
4:07 The voices of the Yharnamites had their pitch modified for the final game, it seems.
Oh you're right on both counts!
Lance McDonald This video also tells us the reason why some Chalice Dungeons - including the original Kos arena - have phantoms in them.
The Kos Chalice arena has a chair buried under the sand (old news) and there's a phantom outside of the map. Now we know its purpose.
Yes! I very excited yelled at JSF last week "I KNOW WHAT THAT PHANTOM GUY IS!!"
Kos chalice arena? You mean one of Zullie's hacked dungeons?
I'm so curious to see if there's anything interesting in Byrgenwerth, can't wait for you to get there. It's without a doubt the one area that felt the most unfinished in the final game, and if even Central Yharnam, that to me is the best starting area in the series, has so much cut content, Byrgenwerth must have tons.
Strangely enough, I wouldn't suggest you to go there at all, I'm rather enjoying this linear progression, from area to area, exploring things as the story goes. I hope you don't jump around too much.
you're assuming that he hasnt already been through byrgenwyrth by now, and that it even exists in the alpha.
So weird you assume Byrgenwerth feels unfinished. On what basis do you think that? Lmfao
@@tk7977 Both the fact that it's tiny and the redundant shortcuts that will save you all of 5 seconds. The Lecture Building being "adrift in the Nightmare" seems extremely arbitrary in the context of the rest of the game as well. It's not like the Mensis Ritual detached part of Yahar'gul to create its nightmare, or the Cathedral Ward/Central Yharnam vanished once the Hunter's Nightmare was established. There's no consistent reason why it should disappear from Byrgenwerth proper, and the map itself wouldn't comport the larger building anyway, so it was a separate level born from development realities, not a conscious storytelling choice.
Can't wait to see more, very nice work, thanks for this. I can't imagine how much work this must be, or how long it took you to get everything working.
Cool stuff man! Thanks for sharing. That garden of eyes right outside Iosefka's was pretty shocking!
I like the concept of the chairs, especially with how they fit in the lore, but aesthetically I think the lamps are better. They fit in environments better and they're easy to pick out from the background. Chairs on the other hand could be confused with normal chairs in the environment so they have to go out of their way to make them unusual with the Messengers and Hunter ghost. They could probably have different types of chairs to fit each area though which would have been neat. Also I wonder if the sleeping giants go anywhere in their dreams...
Interesting that Micholash is yearning for someone to look into his eyes in a cut dialogue. This always puzzled me. But seeing this animation of the phantom looking up into the player's eyes when woken up hints at more lore. Perhaps in an earlier story draft, Micholash was waiting for someone to wake him up from the Nightmare of Mensis, but something went wrong and his body died in his sleep? And that makes me think of Gherman complaining about what's taking Laurence so long? So long to do what? Gherman is also in a dream and so maybe he's waiting for Laurence to wake him up? If so, where is Gherman's corpse in the waking world? Is Ebrietas trying to look into Rom's eyes on the Alter of Dispair? For what purpose? Perhaps she is trying to disrupt the Mensis ritual herself on behalf of the Choir, since Rom is in a dream, of sorts, protecting the ritual.
I really love the option of the warp chairs in the early versions of the game. It seems so much more fitting with the dreams and nightmares scenario in Bloodborne. Very good work! Go on and best luck for it!
I bet they were going to use the chairs that your character would fall asleep in to access hunter's dream, but at some point they changed it to lanterns to make it closer to the bonfires of Dark Souls. My guess is this change came from someone in management who wanted it to be more familiar towards returning players rather than having it make perfect sense in the lore of the series.
Awesome vid! Thank you!
this voice acting is beatiful
chair makes so much more sense, to return to the dream by sleeping....
This is amazing! It's like getting a glimpse into what the game could have been. So much has changed.
0:49 The Beasts actually do have that attack in the final game. They actually do it very often in the lower level chalice dungeons.
The chair makes way more sense than the lantern. The game has nothing else really involving lanterns, and the place has dream in it's name. Makes no sense how like rubbing the magic fucking lantern brings you into a dream, but sleeping in a magic chair does.
It’s interesting to see that the wolves in the Alpha used to wear clothes. I guess they changed that so it wouldn’t be too obvious that they weren’t just beasts but also people.
That is so cool. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard this is to do!!
Awesome video! Can't wait to see you play as the other bosses!
Man. These videos are just awesome, I love the work you put on showing us interesting material. Maybe it's asking too much, but it's difficult for me to understand certain dialogues from the cut content as those are British dialogues and I'm not that familiar with their pronunciation. Subtitles for these sections would be marvelous.
Thanks!
Im so glad they ditched that fly monster in the beginning because when u first play u expect all the enemies to be like “zombie warewolfs”(for the layman) then all of a sudden you get to a strange area and are greated with fuckin aliens! What a curveball
That npc is done by the same VA as the skeptical man from what I can tell. Makes you wonder how much more work they did that never ended up in the playable game.
0:55 They definitely can. It always surprises me how much range the last swing has (the one that knocks you down)
I remember seeing early screenshots of the game showing that amygdala in Central Yharnam. Its cool to know that there was not only a functional build with it but that its still in the game aswell.
Now that's TWO umbasa references in the alpha version. I don't even now how to say what I'm feeling.
Makes sense, given the Sony exclusivity.
I'm late but the files internally are named demon souls 2 lmao
Thanks for all this great cut content you've been sharing. Wish we could had played the alpha cut.
Nice video. Fascinating stuff from the cutting room floor
Although the chair concept is awesome on paper, it would look goofy while playing the game. Stumbling upon a chair out of nowhere is odd enough, but it would look fucking ridiculous if you're desperately trying to get to the hunter's dream while being chased by enemies just to calmly sit down and doze off while they're attacking you.
Turns the game into an aggressive game of musical chairs
Absolutely love this! Fantastic stuff. Really appreciate all the work you put into uncovering these things.
Awesome! You seriously make my day with these videos. I hope you keep at it!
These videos are great. Thanks for taking the time to do them
Finding a chair in the clearing of some nightmare forest would be extremely ominous.
Awesome video as always dude, Can't wait for the next one!
There is a ghost sitting on a chair! Better shake him and claim this furniture.
Hey man, this is really interesting stuff! Keep up the good work!
That npc's cockney accent (like my own), sounds good. And believe it or not there are different cockney accents. ( A true cockney has to have been born within earshot of the 'Bow bells).
Dam. Wished they keep the chairs. It looks so cool shaking the phantom to go away
What was the lore significance of the Lanterns? We all know what they do, taking us to the Dream and back. But if dreams have such a big importance, why did they replace sleeping in a Chair with the Lanterns; what do they mean?
The lanterns are not just for light, they're supposedly incense burners to keep beasts away. That is, according to some of the design documents given to the guide writers of Future Press. You'll also notice that a lot of the NPCs happen to have incense burners near their doors as well.
In that case I would understand... if they were around areas that you use to warp. To use them to transport to dreams, it doesn't make sense. But if they were around the area of the thing you were using to do so, say the Chairs, then that would make sense.
If the chairs were placed better, I'd probably warm up to them. They might have some lore significance, but I wouldn't be able to take the chairs seriously if they'd just been plopped in middle of nowhere. When I see lanterns, they look so inconspicuous and pretty that I've never really reconsidered placement or aesthetic. Having them be a light source too reminds me of bonfires from DS too, so checkpoints being light sources might be a FromSoftware choice?
Malachi C Well, what about this: for checkpoints, you encounter a building or room (depending on location) that has the glowing lanterns around it, both to signify a location of a checkpoint and to fit in lore-wise as incense burners. In that building/room, you find a chair that you can rest in to go to dreams.
Thomas Chitham Yeah! That'd be a lot cooler, I like this. And if the chair is in a forest somewhere or a big open space (Cainhurt's castle, the lantern in Hemwick), they can just put the lanterns circling around to close off the area a bit. Though, would this mean bosses drop chairs? That'd be hilarious. Takes "I need to take a break after this boss" to a memetastic level.
I wish they left the chair in. That activation sequence, waking the phantom, gave me chills. The lanterns are so out of context too compared to this.
I wonder why they decided against this chair idea. Maybe a summoned chair with a phantom in it after killing a boss would've been awkward, or maybe a deactivated (broken?) chair in Hypogean goal makes less sense than a broken lantern. Or maybe having a big chair in the middle of queen annalise's castle would've been absurd (that lantern is unnecessary anyway though). Anyway, this is a much cooler concept than a lantern.
Thank you for another interesting video about the unused content of this awesome game.
Please make more frequently these are amazing!!!!
The voice acting is so damn good
After seeing you managed to play as Gascoigne,i really want to see you to play as Gehrman or Maria in next video
I love your work! Please keep it up!
Glitching through that gate reminded me of Soul Reaver so much. Dig it.
Really thank you the cut content are interesting
Umbasa..
1:56 they def move that fast in the base game but only if you don't kill them right away... I've seen it in the chalice dungeons especially
Amazing work! Thanks for sharing! :)
Warp chairs are so cool, why did they cut them dang it
Lanterns make more sense aesthetically as well as lore wise. The lanterns carry incense that wards off the beasts. Seeing a chair in the middle of nowhere would look odd in a lot of the places in bloodborne.
TheTinyTimmyTimTim How would it make less sense? Have you seen the mensis scholars?
Schmeat Boy that’s one area in the entire game. A random chair in the middle of the forbidden forest would make very little sense. So would a random chair in the middle of oedons tomb. The lanterns make much more sense, as they hold incense that wards off the beasts and mimic the lanterns outside the doors of the yharnam residents, in the first area of the game. From a game design standpoint, the lanterns are much better.
TheTinyTimmyTimTim The same exact logic you are using can be applied to the lanterns, why would I need to ward off beasts in the middle of the Forrest? A random lamp in the middle of a tomb makes no sense. Anyway, the way I see it is that it makes much more sense for someone to SLEEP to go to a place called the DREAM, why would a random lantern in the middle of the city just take you there? Honestly there isn’t a solid lore reason these things could not just be switched out
@@Schmeatboy Actually quite a lot of lore reasons tbh. It would ask many more questions about the nature of our dream; demystifying a lot. Can anyone get there? Who makes the chairs, and how? Who are the phantoms? Why is Micolash dead in his chair; but not many others? Do you even need umbilical cords to go to dreams? Why even use blood then; if every rando can sit on a chair and somehow achieve entrance to higher planes?
It would trigger another redraft of the whole lore.
Meanwhile the lamps leave the mystery open; dont really seem man-made; but appear instead as some messengers' imitation of it.
You light them with a snap; showing that its not just a usual lamp.
Theres problems here too; sure; as f.e. other hunters state they know of the dream tho; and it seems the lamps can even be destroyed, but the whole ambiguity of the lamps leaves much more freedom for mystery in the lore and throughout the game while it builds up to turn from hack&slash to grand horror.
I think its personal opinion; but the chairs just seem like a combination of too on-the-nose & too literal while also looking really odd tbh
Voice acting in dark souls games and bloodborne is sooooo good.
there is a warp chair after the one reborn with a dead hunter sitting on it. So the chair is still in game
micolash*
Can you play as other bosses? Tge reason I'm asking is because you played as Father Gascoigne at the end of the video.
Yes hehe
Lance McDonald thats Badass! Could you maybe play as The Moon Presence in the next video?
The chairs makes heading to the dream make more sense bc you're leaving your physical body to enter the dream
Very cool, keep making them! Any strange item description early too? Hmmmmm
The dream chair makes more sense since gerhman is in one mikolash dies in one c'mon and Victoria ? I forget her name but shes from the dlc
Will the phantom on chair change its appearance if you play as character with different armour?
i wish we could get insight into how FromSoft developed the story over time. What an interesting vid!
We need a remastered version with all the good cut content, nice and polished.
i think the alpha takes place much before the final game, it feels like it sometimes
Damm i wish it could be possible to restore all of the games warp chairs and somehow make a mod out of that. I like the chairs so much more then the lanterns
The man you give blood echoes to, past the shortcut house; is that the same voice as the Narrow Minded Man? If so, then that is very, very interesting. Aside from that, these are very interesting
Is it possible to extract the audio files of the alpha version? Cuz I'd love to get my hands on a good quality extract of the alpha cleric beast song.
My head cannon is where not actually in Yarhnam, remember there's nothing special about us where just a human i strongly believe are physical body is taken to the Hunters Dream and where actual an astral projection, and when we die in the Hunters Dream the Moon Presence just rewinds time before we died that's why Gehrman can't die or leave if he kills himself the Moon Presence reversion time.
1:00 you recalled wrong
I was going to say, it seems rare, but it does happen. I don't know what conditions may trigger it, but as far as I can remember, it only happened to me once and that was a few months ago by the wolf beasts in the Upper Cathedral Ward.
Amazing work. Just gained a sub
The chairs are SO... FUCKING... COOL .... as Iconic as the Bonfires if NOT more.... what were they thinking cutting this out?
Ugh. Fromsoft just offends sometimes with these decisions.
The chairs just ask too many questions imo; bearing down a brutal weight upon the lore's shoulders from the very beginning. And the very second it would be clear that its not the chair itself that is doing the teleporting; but the act of sitting down and sleeping; or some ritual or whatever; even more questions would be asked; and you couldnt really use chairs or beds in level design anymore.
Alternatively; even if the reason is "its the chairs themselves", that would open a wholly different can of worms questionwise.
Idk...seems they did the right thing by going with the amibguity & less on-the-nose symbolism of the lamps.
The tone of the game feels different from the cut dialogues in these videos, just a little bit lighter, definitely less "lonely" for the main character to experience.
The tower amygdala really is such a cool visual, shame it wasn't kept for final.
So that's how Chris Angel walked through that gate!!