I love how Bloodborne starts out as gothic horror with werewolves and such then shifts into lovecraftian horror once you gain enough insight into what’s really going on
Both elements are inspired by reality. The nephilim tribes that God sent his people to wipe out in the old testament were genetic abominations. Giants, werewolves, vampires etc. Hollywood has shown these kinda things but they were far more grotesque back then.
It’s Gothic horror throughout. Gothic horror is all about humanity’s hubris in using science to play God. Bloodborne’s twist on it is that it’s impossible for humanity to truly play God because said gods are many and borderline incomprehensible.
I stopped playing the game (for a few months) because of that fight. After I beat the defiled Amygdala, I one-shot Gerhman and the Moon Presence since I was so overpowered
Exactly. I played it in my journey to get all FS games platinums in PS. It was my first soulslike in playstation (because I played a little bit of Sekiro on PC before). Recently, I remembered Ludwig (my favorite boss ever) and his soundtrack. I opened UA-cam and listened to it. After that I got obsessed again. Listened to all big soundtracks of Bloodborne, rewatched its lore, hidden dialogues and realized how underrated Bloodborne really is. It's a piece of art made video game. So many philosophical questions and issues addressed, emotions and values of humans, emotional and impactful tragedies. My favorite characters are Ludwig, Gehrman and Laurence. The three of them have such and amazing character development and its really mindblowing everything that happens to them as you dig out the lore and stories behind them. I swear I could talk about bloodborne for hours lol
I've consumed Bloodborne video essays throughout the years, and I will consume them whenever a new one comes out. I will keep consuming because it gets better the more insight you have.
24:17 "Once you help Gehrman retire" is my new favorite way to refer to defeating him. I propose we stop calling it the "bad ending" and start calling it Gehrman's Retirement. 😂
i had the chance to play it just recently and i feared that the fandom would be dead since its been like 9 years since the game came out but i was pleasantly surprised!
Just a side note: the amygdala is a part of your brain that registers different emotions, the main one being FEAR. I think this is a really cool and subtle detail in the game that some don’t know about.
There is no way I would consider Bloodborne survival horror, but I will say that it feels like it in the beginning. Enemies are terrifying and items, especially healing items, feel scarce. But when you get good at the game, it stops feeling that way. You become a god of death that heals by ripping the life from your victims. It starts feeling more like a survival game... for your enemies.
Yeah like any other survival horror game, no game maintains it’s ability to make you feel fear once you know what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean BB doesn’t deserve to be considered a survival horror game, no one says this about RE4 and there’s nothing scary about that game
Once you realize that YOU the player must lean into the hunt and become the hunter, you start to feel like all of Yharnam is locked in the Dream with you.
They really are, having a 2-in-1 weapon that lets you fluidly switch modes mid combat is just so good. And I mean come on, a cane sword that unfurls into a serrated whip? A curved sword that unfolds into a scythe? A sword that sheaths into an even bigger sword? SO cool.
Bloodborne is easily the greatest game of all time in my opinion. The main reason it is head and shoulders over many of its cousins is the hyper focus on one style of gameplay leading to a very well designed gameplay experience. Put an excellent Hamer meets Lovecraft horror ambiance around the core gameplay and this is a near perfect game. There are shortcomings, the frames per second are the most common complaint though the inability to make the celestial bosses such as living failures is a missed opportunity. Also the late game nightmares prior to Mergo’s nightmare feel a touch rushed, as is the late game use of the madness mechanic. Still, I will remember the tragedy of Maria, the haunting Castle Cainhurst, the poignant dreaming of Djura and the heart wrenching screams of the Orphan of Kos for the rest of my life.
I appreciate the inclusion of a 🎧TRACKLIST (in order of appearance) in the video description, raises the video above the level of quality of many other long form video producers. Leon Kennedy is an American, of course their favored mode of interaction with the world through the use of weaponry. I can't believe Micolash is Dutch, I never knew how multicultural Bloodborne was. Overall, very insightful video into a game I'll never be able to play because it's locked on consoles.
I think I could know what nationalities each one has in my opinion: Eileen - Afro American 🇺🇲 Henryk - British 🇬🇧 Gascoigne - French 🇨🇵 Alfred - British 🇬🇧 Valtr - North American (EE.UU.) 🇺🇲 Micholash - Dutch 🇳🇱 Willem - British 🇬🇧 Laurence - British 🇬🇧 Brador - British 🇬🇧 Simon - British 🇬🇧 Ludwig - British 🇬🇧 Adella - British 🇬🇧 Arianna - British 🇬🇧 Narrow Minded Man - British 🇬🇧 Transformed man - British 🇬🇧 Gilbert - British 🇬🇧 Lonely Old Dier - British 🇬🇧 Gascoigne's daughter girl and her older sister - British/ French 🇬🇧🇨🇵 Oedon Chapel Dweler - Pthumerian Adeline - British 🇬🇧 losefka - British 🇬🇧 Djura - British 🇬🇧 Amelia - British 🇬🇧 Annalise - Russian 🇷🇺 Yamamura - Japanese 🇯🇵 Lady Maria - Polish 🇵🇱 Gehrman - German 🇩🇪 The Hunter - It depends on how you consider him, it can be yours if you want, after all it is your character that you create, for me he's Spaniard 🇪🇸. Edit: It makes sense, after all, many foreigners traveled to Yarhnam to receive the blood transfusion.
@@TheNemoPerfectus Because Maria has quite a few Slavic features, in addition to her accent, it is said that Maria is a distant descendant of Annalize, I think she is somewhere between being Russian and Polish. As I said before, it's my opinion. Edit: I also wanted to correct that Eileen could Afro British, because of her pronunciation "Hoonter" haha.
So for me personally, I played through the game and got the Ascended ending. In my opinion, because your hunter would have lived through the pain and suffering of being human in Yharnem, and seeing multiple other characters of the game suffer because of what the Great Ones have done, I've felt that the Ascended ending is the technical "good" ending to the story. You have the power of a god now, and you can help the people that you've watched suffer this whole time. I realize you pointed out that our character may not remember our human lives after becoming such an omnipotent deity, but at the same time, your hunter lived through that suffering, that hell that the Amygdala's created, for one reason or another. You know how much the humans can, and do, suffer for what the Great Ones have caused. And now that you're a great one yourself, you have more insight into human life than the other Great Ones do. You can help them, and maybe even save the human race. That's how I see it, at least.
Can never get enough of BB videos. Truly the best game ever. Lore, gameplay, world design, shortcuts, boss design (for the most part), interesting weapons (trick weapons, so cool), replayability, co-op capability, philosophical ideas with horror and existentialism, the rally mechanic, the best dlc. Dungeons are meh but not necessary. Gothic horror and Lovecraft done right!
Thanks for the video! I really like hearing people's views of Bloodborne because it's such a multifaceted game that can trigger all sorts of responses from people which, in hindsight, it's such a horror movie characteristic xd
firstly, i loved the video. it was great, and i love seeing new takes on bloodborne's greatness. i think one reason that i didn't see already in the comments for why this take might not resonate for everyone is the intrinsic difficulty of a survival horror vs something like bloodborne. i can see your take being incredibly pertitent to a new souls fan or maybe someone who's playing the game the first time but still played other souls games. i think veterans of the game will naturally dismiss the "survival horror" title as a genre tag bc the feelings are intrinsically different. everything you described about the fight being the fear just didn't click with me. i'm an experienced bloodborne player. i never run out of vials or bullets for the most part. i know how to execute enemies without using resources i might need for a boss, and dying is typically only due to my mistakes in combat like any other souls game, so i'm not wasting resources on needless deaths really at all. resident evil, silent hill, they never felt that way. i know silent hill's story like the back of my hand, but the way the game impliments and impedes combat makes RE/Silent Hill always feel like you're a regular human, disadvantaged, in a world of monsters that could kill you. going into bloodborne as a regular souls player, i never felt that way. and i think people who are used to mechanically analyzing a souls game will feel very similar to me. the first time you see an enemy in silent hill, it FEELS like you have to run or you will absolutely die. in bloodborne, i punched that werewolf and dodged and tried to get a feel for his attack patterns and the correct dodge timings. as a player in bloodborne, how effective you feel next to an enemy is entirely up to your skill as a player - i'm confident. i never feel out of place in a souls game. you have the mechanics to defeat every single enemy from the get-go if you're skilled enough. the same cannot be said about resident evil, silent hill and other classic survival horror games. however, for the new player, i can absolutely see how those feelings might arise. all in all, very good essay, i think the only added nuance to make this the perfect take is adding a little about the experience of the gamer themselves. it definitely impacts the way you perceive bloodborne as survival horror or an action horror rpg
i appreciate the in-depth criticism! and tbh you're very perceptive lol you're absolutely right about this being pertinent for newer players/non-gamers. i've played through bloodborne like 4 times now, so it doesn't scare me *personally* much anymore. but it was the second fromsoft game i'd ever played, and i remember how much it scared me on my first playthrough, and thinking "this game plays nothing like resident evil, so why does it scare me like resident evil does?" so for this video (and the playthrough of bloodborne i did to capture footage), i tried to experience the game through fresh eyes to answer that question. and that's what i'm writing to here: bloodborne through fresh eyes... on the inside👁️
@@sorbino_ i kinda got that the essay might've been from the perspective of someone new to the franchise or just, lacking the meta-game experience of souls games. the meta game information is really what distinguishes the two, with classic survival horror the meta knowledge doesn't impact your experience as a disadvantaged player while having it in bloodborne changes the experience. i actually spent more time thinking about your essay today, i really enjoyed it and that's what i came up with - the real defining factor on the validity of the tag is just whether or not meta knowledge should be included. i think as a first or probably even second playthrough, bloodborne is absolutely an evolved survival horror
I never see anyone mention this online but the Amygdala is literally the name of the part of your brain that controls the hormone that causes fear, and the creature's head in game looks kind of similar to the actual gland
@@commentcop1246 I’ve watched at least a few dozen of these, none of them did. Therefore no not “everyone” does. Sorry I wasn’t aware of obscure creator #657’s video on it
No need to lie, almost everyone knows the amygdala is the gland that controls emotions and indeed almost every bloodborne lore video - both famous and obscure - mentions it.
This is one of the best thematic analyses of Bloodborne I have seen in a while. Excellent exploration my dude. It hits on most of the themes behind my own Bloodborne tattoo.
Bloodborne is a ARPG.Its more fantasy than horror but if you're easily frightened that will be subjective. I suppose if you don't "Git Gud" it could be considered a survival also but it definitely is a Masterpiece.
Can’t belive you’ve got so little views on this, it’s an incredible essay. Like your visuals are incredible (that vicseral attack transition was awesome) and I think this is a topic that hasn’t really been touched on all that much despite the game’s age. 10/10
I played Bloodborne as my first Souls-like game ever, that was 8 years ago. Thanks to that and to all the Lore explaining videos, I am now a Lovecraft reader, you can really found a lot of inspiration studying his stories :D
The one thing i feel like he could have also talked about is the music in the game. The soundtrack is amazing whether its a sad melancholic tune that makes you understand the sorry state of the world around you or the amazing boss tracks that make you seems even smaller and more powerless then you already are i think bloodbornes soundtrack is like the cherry on top. It takes everything amazing about the game and adds that little bit that makes me keep returning to the game.
amazing video, thank so much for sharing!!! i really love your interpretation of the squid ending too! i never really got why that was the “good” ending, like my hunter that just murdred everyone and consumed So Many Blood Heals is probably not going completely fix everything as a lil great one lmao! looking forward to future stuff from u!!
I have platinumed every modern Fromsoft game except Sekiro which I’m still working on. As a gamer for 25 years, no game has ever made as much of an impact on me as much as Bloodborne. It is a masterpiece. It’s the game I wish I could experience again for the first time.
Haven't seen the whole video yet but giving it a like for not using that FCKN vocal fry every fckn one has started using lately. You are a hero. don't even care if the video is good, at least you're talking like a real human being
Bloodborne is my favorite video game and hasn't been dethroned yet. I appreciate this video even if I ultimately disagree. It has horror elements and the spooky vibe is immaculate, but I struggle to categorize it as "survival" horror. I didn't fear dying in my first playthrough of Bloodborne playthrough. I expected to die frequently, knowing that my worst outcome would be losing my echoes. But to me, that's not horror. That's me failing a corpse run in Dark Souls. It's thrilling, for sure, but not scary. And because the stakes were never high for me, and death was just the punishment for not playing well, for me Bloodborne was an exploration of a horror world, knowing that the only thing between me and the next area was learning how to hunt a grotesque monster. Sorry for the rant. I gave the video a like because I'm happy that it exists!
Nothing brings fear more than Upper Cathedral Ward. That place feels like a horror, but the real horror is the insights stolen along the way. Those guys are a nightmare for me who hordes resources.
Amygdala isn’t just a strange exotic word they used for some of the great ones. It’s the fear centre of the brain and its pronounced uh-mig-duh-luh not uh-mig-dah-lah.
I coment this before watching the viedo, but i wanted to say that Bloodborne is, in my opinion, a horror game, but as the game goes on and thus the hunt. one loses the fear at the monstruosities that we see. we literally stop fearing the old blood. i love this game
I love Bloodbourne, the only fromsoft game I ever beat and if it comes to pc i'll beat it again. Great style of video, would love to see your take on Hunt Showdown, a game that at times reminds me of Bloodbourne
(Disclaimer: This rant is unrelated to my opinion of the video, which is positive) The more I see videos like this, the more I realize the meaning of a "Survival horror" (shortening to "SH") game has been almost completely eroded. So much so that a game with infinitely farmable resources with it's closest relation to SH is the map design gets considered such? you don't count your bullets in Bloodborne, you sit on giant piles of them after killing hordes of respawnable trash. you never reach a setback that would be grounds for reloading a save. Heck, there are parts of the game where dying will give you progress or a shortcut. SH isn't just the sum of a survival game or horror game. if it was, the title of the subgenre would mean nothing.
i've read this sentiment a few times now, but thank you for elaborating on it instead of just going "nuh uh" lol. we love valid criticism, folks! personally, i think genre studies should be approached with a more inquisitive/open attitude. instead of "canonizing" specific rules to pluck out the "wrong" titles from a genre, i try to look at the core thematic/emotional aspects of a genre and see how those get expressed differently over time. i just think it's more interesting to do lol, but i also think we can learn more about a title and its place in a larger cultural context by doing that. so i don't think the meaning of survival horror has eroded, but i think we (broadly, as a culture) have changed how we *tend* to express its meaning. the "bullet counting" survival horror still gets made and is still understood to be survival horror, just in a more "traditional" style i hope that makes sense lol. i appreciate the comment!
Beautifully done video my friend. For this and many more reasons Bloodborne will always be my favorite game. Survival horror is just another layer on top of what Bloodborne is as a whole. Even going deeper and deeper into the chalice dungeons give that feeling of the unknown
I still remember not knowing about the alien shit in Bloodborne and then saw a weird blue guy in the forest and went “what in the fuck is that” and said it more when i got to Byrgenwerth
@@leviathan9865 I don't think you understand that genre. It leans heavily on resource management. BB is an action game in a horror setting. It's Dark Souls, but even faster paced. You literally just go farm souls to buy 100s of blood vials and bullets in BB. BB is action horror. End of story.
I will never replicate the fear that my first bloodborne playthrough gave me. Feeling lost, not knowing where to go, what was lurking ahead. Yharnam scared me the most for how new i was, but cathedral ward , forbidden woods and rashalgul also were scary.
Yes, a true masterpiece, one that continues to live into this day as a memorable, often revisited experience... THAT WE STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN A REMASTERED OR PC PORT FOR- Do it, From. IT'S FREE MONEY.
And it's here that I want to turn to the USA. This is a country that gives you the freedom to choose between a variety of private health insurance, monopolized drugs, and homeopathic alternatives to express yourself in a fluid, hyper-capitalist scheme. You'll deal with premium geysers of blood and wonder why filling out insurance claims are unreasonably hard. The healthcare in USA just makes you feel like an overworked Victorian factory worker. Which is pretty badass. And, I'll admit, this seems to fly in the face of traditional US socialist design (improvements to rights after Haymarket Affair). As it turns out though, living in the US is all about managing scarce resources. Especially in the early part of your life. You got all the First world-standard resources to watch out for: food, living expenses, weapon durability, but where the USA strays from the pack is in it's handling of healing items and services. Unlike the single-payer healthcare and communism of Europe, let's say, important pills and insulin don't replenish every month for free. If you want more, you'll have to scrounge them up yourself. Well, you might find a few of each scattered around your city willing to share, kill for them, or working overtime for the money to buy them is far and away the most reliable way to top off your personal supply. As the US's primary currency, debt is arguably the most important resource in the country. You can use it to buy consumer products of course, but also to buy weapons, armor, compound upgrades, and even books. The more debt you get into, the higher your margin of error, your chance of survival, becomes. When you go bankrupt though, your debt will be absorbed by the collector that bought you or mailed as a deductible near where you went bankrupt. So unless you can pay off that debt and survive, a very tough enemy is going to hold your access to health, food, money, and video games- hostage.
Its a cosmic horror we all thought it was gothic horror but the truth behind it was a lovecraftian/eldritch horror and that all these monsters where once human the unknown part is what makes it cosmic horror
Bloodborne is definitely not survival horror. I think you’re still a bit too powerful for it to even be considered survival, you just have too much means of fighting back. The moment a game has a bigger combat focus is when it begins to stray from survival horror. Also, while there is some resource management present in bloodborne, it doesn’t come close to the management present in survival horror, because of a major difference: in bloodborne, items, enemies and inventory space are pretty much unlimited. In survival horror, they’re not. I think this is the key thing that keeps bloodborne from being survival horror, the fact that you aren’t going into every fight wondering if it’s even worth using your precious limited resources to make the area a little bit safer, or if you’ll have enough inventory space afterwards to be able to collect anything valuable in future rooms. Bloodborne has quite a bit of survival horror elements, but that doesn’t mean it’s survival horror. It’s best described as an action rpg with a couple survival horror elements.
In survival horror games you're usually the prey.. trying to survive, keyword... and there's resource management.... BB is a great horror action game but it's far from survival horror. Even RE4 and Dead Space qualify for that category better. It doesn't need to tick every genre box to be good. It's simply a horror-themed action rpg. A near-perfect one.
I've heard Bloodborne being some of the favorite games from the UA-camrs watched and subscribed to such as Caddicarus for example(with it's position as Day 25 of the Cadvent Calendar, considered the best games he's ever played, in contrast to the Badvent Calender's 25th comprising of Animal Soccer World and the entirety of Phoenix Games, the worst of all reviewed on his channel). I couldn't agree more. Bloodborne meshes survival horror and action RPG combat with Lovecraftian monsters beyond our comprehension. The gothic architecture of Yharnam remains some of the best horror atmosphere in any action game out there. I dig this dark and mesmerizing structuring, even in Devil May Cry 1 and 3 with the likes of Mallet Island Castle, and the Temen-Ni-Gru, they were unnerving yet beautiful, and the music provided in each nook and cranny of an empty, vast palace, aside from the creepy allure of a massive demonic tower's interior really set the mood before kicking into battle when kickass industrial/electronic rock music blasts in the background as you fight stylishly as possible. Resident Evil 4 impacted gaming for the best and the worst, but Bloodborne is that much of a disturbing gothic masterpiece, it's worth a challenge due to it's difficulty and playing for those who've owned a PS4, and are a fan of FromSoftware and Miyazaki's work.
I have to beat this game now! Started years ago and never touched it after but after listening to the lore videos on a bored day of work I have to play and beat this game
God I want this game so bad but I don’t have a PlayStation anymore, something about bloodborne’s setting spoke to me and I never knew why. As I grew older I began to like different things which in turn answered my question, I love horrors beyond my comprehension.
Long time ago I tried BB but couldn't even get to Central Yharnam coz am too scared, it couldn't handle the gothic setting and the sound design gives the creeps man. I didn't want to play it again. Fast forward a few years, Sekiro came out and it was my first From Soft game and I played it coz of the Japanese setting and samurai. Love it to bits. Then years later I played Elden Ring, only then I realized the pattern of From Soft Souls game people raving bout. Learning the gameplay, combat, the lore, the community, was super fun. After finishing ER, last year I decided to man up and restart BB all over again. I finally beaten it and it really is the best From Soft or any game I've ever played. Nothing like it. Now I understand why this game is still popular to this day, and why there's always new videos talking about it. It's such a special game. Fast forward last month, I played SOTE DLC but after finishing it, my itch for more Souls game started. So I decided to play Old Hunters DLC and it reminded me again that BB is a masterpiece. I just completed it last night! Maybe I should try Dark Souls Trilogy next? And yes I just bought all the Future Press Souls guide books except Sekiro which are hard to find!
I love how Bloodborne starts out as gothic horror with werewolves and such then shifts into lovecraftian horror once you gain enough insight into what’s really going on
Eldritch hits different
Both elements are inspired by reality.
The nephilim tribes that God sent his people to wipe out in the old testament were genetic abominations. Giants, werewolves, vampires etc.
Hollywood has shown these kinda things but they were far more grotesque back then.
Hot take: Bloodborne is gothic horror throughout because Lovecraftian is a subgenre of gothic
@@hectorlopez9453bro fr
It’s Gothic horror throughout. Gothic horror is all about humanity’s hubris in using science to play God. Bloodborne’s twist on it is that it’s impossible for humanity to truly play God because said gods are many and borderline incomprehensible.
Okay, I’ll replay bloodborne again.
I’m jealous my ps4 broke in 2021 and I got a pc, haven’t played bb since 😢
Merentiel the Beast wold be proud
DALE UOCAAAAAAAAAAAA
Playing it again rn, goated game.
Run Lies of P
Hand it over. That thing, your BloodBorne.
Basically me because I don't have a PlayStation xd
You hear that, Sony?
Sunk over 200 hours in this game and I can tell you, there’s nothing more scary than the amygdala in the defiled chalice
I stopped playing the game (for a few months) because of that fight. After I beat the defiled Amygdala, I one-shot Gerhman and the Moon Presence since I was so overpowered
Nah, watchdog of the old lords is WAY worse, especially of you're going dex with blades of mercy.
@@chase6579 Jesus Christ going head to head with the dog with blades of mercy is nuts
Nah going to the Upper Cathedral and getting ambushed by the damn brain suckers is far scarier lol
@@PhantomBones101 they a close second ngl, but the amygdala on depth 4, so much health, more aggressive and you being at half health is actually hell
MASTERPIECE. Bloodborne’s art direction will go down in history as a landmark. The creativity is fucking bonkers.
Exactly. I played it in my journey to get all FS games platinums in PS. It was my first soulslike in playstation (because I played a little bit of Sekiro on PC before). Recently, I remembered Ludwig (my favorite boss ever) and his soundtrack. I opened UA-cam and listened to it. After that I got obsessed again. Listened to all big soundtracks of Bloodborne, rewatched its lore, hidden dialogues and realized how underrated Bloodborne really is. It's a piece of art made video game. So many philosophical questions and issues addressed, emotions and values of humans, emotional and impactful tragedies. My favorite characters are Ludwig, Gehrman and Laurence. The three of them have such and amazing character development and its really mindblowing everything that happens to them as you dig out the lore and stories behind them. I swear I could talk about bloodborne for hours lol
Could there be a sequel?
I've consumed Bloodborne video essays throughout the years, and I will consume them whenever a new one comes out. I will keep consuming because it gets better the more insight you have.
What was it, the hunt? The blood? Or the horrible dream?
@@andrewcanning3840 The faint beckons of the Old Ones in the back of my mind
A corpse should be left well alone
@@HeatherHolt such a badass
Have you read the Paleblood Hunt?
24:17 "Once you help Gehrman retire" is my new favorite way to refer to defeating him. I propose we stop calling it the "bad ending" and start calling it Gehrman's Retirement. 😂
senile old man really needed to wake up after all
Bloodborne is THE single best souls game and it isn’t even close. No other game ever made can even hold a candle to how absolutely perfect it is.
I'd like to see one try, so far to my knowledge none have even attempted to try. . Sad day.
I love Bloodborne so much, I’m glad people are still talking about it and making videos on it to this day
Think its finally coming to a sequel
@@salladpatron3395 Bloodborne sequel would be a dream come true 🙏
@@starrynight-ppc port when?
i had the chance to play it just recently and i feared that the fandom would be dead since its been like 9 years since the game came out but i was pleasantly surprised!
I see Bloodborne, i click it
It is that simple
Thank you algorithm. You have taken me where I never knew I needed to go.
welcome home👁️
Just a side note: the amygdala is a part of your brain that registers different emotions, the main one being FEAR. I think this is a really cool and subtle detail in the game that some don’t know about.
What an incredible video essay. This gives me an entirely whole new perspective on Bloodborne. You've earned my sub.
There is no way I would consider Bloodborne survival horror, but I will say that it feels like it in the beginning. Enemies are terrifying and items, especially healing items, feel scarce.
But when you get good at the game, it stops feeling that way. You become a god of death that heals by ripping the life from your victims. It starts feeling more like a survival game... for your enemies.
Yeah like any other survival horror game, no game maintains it’s ability to make you feel fear once you know what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean BB doesn’t deserve to be considered a survival horror game, no one says this about RE4 and there’s nothing scary about that game
@@slymufasa15 This^^
Ah, you were at my side all along. My true mentor. My guiding survivor horror masterpiece.
Once you realize that YOU the player must lean into the hunt and become the hunter, you start to feel like all of Yharnam is locked in the Dream with you.
What a a wickedly good video essay. This seems like a million view video, I hope this reaches the algorithm
The trick weapons for some strange reason are so satisfying to use and master. Literally my favorite game and I’ve been gaming since the 80’s
They really are, having a 2-in-1 weapon that lets you fluidly switch modes mid combat is just so good. And I mean come on, a cane sword that unfurls into a serrated whip? A curved sword that unfolds into a scythe? A sword that sheaths into an even bigger sword? SO cool.
Bloodborne is easily the greatest game of all time in my opinion. The main reason it is head and shoulders over many of its cousins is the hyper focus on one style of gameplay leading to a very well designed gameplay experience. Put an excellent Hamer meets Lovecraft horror ambiance around the core gameplay and this is a near perfect game. There are shortcomings, the frames per second are the most common complaint though the inability to make the celestial bosses such as living failures is a missed opportunity. Also the late game nightmares prior to Mergo’s nightmare feel a touch rushed, as is the late game use of the madness mechanic. Still, I will remember the tragedy of Maria, the haunting Castle Cainhurst, the poignant dreaming of Djura and the heart wrenching screams of the Orphan of Kos for the rest of my life.
I appreciate the inclusion of a 🎧TRACKLIST (in order of appearance) in the video description, raises the video above the level of quality of many other long form video producers.
Leon Kennedy is an American, of course their favored mode of interaction with the world through the use of weaponry.
I can't believe Micolash is Dutch, I never knew how multicultural Bloodborne was.
Overall, very insightful video into a game I'll never be able to play because it's locked on consoles.
bloodborne is really about the depravity of the dutch
I think I could know what nationalities each one has in my opinion:
Eileen - Afro American 🇺🇲
Henryk - British 🇬🇧
Gascoigne - French 🇨🇵
Alfred - British 🇬🇧
Valtr - North American (EE.UU.) 🇺🇲
Micholash - Dutch 🇳🇱
Willem - British 🇬🇧
Laurence - British 🇬🇧
Brador - British 🇬🇧
Simon - British 🇬🇧
Ludwig - British 🇬🇧
Adella - British 🇬🇧
Arianna - British 🇬🇧
Narrow Minded Man - British 🇬🇧
Transformed man - British 🇬🇧
Gilbert - British 🇬🇧
Lonely Old Dier - British 🇬🇧
Gascoigne's daughter girl and her older sister - British/ French 🇬🇧🇨🇵
Oedon Chapel Dweler - Pthumerian
Adeline - British 🇬🇧
losefka - British 🇬🇧
Djura - British 🇬🇧
Amelia - British 🇬🇧
Annalise - Russian 🇷🇺
Yamamura - Japanese 🇯🇵
Lady Maria - Polish 🇵🇱
Gehrman - German 🇩🇪
The Hunter - It depends on how you consider him, it can be yours if you want, after all it is your character that you create, for me he's Spaniard 🇪🇸.
Edit: It makes sense, after all, many foreigners traveled to Yarhnam to receive the blood transfusion.
@@ThePalebloodHunter Lady Maria - Polish 🇵🇱
Can you elaborate on why you think that?
@@TheNemoPerfectus Because Maria has quite a few Slavic features, in addition to her accent, it is said that Maria is a distant descendant of Annalize, I think she is somewhere between being Russian and Polish. As I said before, it's my opinion.
Edit: I also wanted to correct that Eileen could Afro British, because of her pronunciation "Hoonter" haha.
Alfred isn't so much British as he is Glaswegian because he's a sadistic violent nutter
This is a great video. If time is our most precious commodity, I'm happy I purchased this with a piece of my afternoon. Thanks man!
I’ve watched every big bloodborne lore/video essay on UA-cam and I love to see new ones still being made
So for me personally, I played through the game and got the Ascended ending. In my opinion, because your hunter would have lived through the pain and suffering of being human in Yharnem, and seeing multiple other characters of the game suffer because of what the Great Ones have done, I've felt that the Ascended ending is the technical "good" ending to the story.
You have the power of a god now, and you can help the people that you've watched suffer this whole time. I realize you pointed out that our character may not remember our human lives after becoming such an omnipotent deity, but at the same time, your hunter lived through that suffering, that hell that the Amygdala's created, for one reason or another.
You know how much the humans can, and do, suffer for what the Great Ones have caused. And now that you're a great one yourself, you have more insight into human life than the other Great Ones do. You can help them, and maybe even save the human race. That's how I see it, at least.
Can never get enough of BB videos.
Truly the best game ever. Lore, gameplay, world design, shortcuts, boss design (for the most part), interesting weapons (trick weapons, so cool), replayability, co-op capability, philosophical ideas with horror and existentialism, the rally mechanic, the best dlc. Dungeons are meh but not necessary. Gothic horror and Lovecraft done right!
Great video, I’ve always seen bloodborne as the peak of eldritch horror of Lovecraft’s stories, but this gave me a new sight of my favorite game
This has the production value of a much larger channel. Mad respect
Whelp, time to sink another 20+ hours into Bloodborne
Great video. I never get tired of watching video essays describing why Bloodborne is an absolute masterpiece.
Thanks for the video! I really like hearing people's views of Bloodborne because it's such a multifaceted game that can trigger all sorts of responses from people which, in hindsight, it's such a horror movie characteristic xd
No game has been able to get my heart pounding like bloodborne did, even other horror/survival games
Get in, keep attacking, tear them apart, win
firstly, i loved the video. it was great, and i love seeing new takes on bloodborne's greatness.
i think one reason that i didn't see already in the comments for why this take might not resonate for everyone is the intrinsic difficulty of a survival horror vs something like bloodborne. i can see your take being incredibly pertitent to a new souls fan or maybe someone who's playing the game the first time but still played other souls games. i think veterans of the game will naturally dismiss the "survival horror" title as a genre tag bc the feelings are intrinsically different. everything you described about the fight being the fear just didn't click with me. i'm an experienced bloodborne player. i never run out of vials or bullets for the most part. i know how to execute enemies without using resources i might need for a boss, and dying is typically only due to my mistakes in combat like any other souls game, so i'm not wasting resources on needless deaths really at all. resident evil, silent hill, they never felt that way. i know silent hill's story like the back of my hand, but the way the game impliments and impedes combat makes RE/Silent Hill always feel like you're a regular human, disadvantaged, in a world of monsters that could kill you. going into bloodborne as a regular souls player, i never felt that way. and i think people who are used to mechanically analyzing a souls game will feel very similar to me. the first time you see an enemy in silent hill, it FEELS like you have to run or you will absolutely die. in bloodborne, i punched that werewolf and dodged and tried to get a feel for his attack patterns and the correct dodge timings. as a player in bloodborne, how effective you feel next to an enemy is entirely up to your skill as a player - i'm confident. i never feel out of place in a souls game. you have the mechanics to defeat every single enemy from the get-go if you're skilled enough. the same cannot be said about resident evil, silent hill and other classic survival horror games. however, for the new player, i can absolutely see how those feelings might arise. all in all, very good essay, i think the only added nuance to make this the perfect take is adding a little about the experience of the gamer themselves. it definitely impacts the way you perceive bloodborne as survival horror or an action horror rpg
i appreciate the in-depth criticism! and tbh you're very perceptive lol
you're absolutely right about this being pertinent for newer players/non-gamers. i've played through bloodborne like 4 times now, so it doesn't scare me *personally* much anymore.
but it was the second fromsoft game i'd ever played, and i remember how much it scared me on my first playthrough, and thinking "this game plays nothing like resident evil, so why does it scare me like resident evil does?"
so for this video (and the playthrough of bloodborne i did to capture footage), i tried to experience the game through fresh eyes to answer that question. and that's what i'm writing to here: bloodborne through fresh eyes... on the inside👁️
@@sorbino_ i kinda got that the essay might've been from the perspective of someone new to the franchise or just, lacking the meta-game experience of souls games. the meta game information is really what distinguishes the two, with classic survival horror the meta knowledge doesn't impact your experience as a disadvantaged player while having it in bloodborne changes the experience. i actually spent more time thinking about your essay today, i really enjoyed it and that's what i came up with - the real defining factor on the validity of the tag is just whether or not meta knowledge should be included. i think as a first or probably even second playthrough, bloodborne is absolutely an evolved survival horror
in my First time playthrough going through Blighttown was the scariest gaming experience for me
I never see anyone mention this online but the Amygdala is literally the name of the part of your brain that controls the hormone that causes fear, and the creature's head in game looks kind of similar to the actual gland
Almost every video essay on Bloodborne mentions it. It’s also not that uncommon knowledge.
Everyone says it
@@commentcop1246 I’ve watched at least a few dozen of these, none of them did. Therefore no not “everyone” does. Sorry I wasn’t aware of obscure creator #657’s video on it
No need to lie, almost everyone knows the amygdala is the gland that controls emotions and indeed almost every bloodborne lore video - both famous and obscure - mentions it.
@@SaucyJack88 not lying youre just terminally online and have seen way too many of these
How does this video have no comment, where is youtube algorithm.
it forgot that i'm him
We WILL force the algorithm to look here.
@@greatrulo we must pray to the algorithm God x they love ❤❤❤ 🎉🎉
Algorithm arrives precisely when it means to
I understood that reference@@sorbino_
This is one of the best thematic analyses of Bloodborne I have seen in a while. Excellent exploration my dude. It hits on most of the themes behind my own Bloodborne tattoo.
Bloodborne is a ARPG.Its more fantasy than horror but if you're easily frightened that will be subjective. I suppose if you don't "Git Gud" it could be considered a survival also but it definitely is a Masterpiece.
It's definitely horror. Both Gothic and cosmic horror are present in this game but yes I'd label it an ARPG as well
Amazing writing, thank you for the video :)
Can’t belive you’ve got so little views on this, it’s an incredible essay. Like your visuals are incredible (that vicseral attack transition was awesome) and I think this is a topic that hasn’t really been touched on all that much despite the game’s age. 10/10
great video, been waiting for this video for a long time now as bloodborne is one of my favorite games. brilliant!
Period. You ate this video up!! Good job. Subscribed!
I played Bloodborne as my first Souls-like game ever, that was 8 years ago. Thanks to that and to all the Lore explaining videos, I am now a Lovecraft reader, you can really found a lot of inspiration studying his stories :D
The one thing i feel like he could have also talked about is the music in the game. The soundtrack is amazing whether its a sad melancholic tune that makes you understand the sorry state of the world around you or the amazing boss tracks that make you seems even smaller and more powerless then you already are i think bloodbornes soundtrack is like the cherry on top. It takes everything amazing about the game and adds that little bit that makes me keep returning to the game.
this video a masterpiece in itself your knowledge and background on the games amazing great work man loved it
amazing video, thank so much for sharing!!! i really love your interpretation of the squid ending too! i never really got why that was the “good” ending, like my hunter that just murdred everyone and consumed So Many Blood Heals is probably not going completely fix everything as a lil great one lmao! looking forward to future stuff from u!!
I have platinumed every modern Fromsoft game except Sekiro which I’m still working on. As a gamer for 25 years, no game has ever made as much of an impact on me as much as Bloodborne. It is a masterpiece. It’s the game I wish I could experience again for the first time.
Haven't seen the whole video yet but giving it a like for not using that FCKN vocal fry every fckn one has started using lately. You are a hero. don't even care if the video is good, at least you're talking like a real human being
Best soulsborne game imo
Ahhhhhh!!! Im sooooo thankful for UA-cam algorithm 🙏🙏🙏 such a great video!
Bloodborne is like a survival horror that encourages you to club the dogshit out of the scary thing rather than run
I woke up this morning not expecting an autotuned baby cry 😂
Bloodborne is my favorite video game and hasn't been dethroned yet. I appreciate this video even if I ultimately disagree. It has horror elements and the spooky vibe is immaculate, but I struggle to categorize it as "survival" horror.
I didn't fear dying in my first playthrough of Bloodborne playthrough. I expected to die frequently, knowing that my worst outcome would be losing my echoes. But to me, that's not horror. That's me failing a corpse run in Dark Souls. It's thrilling, for sure, but not scary.
And because the stakes were never high for me, and death was just the punishment for not playing well, for me Bloodborne was an exploration of a horror world, knowing that the only thing between me and the next area was learning how to hunt a grotesque monster.
Sorry for the rant. I gave the video a like because I'm happy that it exists!
I'm not sure if I'd call it survival
..
fantastic deep dive! thank you for sharing ❤
This game is a triumph.
Delivered like a poem!
I love that everything here is in a windows window hahaha it's so comforting
Nothing brings fear more than Upper Cathedral Ward. That place feels like a horror, but the real horror is the insights stolen along the way.
Those guys are a nightmare for me who hordes resources.
it really does help to play at the proper darkness
Best. Game. I. Have. Ever. Played.
Edit: 9:23 - literally, they’re not from this world
I mean, it absolutely isn't a Survival Horror game, but sure. Game's a masterpiece.
The "true" ending is called true because the hunter gets to be held by the doll. A dream come true for most.
Amygdala isn’t just a strange exotic word they used for some of the great ones. It’s the fear centre of the brain and its pronounced uh-mig-duh-luh not uh-mig-dah-lah.
For me, BloodBorne is in a league of it's own.
Others: you can't be powerful and have a horror game! Bloodborne is not horror!
Me: WiNtEr LaNtErN gOeS BrRrRrT
I coment this before watching the viedo, but i wanted to say that Bloodborne is, in my opinion, a horror game, but as the game goes on and thus the hunt. one loses the fear at the monstruosities that we see. we literally stop fearing the old blood. i love this game
I love Bloodbourne, the only fromsoft game I ever beat and if it comes to pc i'll beat it again. Great style of video, would love to see your take on Hunt Showdown, a game that at times reminds me of Bloodbourne
Yessir another video to explain why I f*cking love this game.
“Survival horror” 😶
What?
(Disclaimer: This rant is unrelated to my opinion of the video, which is positive)
The more I see videos like this, the more I realize the meaning of a "Survival horror" (shortening to "SH") game has been almost completely eroded. So much so that a game with infinitely farmable resources with it's closest relation to SH is the map design gets considered such? you don't count your bullets in Bloodborne, you sit on giant piles of them after killing hordes of respawnable trash. you never reach a setback that would be grounds for reloading a save. Heck, there are parts of the game where dying will give you progress or a shortcut. SH isn't just the sum of a survival game or horror game. if it was, the title of the subgenre would mean nothing.
i've read this sentiment a few times now, but thank you for elaborating on it instead of just going "nuh uh" lol. we love valid criticism, folks!
personally, i think genre studies should be approached with a more inquisitive/open attitude. instead of "canonizing" specific rules to pluck out the "wrong" titles from a genre, i try to look at the core thematic/emotional aspects of a genre and see how those get expressed differently over time.
i just think it's more interesting to do lol, but i also think we can learn more about a title and its place in a larger cultural context by doing that.
so i don't think the meaning of survival horror has eroded, but i think we (broadly, as a culture) have changed how we *tend* to express its meaning. the "bullet counting" survival horror still gets made and is still understood to be survival horror, just in a more "traditional" style
i hope that makes sense lol. i appreciate the comment!
@@sorbino_dang you shut that dude up
Interesting... IDK if "survival horror" was ever a thought for the genre of Bloodbourne. Action-RPG sure, but survival horror?
Beautifully done video my friend. For this and many more reasons Bloodborne will always be my favorite game. Survival horror is just another layer on top of what Bloodborne is as a whole. Even going deeper and deeper into the chalice dungeons give that feeling of the unknown
How can it be unknown if most of the locations and bosses are recycled?
chalices were mad boring ngl
18:10 Dudes got that floating crunchwrap ability.
I still remember not knowing about the alien shit in Bloodborne and then saw a weird blue guy in the forest and went “what in the fuck is that” and said it more when i got to Byrgenwerth
Definitely not survival horror, but still creepy.
yes it is survival horror
@@leviathan9865 I don't think you understand that genre. It leans heavily on resource management. BB is an action game in a horror setting. It's Dark Souls, but even faster paced. You literally just go farm souls to buy 100s of blood vials and bullets in BB.
BB is action horror. End of story.
I will never replicate the fear that my first bloodborne playthrough gave me. Feeling lost, not knowing where to go, what was lurking ahead. Yharnam scared me the most for how new i was, but cathedral ward , forbidden woods and rashalgul also were scary.
Yes, a true masterpiece, one that continues to live into this day as a memorable, often revisited experience...
THAT WE STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN A REMASTERED OR PC PORT FOR- Do it, From. IT'S FREE MONEY.
SONY owns the iP
The runescape music in the background is just chef’s kiss. I always wonder if these creators use the OSRS music intentionally or not.
And it's here that I want to turn to the USA. This is a country that gives you the freedom to choose between a variety of private health insurance, monopolized drugs, and homeopathic alternatives to express yourself in a fluid, hyper-capitalist scheme. You'll deal with premium geysers of blood and wonder why filling out insurance claims are unreasonably hard.
The healthcare in USA just makes you feel like an overworked Victorian factory worker. Which is pretty badass. And, I'll admit, this seems to fly in the face of traditional US socialist design (improvements to rights after Haymarket Affair).
As it turns out though, living in the US is all about managing scarce resources. Especially in the early part of your life. You got all the First world-standard resources to watch out for: food, living expenses, weapon durability, but where the USA strays from the pack is in it's handling of healing items and services. Unlike the single-payer healthcare and communism of Europe, let's say, important pills and insulin don't replenish every month for free. If you want more, you'll have to scrounge them up yourself. Well, you might find a few of each scattered around your city willing to share, kill for them, or working overtime for the money to buy them is far and away the most reliable way to top off your personal supply. As the US's primary currency, debt is arguably the most important resource in the country. You can use it to buy consumer products of course, but also to buy weapons, armor, compound upgrades, and even books. The more debt you get into, the higher your margin of error, your chance of survival, becomes. When you go bankrupt though, your debt will be absorbed by the collector that bought you or mailed as a deductible near where you went bankrupt. So unless you can pay off that debt and survive, a very tough enemy is going to hold your access to health, food, money, and video games- hostage.
many people are saying this
Just started playing and about to cross the bridge from the central city and I LOVE IT so far.
Loved the addition of the quantum fluctuations from Outer Wilds 👌
This is a great analysis!
Playthrough 76 rn 560 hrs in and listening to bloodborne lore and review videos hell yeah
Its a cosmic horror we all thought it was gothic horror but the truth behind it was a lovecraftian/eldritch horror and that all these monsters where once human the unknown part is what makes it cosmic horror
Bloodborne is definitely not survival horror.
I think you’re still a bit too powerful for it to even be considered survival, you just have too much means of fighting back. The moment a game has a bigger combat focus is when it begins to stray from survival horror.
Also, while there is some resource management present in bloodborne, it doesn’t come close to the management present in survival horror, because of a major difference: in bloodborne, items, enemies and inventory space are pretty much unlimited. In survival horror, they’re not. I think this is the key thing that keeps bloodborne from being survival horror, the fact that you aren’t going into every fight wondering if it’s even worth using your precious limited resources to make the area a little bit safer, or if you’ll have enough inventory space afterwards to be able to collect anything valuable in future rooms.
Bloodborne has quite a bit of survival horror elements, but that doesn’t mean it’s survival horror. It’s best described as an action rpg with a couple survival horror elements.
i choose "refuse" because i dont want to forget the nighmare, instead i will embrace it
Thank you kind Sir, for granting us eyes
In survival horror games you're usually the prey.. trying to survive, keyword... and there's resource management.... BB is a great horror action game but it's far from survival horror. Even RE4 and Dead Space qualify for that category better. It doesn't need to tick every genre box to be good.
It's simply a horror-themed action rpg. A near-perfect one.
I actually cannot fathom how this doesn't have more views
@7:40 he forgot to mention that sometimes your character's blood echoes end up with some random enemy who did not kill your character.
I've heard Bloodborne being some of the favorite games from the UA-camrs watched and subscribed to such as Caddicarus for example(with it's position as Day 25 of the Cadvent Calendar, considered the best games he's ever played, in contrast to the Badvent Calender's 25th comprising of Animal Soccer World and the entirety of Phoenix Games, the worst of all reviewed on his channel). I couldn't agree more. Bloodborne meshes survival horror and action RPG combat with Lovecraftian monsters beyond our comprehension. The gothic architecture of Yharnam remains some of the best horror atmosphere in any action game out there. I dig this dark and mesmerizing structuring, even in Devil May Cry 1 and 3 with the likes of Mallet Island Castle, and the Temen-Ni-Gru, they were unnerving yet beautiful, and the music provided in each nook and cranny of an empty, vast palace, aside from the creepy allure of a massive demonic tower's interior really set the mood before kicking into battle when kickass industrial/electronic rock music blasts in the background as you fight stylishly as possible.
Resident Evil 4 impacted gaming for the best and the worst, but Bloodborne is that much of a disturbing gothic masterpiece, it's worth a challenge due to it's difficulty and playing for those who've owned a PS4, and are a fan of FromSoftware and Miyazaki's work.
Playing with max console sound and max in game sound AND max head phone sound turns every scare into a gun shot
I have to beat this game now! Started years ago and never touched it after but after listening to the lore videos on a bored day of work I have to play and beat this game
I’m out here praying for a Bloodborne 2
Imagine thats fromsofts next title, a man can only wish 🙏
This is excellent👌
9:39. 2 am and just got flashbanged by the rom boss room.
God I want this game so bad but I don’t have a PlayStation anymore, something about bloodborne’s setting spoke to me and I never knew why. As I grew older I began to like different things which in turn answered my question, I love horrors beyond my comprehension.
Long time ago I tried BB but couldn't even get to Central Yharnam coz am too scared, it couldn't handle the gothic setting and the sound design gives the creeps man. I didn't want to play it again. Fast forward a few years, Sekiro came out and it was my first From Soft game and I played it coz of the Japanese setting and samurai. Love it to bits. Then years later I played Elden Ring, only then I realized the pattern of From Soft Souls game people raving bout. Learning the gameplay, combat, the lore, the community, was super fun. After finishing ER, last year I decided to man up and restart BB all over again. I finally beaten it and it really is the best From Soft or any game I've ever played. Nothing like it. Now I understand why this game is still popular to this day, and why there's always new videos talking about it. It's such a special game.
Fast forward last month, I played SOTE DLC but after finishing it, my itch for more Souls game started. So I decided to play Old Hunters DLC and it reminded me again that BB is a masterpiece. I just completed it last night!
Maybe I should try Dark Souls Trilogy next? And yes I just bought all the Future Press Souls guide books except Sekiro which are hard to find!
I love survival horror. It's one of my top favorite genres.
No better introduction than to Cleric Beast’s Theme and screams
You slew the nightmare at the end of bloodborne, you broke the ritual of mensis, to reach the nightmare,.
Very well done. Good video.