One of my big goals for 2024 isto finally beat Bloodborne. Likemy colleague Eric Switzer, I considerFromSoftware’s Gothic horror game a favorite despite never finishing it. When I bought the game for my new PS4 back in 2017, it was my introduction to the Souls-like genre. Listening to gaming podcasts had thoroughly prepared me for the challenge I would face in the tough-as-nails action RPG subgenre, so when I started it up, I was willing to put in the time to learn its rhythms like I was learning a new skill.
As I return to it in 2024, I’m realizing that that skill was a little like learning to ride a bike and a little like learning a language. There are elements that are coming back quickly, and others that are completely eluding me as I make my return.
As I navigate the rough hewn streets of Central Yharnam, I might as well be riding a bike across toll road smooth pavement. The geography of the game is burned into my brain. Every nook, every cranny, every enemy placement, every ambush — I remember it all. Those early hours with the game were so punishing, and every piece of progress so hard won, that I could draw you a map from memory. It all comes back to me in the same way that, once you’re back in the seat, with your hands on the bars, and your feet on the pedals, you somehow remember what to do to stay upright.
But, other aspects are tripping me up like sloppily placed cobblestones. I couldn’t remember how I first got a weapon and so kept attempting to fight the big wolf that patrols the sick ward where your journey begins armed with nothing but the bandages on my forearm. Eventually, I went back to the Hunter’s Dream and realized that the weapon was just sitting there on the steps.
Similarly, I headed out into Yharnam waiting to get my hands on a gun and kept expecting it to show up somewhere. Again, I eventually went back to the Hunter’s Dream and, again, realized that it was just sitting on the stairs. When no opportunity to spend my Blood Echoes and level up presented itself, I headed to Google and realized that you have to make it to the Cleric Beast before you get that ability. I had vaguely remembered that the doll in the Hunter’s Dream channeled your Blood Echoes, but had no memory that the big church beasty had anything to do with turning her into a real girl.
The physical world of Bloodborne imprinted on me in those earliest hours I spent with it. I can’t forget its streets, alleys, ladders, courtyards, and staircases. But the rules that govern that world? They don’t seem to have made any real dent in my gray matter. Learning it all again feels like relearning how to conjugate verbs in a foreign language I learned in high school. I know that I knew some of this once, but plenty of it seems to have slipped by me without making an impression.
Unfortunately, there is no Duolingo for FromSoft games.
This is the strange alchemy of FromSoftware’s games. They present obvious, visceral thrills. You can fight huge monsters. You can explore massive, but labyrinthine worlds. You can get big weapons, stick them into an enemies spinal column, and release a geyser of blood. This is the stuff video games were made for. But, these games also frontload the stuff that tends to be beneath the surface, with Byzantine rules and strange rituals to perform to do something as simple as upgrading a weapon. They’re easy to remember but equally hard to grasp.
