Last week at Sony’s E3 Press conference they revealed the new From Software PlayStation 4 exclusive title, Bloodborne. The most mystifying thing about the reveal was that a pre-rendered trailer was shown, but not the in-game footage that was leaked a month ago.
The in-game footage was apparently taken from when Bloodborne was untitled and went by the name of Project Beast. Despite this, it’s still rather baffling that it wasn’t shown when it was available to play by E3 V.I.Ps, and it wouldn’t have hurt reception towards the game.
Had they shown the in-game footage at the conference, fan reactions would have been more positive, judging by reactions online. Even if early footage was shown, and once it was closer to release date they show off some progression footage, it would show the game’s development growth, and would improve fan reaction.
At the same time however, I can see why they chose not to use the leaked footage. Sony and From could have seen a lot of “this is just Demon’s/Dark Souls” reactions from the public. The trailer that they showed off was safe and did result in positive opinions towards the game. They also could have not shown it because it didn’t meet the expectations of visuals that Sony best wanted to represent for the PlayStation 4.
Personally, I’m incredibly excited about Bloodborne. The Demon’s/Dark Souls series really took me by surprise while playing them. The way that they tell stories through their environments, and through the enemies you encounter. I also really enjoyed how even the smallest and seemingly pointless conversation with a NPC could contain huge hints towards finding a secret, or finding the weakness to a boss. Video games have implanted the idea to me that NPC’s will have next to nothing to say at least 90% of the time, and it’s incredibly refreshing to see that the Souls series is doing the complete opposite with it.
Although Bloodborne does look a lot like Demon’s/Dark Souls, it seems like From Software are doing more to shake things up. Just the fact alone that there aren’t any shields or magic to use is huge. Players (such as myself) who are newer to the series, or who aren’t as confident in their dodging and rolling abilities use the shield almost religiously. The fact that it’s gone means that the game will challenge you to either get better and to try a different combat method, or to die, die, and die again.
The other huge change up to the “formula” is that enemies will change where they appear with every respawn, and will even roam around the map randomly. One of the problems that most Souls fans find is that once they memorize where enemies appear, a large part of the tension of losing your souls diminishes. Bloodborne will also apparently have bosses that randomly appear as well. Dark Souls 2 experimented with this concept with the first Pursuer fight appearing extremely early in the game as the player explored the first area.
Both the in-game footage and the pre-order trailer for Bloodborne can be found below. What do you think? Was Sony and From Software’s decision to not show the in-game footage the right decision?
