Blood Borne: Soul Helsing, Anyone?

Long, black coats and unusual weapons? Looks like it's time to hunt some beasts, and what a beautiful night to do so. Gamescom releases small sections of gameplay with large amounts of information on From Software's latest title, Bloodborne.

Gamescom 2014 has come and gone, but not without leaving us parting gifts in the form of a plethora of upcoming titles and gameplay demos to tease us and make us thirst for more. Speaking of thirst for more, Sony Entertainment, the cheeky little minxes they are, have allowed for us to take a sneak peak at From Software's latest title. 

You guys remember who they are right? The developers that have a strange fixation for souls, demons and our rage as we attempt to beat boss fights that are comparable to banging your head against a brick wall. That wall will eventually break but only to reveal another one behind it, made of titanium and your shattered hopes and dreams.

Well now it looks as if From Software has hired a few vampires to help them with their latest title and as we all know, what do vampires love the most? Teenage schoolgir-I mean Blood! They weren't so subtle about their new partners either by naming the new IP Bloodborne.

Although it wasn't the newest instalment in the Soul's franchise, much to the disappointment of many masochists looking for their no armor, no weapons, no hands challenge run fix, Bloodborne displayed many elements that are core features throughout the Souls series. A pace that was constantly changing, unique weapons, versatile combat mechanics, enemies with interesting backstories and a dark, dystopian atmosphere.

So the big question now is; with so many similarities, what separates Bloodborne from its predecessors? This question can be answered by taking a look at previous Soul titles and noticing the subtle difference along with larger ones. 

Bloodborne's setting is one of a dark, gothic vibe that takes place in a city inspired by Victorian-era England. The cobblestone roads, flame lit street lamps and pitchfork wielding lynch mobs help to bring us back to a time in which monsters and beasts roamed the night streets, looking for victims to satisfy their hunger instead of roaming high schools to satisfy their libido. How those vampires in particular get past the whole "I'm a corpse" thing I'll never know, or wish to know.

This particular setting is one of the reasons as to why I'm so excited for Bloodborne, as there's a nostalgic feeling of the old Van Helsing movie, a film that I greatly enjoyed as child. Even though it scared the living daylight out of me. Don't give me that look, I was eleven and easily influenced.

Victorian-era England is an uncommon theme that is rarely ever used anymore by the larger developers, especially From Software as they are only known for their medieval themes or futuristic mech based games. It would be interesting to see how they would mould a time period so new to them, and one that most of us have forgotten about.     

You can still slice things to pieces...

...they just give you the option to fill it with holes now.

With a game set so much closer to modern times, also means an update to weapons and items, and what an update they are as the introduction of firearms make for some interesting usage. Rather than turning Bloodborne into a run and gun, the subtle use of guns within close quarter combat helps to bring some new life into the combat mechanics that we know and love.

Those of you that have played at least one of the original Souls games will know of the parry and riposte mechanic, and for those of you that haven't, it simply allows you to deflect a weapon attack. This gives you a few seconds to counterattack the enemy with a critical strike due to their staggered state. Well I am happy to report this returns in Bloodborne as guns are able to interrupt enemy attacks and stagger them the same way a shield or off hand weapon would, allowing for our hunter to follow up in the most gruesome ways possible.

Now with the introduction of guns, some of you may be wondering how exactly ammunition would work, or even if there is any. I can confirm that these firearms do not contain magically regenerative bullets and your character does not have the action hero ability to never run out of ammo. You'll be able to loot corpses, containers and even dead enemies for bullets. The gameplay demo showed us that Hunter Bullet seems to be one of the most common types available as the player is able to scavenge large quantities from multiple places.

Firearms are not only limited to being used as the new parry and riposte system and can also be used to deal damage to enemies at range. This means that "with the bullet ammo system you are limited to either using your gun to parry a lot or using it as a ranged weapon. Likely not a lot of both unless you spend a lot on ammo," says a redditor that had recently been able to get a first-hand experience of Bloodborne at Gamescom.   

There are many more elements that are there to discuss but my time, and your attention span, is limited. So rather than me boring you with further details, I will let these fine gentleman's do that for me with a breakdown analysis of the gameplay we were given. Both EpicNameBro, or Marcus as he prefers, and VaatiVidya perform excellent breakdowns as they are well known veteran Soul players and are easily able to separate the new from the old in a cohesive manner. Links to their videos provided below. 

                     

Edit log can be found here.