A Hunter Must Hunt: Why I Can't Quit ‘Bloodborne'
Last year, I wrote about giving up on Bloodborne. I spoke at length about how great the game is, but regretfully accepted that it wasn’t for me. At least, that’s what I thought…
But “a hunter must hunt”, as the saying goes, and I couldn’t get Bloodborne out of my mind. The gothic city of Yharnam was anchored in my subconsciousness. The Doll’s dialogue would ring through the quiet of my grey matter, and I knew I had no option but to reinstall FromSoftware’s Lovecraftian title and seek out the Eldritch Truth.
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If you’re not familiar with Bloodborne, it’s a PlayStation-exclusive, action role-playing game from 2015. Your character has come to Yharnam seeking Paleblood - a supposed miracle cure - and the game begins with the protagonist receiving a blood transfusion.
Things quickly go sideways, and you find yourself alone on the desolate city streets as hunters and beasts roam with malicious intent. Almost every creature you meet is eager to kill you, including the locals, casting serious doubt on the level of sanity the allegedly human hunters possess.
Being a FromSoftware game, the story isn’t told directly. Instead, it’s up to you to piece the narrative together from item descriptions and sparingly-used character dialogue. What is clear to see, though, is how bleak the situation in Yharnam is, with death - and even worse things than that - lying in wait.
Loading the game up for the first time in a while, I found my character waiting in the Hunter’s Dream. This ethereal location serves as your base, seemingly existing on a different plane from the rest of Bloodborne’s world. Here you’ll find Gehrman, the First Hunter, the one who appears to have recruited you to continue his mission of hunting beasts. This supernatural hub is also where you’ll find the Doll, a sort of living mannequin who serves as your leveling-up NPC.
As the words “Welcome home, good hunter. What is it you desire?” left the Doll’s lips, I knew I would never be free of this game until I beat it. I could tell how the concealed secrets within Yharnam would always pull at my mind because I need to know what’s happening here. Why are the hunters attacking me when I share their mission? How did these abominable monsters come to be here? Why are the pigs so huge?!
Hours felt like minutes as I hacked, slashed, shot, and full-on sprinted through the world of Bloodborne. Vicious werewolves, demented hunters, and a variety of imposing bosses plagued the path ahead, with each step being more deadly than the last. Then things really took a turn when - out of nowhere - Cthulu-esque figures started grabbing at me.
With each step forward, the journey grew more confusing. Each new area brought more dangerous enemies, and every triumph yielded more adversity. My desire to know more kept me gripped firmly in the terrifying world of Bloodborne, and I was fine with it.
Eventually, I beat the game, unlocking the Childhood’s Beginning ending (considered the canonical ending by some). I was aware I hadn’t done everything in Bloodborne, but I couldn’t fight the urge to beat the game any longer. Sadly, this ending left me feeling unfulfilled.
Once the credits rolled, I was greeted by the opening cutscene. I was shown the same intro video from the beginning of my playthrough, and I was once again let loose on the apocalyptic streets of Yharnam.
This lack of resolution was hard to take. I don’t know what I expected, but I wanted something more definitive than what I got. I know, more fool me. I hold my hands up and accept that this sense of disappointment was my fault.
I decided that I was never going to get what I needed from Bloodborne, so I should stop playing. FromSoftware doesn’t do straightforward narratives, and that’s absolutely fine because it’s about the journey, but the road appears to be endless when it comes to this game. For the sake of my own time, I told myself it was necessary to leave Bloodborne be, and move onto a new game.
That was over a month ago, and I haven’t touched Bloodborne since. And yet, it calls to me. The desire to once again pick up the controller and butcher my way through the game is still there in the back of mind, singing its siren song. As Father Gascoigne, one of the game’s bosses would say, it’s enough to make a man sick.
This arguably says more about me than it does Bloodborne, but I’ve never felt this way about a single-player game before. I’ve never wanted to play something that makes me feel so empty. It honestly feels like an addiction, as strong as that sounds, and I’m baffled by what I should do here.
All I know is I want this feeling to stop, but I also want to keep playing the game, maybe forever. I want to leave the Hunter’s Dream and get on with my life, but I keep coming back to it in my mind. This delirium gives a whole new meaning to the Doll’s repeated line: “Farewell, good hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world.”
Topics: Bloodborne, Opinion, PlayStation