Bloodborne's Story ► Explained!

During my first playthrough, all I was told was "A hoonter must hoont." And so hoont I did, I just hoonted everyone and everything in the game without a single clue on what's actually going on.

bloodborne endings:
live a normal life
eldritch slave
worm

I just love how it starts as a Van Helsing like setting, killing werewolves and other traditional beasts, then it takes a hard turn into Eldritch horror. I love this stuff man. I just wish I was better at the game. I would love a sequel.

Lawrence: Hey Willem can I get some Old blood
Willem: Only a spoonful
Lawrence: pulls out comically oversized spoon

Bloodborne's story in a nutshell:

Willem: Yo humanity needs to evolve, but don't use the blood to do so!
Lawrence: k proceeds to use blood to do so

everyone who uses the blood goes insane and mutates

Willem: Psh, idiots. Insight is the way to evolve!

everyone who uses insight goes insane and mutates

You know the game‘s hella eccentric when the good ending is you turning into a space squid

Vaati: Makes a 30 minute lore video based on his own research

Me: *heals with blood vial*
Ah, yes... Blood healing

Hearing Gherman cry out to his friends to be freed from his dream like that hit me hard, its very frightening to think about being inprisoned and trapped somewhere with no hope of getting out. Great game though.

I feel like this "higher state of consciousness" that everyone is lusting for, is just like a private chatroom where the old ones just sorta talk

In other words:

Great Ones = Aliens
Old Blood = Alien blood
Arcane = Alien power
Beast = Alien blood effect on humans

How Bloodborne happened: Aliens

I just realized that Laurence rejects Willem's warning and doubles down on his research. But the MC (if you take reach the childhood beginning ending), saves Gehrman by freeing him from his dream and his puppet master.
That's poetic. This mess started because a teacher was forsaken. This mess ends because a teacher was saved.

After five years of playing this game over and over, delving into the lore and studying it like a bible, and even claiming it as my favourite game, I finally realise...

The game is called Bloodborne because that's how the disease is spread: "It's gone airborne/waterborne/BLOODborne."

I'm an idiot.

Lawrence: Can I evolve humanity?
Willem: Using Insight?
Lawrence: Yeeees
actually uses old blood like a boss
insanity time

Bloodborne’s lore in 2 words


“Goddammit Laurence!”

Reject humanity. Return to SQWID.

I think the path to become an Old One is actually a mix of insight and blood. Insight to see the things hidden from our eyes and the blood to give us the strength to ascend. But if you delve too deep into one or the other then you become a monstrosity or a drooling "madman". I love the theory that the Moon Presence is a predator of Old Ones, casting its hunters out into the dream like a net looking for prey and as you yourself grow stronger, so does the Moon Presence. But with you consuming the 3 umbilical cords, you become something more. It gives you a chance to take the Moon Presence's place as an Old One yourself. Fulfilling a destiny meant only for a few.

Hunter, look out behind you, there’s an Amygdala. Oh my Great Ones, he has AirPods, oh my Great Ones

Moon Presence: Hey u, become my slave
Hunter: (consumes 3 umbilical cords) No u

FIGHT BEGINS

My favorite game of all time. Really nothing else comes close for me. I’ll never forget my first play through. That feeling of slowly realizing what I’m playing is an incredibly surreal, deeply mysterious, lovecraftian masterpiece. I feel lucky I went in blind. It still makes my imagination run wild. It’s really hard not to gush to this day.

The fact that I am still finding out both minor and major things about this one stand-alone game from 2015 is a testament to its quality.