Bloodborne and The Failure of FromSoft Storytelling

Bloodborne and The Failure of FromSoft Storytelling

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As a long-time fan of FromSoft, Im quite familiar with their work and had been looking forward to Bloodborne, which released to widespread critical acclaim a little less than a month ago. I completed the game last night, and after rolling credits, I felt incrediblyunsatisfied with the story and ending� Probably more unsatisfied than with any other game in the Souls series.

(And yes, I realize that Bloodborne is technically a new IP, but for the sake of this post, Im going to lump it in with its predecessors.)

For those who havent played Bloodborne, its built on the core of the Souls series (Demon�s Souls, Dark Souls 1 & 2) but instead of slow, methodical dark fantasy, it offers significantly sped-up action with a Victorian edge and lots of Lovecraft. However, what hasnt changed is the cryptic, piecemeal storytelling that has become synonymous with Souls. This obfuscated narrative has many admirers -- I�ve enjoyed it myself to various degrees in the previous games -- but in Bloodborne, it�s at an all-time minimum and tougher to parse than ever.

At the beginning of the game, the player�s character (the hunter) wakes up in a clinic and receives a blood transfusion. From that point, they�re set loose in a dark city to hunt. Theres no backstory given and its not explained who the hunter is, what the player is supposed to hunt, or why. I had no problem exploring the environments and slaying the beasts that came across my path, but I never felt any motivation or logic for what I was doing.

When I bring up these concerns, the Soulsfaithful inevitably raise the same defense: this lack of specificity is a metagame of trying to figure out the plot with others. I can agree to a certain extent, but in this case I feel like the developers held too much back. Things start off in a haze and the lack of direction only gets worse as the game progresses. By the halfway point I had given up on hoping to figure out what the point of the adventure was, or why my hunter was doing anything. And the ending I got? An utter head-scratcher.

Dont get me wrong -- Im not asking FromSoft or Bloodborne director Hidetaka Miyazaki to abandon his mystery-laden methods and switch to typical Western-style storytelling, but in this case just a little more clarity and context would result in a more satisfying adventure overall. The gameplay is enjoyable, the level design is excellent, yet without something making it all stick together for me mentally, the experience fails to be what it should. It�s not the first time concerns of this sort have been raised, either. Both Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2received DLC and patches that greatly expanded on their storytelling, and I think most would agree that the games were better for it.

�So, about piecing that story together.

While there are a few brief cutscenes which generally don�t explain much of anything, the bulk of story and lore information comes from item descriptions. Whenever a player picks up a sword, a piece of armor, a consumable, or anything else, they can go into the menu and click a button to see some flavor text. By taking these snippets, players extrapolate meanings and do their best to make sense of it. However, Ive got a big problem with this.

First, Im not a believer that a player should have to go online and do research in order to enjoy a game. Of course, its quite possible to go through Bloodborne and get value from the kinetic, brutal gameplay, but theres clearly meant to be some kind of a story going on that frames it all. Without tracking down summaries on fan wikis, huge chunks of worldbuilding will be missed by most, and precious little is given during normal play.

image courtesy of @lcferrarezzi

As far as the item text itself goes, I have a real problem rationalizing its existence.  When my character picks up an item in the game, theres no hand-written note attached to it. When you pick up a sword, its just a sword. So, where do these item descriptions come from? They dont appear to exist in the game outside of the menus, and theres no NPC whos telling my character about this information� So where does this information come from?

The answer is that it comes from the developers and goes straight to the player. Not the player�s character, but the player. Looking at whats actually happening in the game, my character is never privy to this info. There�s no way they could know any of it. As such, I find this method to disrupt my immersion in the game�s world, and acts as an awkward, inelegant way of communicating something that shouldbe illustrated during the course of play.

For example, following the semi-hidden sidequests of Alfred or Eileen (both speaking NPCs) does a great job of giving the player a good sense of certain things, and encountering a speaking boss late in the game accomplishes the same. None of these instances go over the top with exposition, and they�re consistent with the world. Unfortunately, examples like this are very few and far between, and after completing the game, I felt like I�d only received an eighth of the tale that should have been there. 

The developers at FromSoft seem interested in making their work more accessible in some ways -- after all, anyone familiar with Souls can see that the design changes in Bloodborne are significant, and apparently quite successful in reaching a larger audience. However, the storytelling technique that was so notable in the past three games falls short this time around. 

There�s just not enough of it, and what�s there doesn�t say enough. 

While I did enjoy Bloodborne in large part, theres so much richness and potential left untapped. As my friend Jim Bevan said in one of his recent reviews, minimal storytelling does not mean incomplete storytelling. I agree. FromSoft needs to take a hard look at what theyre doing -- while they may have reinvigorated the gameplay, their narrative techniques are overdue for a touch-up.

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