Three Things I Want In Bloodborne: The Old Hunters

Who is this person!? I must know!?

Bloodborne is one of the best games I played in years. It was a beautifully designed gothic horror game that pitted you against unspeakable horrors and nearly impossible odds. Every time you overcame one of its incredibly hard bosses I felt a level of satisfaction that I can barely even describe. It also had fantastic level design that made the world feel interconnected and alive, fun weapons that were a joy to master, and a strange, H.P. Lovecraft inspired world for you to explore. However, it wasn't a perfect game and I could think of more than a few ways to improve Bloodborne for the better. The multiplayer felt a little underdeveloped with only three covenants you can join to battle other players, three were too few weapons which lead to a lack of variety with character builds, there is no way to transform into a beast despite there being a status effect designed to do just that, and a lot of the most interesting items, weapons, and bosses were found in the optional chalice dungeons that require a lot of grinding and repetition to fully explore. The Old Hunter expansion is seeking to fix a few of these issues and I want to detail the top three improvements I hope we'll see when the expansion launches at the end of November.

It is said that The Old Hunters expansion is focused on the hunters of old trapped in an endless nightmare world.

1. More Multiplayer Covenants and Improvements Made to Current Ones.

In the base game there are three covenants the player can join after doing certain quest lines needed to unlock the oath runes related to them. There was Hunter Rune that granted you improved stamina recovery and made you a member of the Hunter of Hunter covenant that randomly makes you hostile to players you summon to your world creating a feeling of uncertainty when contacting other players for help. Then there was the Corruption Rune which granted you health regeneration at low health and made you a part of the Vilebloods covenant that encouraged you to invade other players to get Blood Dregs from killing them to improve your ranking within the Vilebloods. Then their was the Radiance Rune which improve the healing power of your Blood Vials and made you a member of the Executioners covenant which are hostile to Vileblood members even if they summon them for help.

While the base game covenants did allow for very interesting player on player interactions I could help, but feel they were half baked. There is a story reason for Hunter of Hunters to well hunt other hunters, but when you are a member it is randomized wither or not you will need to kill another player. I think it would be far more interesting if the Hunter of Hunters were hostile toward other players that either have done something bad to NPCs in the world or have too many blood echos on them. Making it randomized just seems too easy and simple.

The Vilebloods and Executioners are the most developed covenants in the base game, but they also could be made more interesting. Though the Vilebloods can collect Blood Dregs to give to the covenant leader to increase their standing in the covenant there is literally no reason for doing so other than to compete with other players. Just having some small reward for ranking up in the covenant would be a major improvement. Executioners could also have something similar to Blood Dregs when they kill Vilebloods that they could also trade in for small rewards.

The base game covenant also only relate to half of the factions you encounter in the game. I would love to see covenants for The Choir and the School of Mensis. I would imagine that they would be hostile for each other just like the Vilebloods and Executioners are to each other. As for what their runes would do I would suspect that The Choir's rune would increase the rate you gain insight similar to the Moon rune while the School of Mensis's rune would decrease the amount of quicksilver bullets needed to use firearms and hunter tools. I don't know what The Old Hunters has in store for us in terms of covenants and runes so these are just my hopes for what will be there.

A hunter wielding one of the new weapons of The Old Hunters expansion. Simon's Bowblade.

2. More Weapons, Sidearms, Attire, and Hunter Tools.

Now I know for a fact that The Old Hunters is adding a large amount of new toys for use to play with. The reveal trailer showed us several of the new weapons that we will be able to use in the expansion. New weapons include a buzzsaw hammer, a cleaver that can turn into a giant chain whip, a flintlock hammer, a bowblade, a scythe cleaver, and a pike that can be turned into a scythe. The developers have promised over a dozen new weapons will be in The Old Hunters which has me feeling very excited. The base game had a good variety of weapons and the addition of many new ones will most definitely improve replayability and encourage the creation of new and interesting character builds.

Coverage from Tokyo Game Show 2015 has also revealed several new sidearms including an iron knuckle, a magic cancelling shield, and a harpoon-like firearm. We also know of two new hunter tools. A time bomb that can be thrown on the ground as a trap for enemies and a magic spell that shoots a miniature meteor at an enemy. One of the few things I didn't like about the base game was the lack of magic spells. There was only nine of them in the game and amount of quicksilver bullets they consumed made it so I couldn't use them as much as I would have liked. I hope that they not only put in a bunch of new spells, but rebalance existing ones to consume less quicksilver bullets so we can rely on magic much more.

Another new item revealed in gameplay trailers at Tokyo Game Show 2015 was something called the Elder Summoning Bell. This new item allows you to summon new NPC hunters to help you when you are playing offline. This is a great addition as one of my few criticisms of the base game Bloodborne the the staggeringly low number of NPC summons with only two in the game. It is nice to see that they are adding more options for players that perfer to play offline and, this is the masochistic part of me talking, I also hope they have more NPC invaders for you to deal with.

I also like to say that the new attire sets we've seen in the trailers and gameplay videos look awesome. I'm a huge sucker for weird steampunk and gothic fantasy fashion and I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent hours just mixing and matching all the attire I had found in the game trying to figure out my absolute favorite combination. I would love to see a new system that would allow you to make your own attire, but that is something that is probably too big for a simple expansion. But hey I can dream can't I.

A hunter using one of The Old Hunters new spells against a Church Giant enemy.

3. Beast Transformations!

If the name of my blog wasn't a big enough tip off I'm a huge fan of werewolves. I've always been interested in the idea of a monster dwelling within us all just waiting to be unleashed upon the would. Honestly, I was very surprised to discover that the base Bloodborne game didn't have any kind of beast transformation ability. This was despite the fact that we witness several NPC hunters turn into beasts, has a fully implemented status effect that was called Transformation, and even have a stat called Beasthood that is never used. Thankfully this is something that The Old Hunters is seeking to fix.

The reveal trailer showed a brief clip of a hunter going completely beastly, jumping on an enemy, and seemingly devouring the enemies heart. A recent press release from Sony has revealed that players can in fact turn into beast in The Old Hunters expansion. I'm personally very interested in how deep this new feature will be. Will there be consequences for using beast form? Will you be stuck a beast or will it wear off? Will it be tied to an item like Humanity in Dark Souls? This is the feature I'm most excited for and the one I am most curious about.

Ludwig, The First Hunter of The Healing Church, is one of the new bosses of The Old Hunters expansion. And like many hunters of the church has long since transformed into a terrible beast.

There are lots of other things that I'm looking forward to in The Old Hunters expansion. I can't wait for new areas to explore, new characters to meet, new bosses to fight, and new story to uncover. I hope that there will be new blood gems and runes that you can use to improve weapons and your character. I for one would love a blood gem that would give firearms elemental damage. I'm just love Bloodborne so much and can't wait for The Old Hunters expansion. I'm almost more excited for The Old Hunters than Fallout 4. Almost.