Since Bloodborne is currently one of the most highly rated and best selling PS4 games, a sequel is pretty much an inevitability and we already have confirmation that developer From Software is working on another PS4 exclusive. Bloodborne was a fantastic game with very few flaws to begin with and a sequel would be a great opportunity to iron out the rough edges to make something utterly spectacular. So here are a few things I would love to see in a Bloodborne 2 as well as a few things I hope that From Software will remember to keep just in case Hidetaka Miyazaki isn't available to direct.
1. Make Beast Transformations A Central Mechanic
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| The Beast and Kin Transformations do little more than add expanded move sets for certain weapons. |
I think one of the most disappointing aspects of Bloodborne was the lack of any kind of beast transformation at launch. Early information on the game indicated that players could possibly turn into beasts and be hunted by other players, but in the final game the only remnant of this was the Beasthood stat that boosted attack power at the cost of defense when a special item or weapon was used. The Old Hunters Expansion finally did add the ability to transform into a beast and even an alien kin, but it was totally up to the player wither or not they wanted to become one and didn't offer any major changes to the gameplay. I think it would be far more interesting if in the next game From Software tied beast transformations to a mechanic similar to the Humanity system they use in their Dark Souls series. When you died in human form in Dark Souls you would become undead. When you were undead you couldn't summon other players for help and in Dark Souls 2 consecutive deaths in undead from would reduce your health. I think it would cool if Bloodborne 2 could play around with an idea like that. Maybe there could be stages of transformation that cause enemies and NPCs to behave differently towards you or even a system of multiplayer covenants that react differently to different states of transformation allowing for a great deal of interesting interactions with both the world and other players. I'm just throwing ideas out there and I'm sure the developers at From Software could come up with even better ideas then I can.
2. Offer More Diverse Player Expression At The Start Of The Game And Beyond
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| The lack of variety early in the game is one of Bloodborne's few flaws. |
One of the major issues with Bloodborne early in the game is the lack of weapon and attire diversity that is probably one of the best things about other games in the Souls series. Each time you begin a new game in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls every starting class has it's own unique weapons, abilities, and attire that helps set you apart from other players early on. However, in Bloodborne every player starts with the same attire and at the start of a new game there are only three weapons and two sidearms available for players to chose. Picking a starting class or origin as Bloodborne refers to them as feels kind of pointless. There are also overall fewer attire sets and distinct looking weapons which is an undeniable downgrade from From Software's Souls series. I think an easy way to fix the lack of diversity in the early game is pretty simple. Having more starting weapons and sidearms along with some starting attire would go a long way to giving players a sense of having a unique way of playing the game early on. Fixing the lack of diversity later in the game is a bit trickier. While The Old Hunters added a fair amount of new attire sets for players to wear you would still often come across players wearing the same thing you are. I think a cool way that From Software could approach this problem is add a simple crafting system that allows players to make their own attire sets. Maybe they could even add a system that allows you to put passive buffs. Now let's move on to weapons.
3. Add More Ways You Can Customize Weapons
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| Weapon Customazation is more dynamic then the Souls games, but could still benefit from some more tweaks. |
While Bloodborne overall has fewer weapons then the Souls games it makes up for it with how distinct each weapon is. Dark Souls for example has lots of weapons, but aside from small differences and stat requirements they are kinda indistinct from each other. The trick weapons of Bloodborne on the other hand a distinct from each other and each have there own move sets to master. However, that doesn't mean that Bloodborne doesn't have anything to learn from Dark Souls. I can think of a few things that could improve trick weapons and sidearms. In Dark Souls bosses drop unique souls that could be used to forge unique weapons. Imagine instead of finding the Amygdalan Arm you had to forge it by fusing the Blood of Amygdala with another weapon to create it. Another thing I think would be interesting would be the ability to upgrade weapons down different paths. For example, imagine your upgrading Threaded Cane and you have a choice between modifying the length of the blade to increase the range of the whip or serrate the main blade to deal more damage against beast type enemies. These upgrades could even change the appearance which could help with the diversity problem we talked about earlier. Finally I like a greater diversity of Blood Gems that could have been used to augment firearms. Like granting the Hunter Pistol the ability to deal fire damage with bullets.
4. Expand The Magic System
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| Bloodborne's magic is visually spectacular and integrated into the world in an interesting way, but desperately needs the same level of complexity the magic of the Souls series has. |
Another disappointing aspect of Bloodborne when compared to the Souls games would be the magic system. Dark Souls series had three major classes of magic the tired heavily into the lore of the world those game. Bloodborne on the other hand replaces magic with guns and tools for the most part. There is magic in the game, but only 9 spells were in the base game and 3 more were added in The Old Hunters expansion. Out of the 12 spells almost half of them were differnet flavors of standard projectile spells to use in place of guns and the other half are either buffs that don't last anywhere near enough to be effective or esoteric effects that are very situational. I'm fine with magic being handled differently then the Souls game and I think with a little tinkering From Software can make a very good magic system for Bloodborne. But I want more distinct spells as well as more useful spells. I'm also not to hot about how both guns and spells consume the same resource of quicksilver bullets. I would have like it better if they had their own separate resources or were tied together in a better way lore wise. Maybe hunters generate quicksilver in their bloodstream that can also be used to channel arcane abilities as well as create bullets for firearms. I also don't like how there is no way to increase the number of bullets you can carry other then Caryll Runes that are fairly difficult to obtain. I would have been better if the amount of quicksilver bullets was governed by your Arcane and Bloodtinge Stats similar to how your number to spell slots in Dark Souls is governed by your Attunement Stat.
5. Expand The Effects Insight Has On The World
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| The first time I saw the giant spider hanging on the building I was freaked out and really wanted something that awesome to happen again. |
One of the coolest mechanics of Bloodborne was insight. Insight was the level of eldrich knowledge the player had and was used to purchase powerful items at a special shop in the Hunter's Dream as well as summon other players into your world for help. You gained insight from encountering and defeating bosses, consuming special items, and just encountering weird things when exploring the world. The most interesting thing that insight did however was changing to world around you. The more insight you had the more weird stuff would start to happen. For example if you had 40 insight before defeating Rom, The Vacuous Spider you could see the Lessor Amygdala hanging on top of Oedon Chapel in the Cathedral Ward. However, the strange effects that insight have are sadly limited and many of the special things it does happen anyway after you beat Rom. I would simply love to see a greater number of changes to the world with high amounts of insight in a sequel. It would also be cool if they tied the amount of insight you have to the bell ringing woman. Invasions are a rare thing in Bloodborne unless you open yourself up deliberately to it. Perhaps the more insight you have the greater chance for the bell ringing woman to appear. Another good improvement a sequel could make is encouraging players to have high insight. I for one always strive to have low insight because it lowers your frenzy resistance which is one of the most deadly status effects in the game. Maybe Bloodborne 2 could encourage players to have high insight by increasing the number of runes you can equip or something simple like that.
6. Make The Chalice Dungeons More Interesting
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| The Chalice Dungeons are the most flawed aspect of Bloodborne. |
Perhaps one of the most ambitious features of Bloodborne was the randomly generated Chalice Dungeons. The idea behind the Chalice Dungeons was to expand the life of the game long after completing the main game and share your unique dungeons with other players. While it was a noble goal the final execution leaves a lot to be desired. While their is a lot of good things to be found in the Chalice Dungeons like powerful runes, unique enemies to fight, and some of the best bosses in the game that doesn't fix the issue of how boring and repetitive the dungeons are. The flow of every Chalice Dungeon is basically explore the dungeon, find a lever that unlocks the boss door, fight the boss, and go to the next floor. There are treasure rooms you can find, but that still doesn't stop the environments themselves from becoming visually indistinct. There are four different locations that you can explore, but aside from having different enemies they are just reskins of each other. The amount of grinding needed to unlock all the dungeons is pretty ridicules as well. Some would rather that the Chalice Dungeons be removed entirely in favor of more levels in the main game, but I think they chalice dungeons could be improved. Maybe instead of blending all the areas together with the same rooms that can appear, each area has different rooms and hazards that are unique to them. I'm not exactly sure how you could improve the ritual system to be far less tedious, but I'm sure that From Software could think of something.
7. Keep The World Consistent and Interconnected
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| Being able to see the Nightmare of Mensis from the Nightmare Frontier was one of many ways that Bloodborne connects its level in an interesting and immersive way. |
Now that I have covered what I would like to see improved from Bloodborne in sequel I want to cover want I want to be kept in from Bloodborne. The best things about the games directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki was the emphasis on making all the levels feel connected with each other making the settings of his games feel like real places. This is very evident in Bloodborne with the player being able to see other level from other areas of the game. This should be an obvious inclusion for a Bloodborne 2, but it should be noted that in Dark Souls 2 which was not directed by Miyazaki had issues with making the world connect in a way that makes sense. An example of Dark Souls 2's flawed level interconnectivity would be the elevator that in a windmill that sits in the middle of a desert somehow leading up to the middle of a freaking volcano fortress. I would hate to see flubs like that in Bloodborne 2. Dark Souls 2 also had very linear levels as apposed to complex levels that rapped around themselves and opened up shortcuts that were featured in Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
8. Make Things Interesting, Not Difficult
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| Bloodborne commonly has you face seemingly impossible odds, but the right tools, a some skill, and a bit of luck is all you need to push past everything the game can throw at you |
Another major issue that Dark Souls 2 had compared to Dark Souls and Bloodborne was the emphasis on extreme difficulty. Dark Souls and Bloodborne are both very hard games, but they are also very fair in a lot of ways. If you have a fair amount of knowledge on how the environment is laid out, how enemies behave, and a grip on how to best use the weapons and tools at your disposal you can get through Dark Souls and Bloodborne fairly easily. Dark Souls 2 on the other hand is hellbent on making everything as hard as possible. Mostly by throwing as many enemies at you at once as possible. The boss fights of Dark Souls 2 also have the "if we can't make a fight hard let's throw as many enemies into the fight as possible" mentality. It would be a crying shame if Bloodborne 2 suffered the same boss multiplication issue as Dark Souls 2. I hope that Form Software focuses on making diverse enemy types and unique hazards over throwing as many enemies on screen as possible.
9. Make Bloodborne 2 A Spiritual Sequel and Not A Direct Sequel
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| Bloodborne is defined by a Lovecraftian sense of mystery and it would be a crying shame to see that undermined by a sequel that explains everything. |
Perhaps one of the worst things about Dark Souls 2 compared to the original Dark Souls was the massive downgrade in terms of storytelling. The main reason for this downgrade was the fact that Dark Souls 2 relied heavily on the lore and world of the first Dark Souls over making their own world. This is the main reason why I think that a direct sequel to Bloodborne would be a bad idea. I would much rather have a new world to explore with similar aesthetics and themes as the original Bloodborne. I highly doubt Sony would want to make a spiritual sequel to Bloodborne because that would mean abandoning the name recognition that Bloodborne has garnered, but I would like if they at least reboot the universe or something like that.
10. Try To Get The Game To Run At 60FPS
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| Bloodborne is a fantastic game and if it gets a sequel it deserves to be a fantastic as possible. |
Finally, I just want to say that it should be a priority to get the sequel to Bloodborne run at 60 Frames Per Second. I understand that this is a big technical hurdle for From Software and would likely require some downgrades in other areas like resolution. But the fact that a fast paced game like Bloodborne is locked at 30FPS is simply unacceptable and I'm not the only one that thinks that. 30FPS isn't as much as a problem with the Souls game's because their combat is overall slower paced, but with Bloodborne and the fast reaction times it requires from its players 60FPS is a must and I feel that most fans would be willing to deal with a slight graphical downgrade if it meant having a better game overall.
Those are all the things I want to see in a Bloodborne sequel. I'm sure that I, some random crazy guy on the internet, will make enough of an impression on From Software and Sony to take some of my points into consideration. Now it's time to get to writing my web series I'm starting next year. Until next time.
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