After a hands-off unveiling back at E3, Bloodborne, the PlayStation 4 exclusive successor to the Demon’s Souls/Darks Souls games from FromSoftware and director Hidetaka Miyazaki, has been more thoroughly revealed at Gamescom. As represented by a haunting new gameplay trailer (see bottom of the page), Bloodborne is shifting away from the “sword and board” defensive strategies of the Souls games to a combat system that is faster, more fluid and emphasizes aggressive offensive tactics.
The tactical change can be seen both in the weapon selection — so far it appears that shields have been altogether replaced by offhand firearms which stun enemies and seem to act as a form of mob control — and in mechanics like mid-combo weapon transformation and the new Regain System. In the Souls games it’s generally wise to put up a strong defensive front or back away to use a health restoration item after taking damage, but in Bloodborne the Regain System will encourage players to immediately fight back by opening a brief window to land a counterattack and “steal back” the health lost on the previous hit. Obviously, proper judgment will still be required to determine when it’s smart to go for the counter, and when it’s best to take the damage loss rather than gambling at the wrong time and taking more damage or ending up dead, which should add a heightened level of intensity and a new dimension of risk versus reward to the combat.
It all sounds like a nice change of pace on the familiar Souls formula without turning the game into a brain dead hack-and-slash romp or wrecking the core elements that have made those games so satisfying. I can’t wait to see more!
Source: Bloodborne on PS4: New Combat Details [PlayStation.Blog]
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