How Bloodborne solves Lovecraft's biggest narrative problem
The positive reception to the remake of Demons’ Souls has led to growing interest in a re-release of From’s other major Playstation exclusive, Bloodborne. Though there are scant details or clues that point to the release of a remaster or even a direct sequel, it seems an appropriate time to revisit one of Bloodborne’s biggest accomplishments, which is its radically interactive form of storytelling.
Bloodborne draws heavily from the stories and ever-expanding mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. As well as the bestiary of old gods and cosmic monsters, Lovecraft’s mythos is also littered with odd dreams, parallel dimensions, and madness, which often leads to a recurring problem in most of Lovecraft’s stories. In revealing the truth of the hidden cults, forbidden knowledge, and existence of the Great Old Ones, Lovecraft’s narrators either go insane upon learning the cosmic truth or profess that what they have uncovered must be kept secret from others. However, in both instances, the narrator has still managed to write out the whole sordid tale so that the reader may partake in the horror. It creates a fairly straightforward logical problem. It’s also a fair criticism to say that holding these stories up to such scrutiny sucks some of the fun out of them. Bloodborne manages to sidestep this problem entirely by forcing the player to gather and connect disparate and cryptic narrative pieces in order to fully understand the game’s story. It’s a brilliant blend of interactivity and environmental storytelling. Should a descent into madness ensue, it is something the gamer sought out themselves.
When Bloodborne was first released, many players were sucked into the dark aesthetic and challenging gameplay without fully comprehending what exactly was going on. What’s the deal with the doll? Why are there werewolves AND creatures with tentacles? Do the chalice dungeons have a connection to the main game story? As players dove deeper and deeper into the game and its lore, they discovered answers to these questions but it took some doing. There are a few cutscenes in Bloodborne, but they seem at first to be sorely lacking in context. The endings especially felt pulled from nowhere (at least that was my thought upon my first playthrough, and receiving the easiest ending of simply waking from the dream).
Most of the lore, and thus the context for the main story, is pieced together by reading the cryptic but fascinating item and weapon descriptions, which lay a base of information that make it possible to understand the vague bits of dialogue from NPCs. Bloodborne built around it an online community of forum posters and video content creators dedicated to unraveling all these small bits of information into something coherent, and what eventually emerged is a complex and vividly Lovecraftian tale of cosmic beings, two separate factions of worshippers (one religious and obsessed with blood, the other purporting to scientifically delve deeper into the realm of dreams), and an entire city’s descent into violent madness. It’s also possible to play through the entire game without understanding any of this.
Where Bloodborne manages to solve Lovecraft’s plot hole is by leaving the breadcrumbs of a deeper narrative and trusting the player to uncover it on their own but also allowing them to simply skip over it entirely. Rather than creating a paradox of writing down a story that shouldn’t be shared, or the coherence of a narrator who should by all rights be a gibbering loon, the player must take on a self-directed quest to piece the story together: they must uncover the forbidden knowledge for themselves. And because it’s so difficult to make sense of Bloodborne’s cryptic storytelling, it’s just as intensely rewarding to learn the story as it is to fight through the brutally difficult bosses.
Dark Souls and all the other Soulsborne games use this same mechanic as well but Bloodborne is the best example of how effective it can be and it also connects most directly to its source of inspiration. It also marks an important milestone in video game storytelling: Bloodborne could only be a game. Its most powerful and identifiable aspect is the drive to solve the mystery, to uncover more pieces. Simply watching an explanation of how Yharnam fell just isn’t the same.
The player-directed experience of a game’s narrative is not exclusive to Soulsborne games. MMO games are similarly experienced differently by every player. Open world games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout also work this way. There is a common core of narrative in the form of story quests and fixed locations and NPCs, but every player experiences the game differently. But by forcing the player to work so hard to wring meaning out of all different aspects of the game, the Soulsborne entries have managed to carve out their own method of storytelling. And its one that other developers have noticed and are starting to build on for their own games; think Hollow Knight or Blasphemous. Hopefully, there is much more to come.