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Bloodborne shows off the true power of the PlayStation 4
Project Beast is revealed as Bloodborne
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Patrick O'RourkePublished: June 12, 2014, 2:41 am
Updated: 3 hours ago
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During a closed-door presentation at E3, I had the opportunity to watch live in-game footage of Bloodborne, an upcoming PS4 exclusive developed by From Software and revealed during
Sony’s press conference on Monday.
The game would have been the biggest surprise of Sony’s E3 press conference if it didn’t leak early under its development code name, Project Beast, a few weeks ago. It was widely believed Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of hardcore gamer favourites, Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls, was working on new title for Sony’s PlayStation 4, but specifics about the game still hadn’t been revealed.
Surprisingly the demo, tucked away in a corner of Sony’s booth, featured a ridiculous level of security and neither photo, video or audio recording was permitted.
Bloodborne’s striking visuals include impressive lighting and blood effects as well as an atmosphere full of 19th century gothic darkness (there are even coffins and traps strewn everywhere). The game’s environment almost has a Silent Hill or old school Resident Evil feel to it and the bon fires scattered through the city’s streets feature some of the best fire effects ever seen in any video game.
Despite the impressive visuals, in its pre-alpha development state, Bloodborne suffers from significant slowdown issues. In fact, the lag the game’s current build suffers from could be why Sony has been so secretive about showing the project off at this year’s E3.
In Bloodborne, the city of Yharham has been overrun by some sort of disease that has turned many of its citizens into crazed beasts. The creatures look and act like gangly looking zombies.
Bloodborne’s fire effects are ridiculously impressive. Handout/Sony
The real-time demo had the ability to die disabled, which made it hard to tell how relentlessly difficult the final game will end up being, although Miyazaki repeatedly stated the player would have died already multiple times at certain points in the demo, particularly during an extremely challenging looking boss fight.
As expected, Bloodborne is very violent and blood splatters everywhere, especially on the game’s main protagonist. In fact, the entire game has a very wet look to it. Water constantly trickles between cobblestones and drips off the dark looking city’s roof tops.
One notable difference from the Dark Souls series is the fact that enemies in Bloodborne don’t wait around for you to attack them and instead relentlessly pursue the player. In general, the game seems to place a greater emphasis on attacking rather than defending. Miyazaki also mentioned isolating enemies is important to being successful in the game.
Bloodborne’s bosses are gigantic. Handout/Sony
In Bloodborne you’re armed with a meat clever saw-like weapon that can be extended for extra range and a shotgun for closeup combat. Against certain enemies the shotgun seems to be very effective.
As expected, Hidetaka Miyazaki avoided many of the questions asked during the Q and A period of the presentation, particularly related to whether or not Bloodborne will include an online multiplayer mode.
“It’s a vision and I’m hoping we can add a fresh sense to the online space,” said Miyazaki through a translator.
Bloodborne is set to be released at some point in 2015 and is exclusive to the PlayStation 4.