FromSoftware signed in March 2015 the first call to loving and eager users for complex single-player experiences.
To qualify Bloodborne as essential is to speak in the voice of an entire generation. There was no room for discrepancy: it was a must among enthusiasts for single player experiences. Five years have passed since that time, the moment FromSoftware revealed two things: first, that they are one of the best-fit Japanese studios in the industry; second, that the soulslike genre was able to define itself in excellence far from Dark Souls.
Where we are and where we come from
Sony now faces a desirable picture. With more than 108 million faithful, PS4 is the most successful console of the cycle that already ends; But the first two years of the machine's life were unattractive when it came to exclusive software.
Intellectual properties that returned without showing their best face, new IPs tainted by controversial decisions and the eternal promise to see Kratos, Nathan Drake and company soon wearing their best clothes. That came, boy did it come, but it was Bloodborne who reaped the fruits of that long wait first.
This is not where we will talk about the wide – more than it seems – differences between Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Contrary to other productions intervened by Sony with non-exclusive studios, Bloodborne has not moved from the PlayStation label. No trace on PC. Sony has declined any chance of ending that exclusivity deal, and for now at least, PS4 will remain the only way to access this modern classic.
Immaculate production. So far, the notable InFamous: Second Son has become the console's biggest visual claim. Sucker Punch made its first foray into the current generation in early 2014 with a game that still looks great. However, he stayed away from the excellence that the community sought. It happened with Killzone: Shadow Fall (Guerrilla Games, which would later take the hit with Horizon: Zero Dawn) and it happened with LittleBligPlanet 3 (MediaMolecule), which reached the best version of itself while revealing some wear and tear in its formula.
Hidetaka Miyazaki, father of the work
Time proved him right
DriveClub was in the early years of PS4 that alternative required in the driving simcade. Complex path, silent farewell. While PolyphonyDigital worked on the next installment of Gran Turismo (what would end up being Gran Turismo Sport), the ill-fated Evolution Studios was dying in a run-down development, where times did not match reality. That video game was reinvented and — continues to be — an experience to consider within the arcade; both for how it looks and how it is played. You will always be weighed down by 30 FPS, but the DriveClub case, aimed at selling subscriptions to the emerging PS Plus for its "free" version, showed that mistakes are paid dearly. Unfortunately for Kazunori Yamauchi's team, Gran Turismo would trip over the same stone.
Bloodborne no. In a moment marked by multiplayer experiences with greater assiduity and demand —a task that Microsoft knew how to interpret with a large catalog of such games—, Sony leaned on FromSoftware to balance the scales. A studio capable of fast work, capable of completing development cycles in less than twenty months without sacrificing quality on the road, allowed the Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, Guerrilla Games and other Sony interns to work without worrying that they were the ones than occupy that place on the calendar.
Bloodborne has sold, as far as we know from official sources, more than two million copies.
2015 was a riot; You could no longer fail. On the other side, names like Halo 5: Guardians and more Forza Motorsport were threatening, so Sony trusted the first semester in that name that was being requested in this article: The Order: 1886. Debates that do not end and that will continue to exist on its quality: from reviled and criticized to defended and described as misunderstood.
Ready at Down knew what he wanted and, in part, no one was fooled: a cinematic experience with the controller in hand. Something went wrong. Surely, many things; especially in the strictly playable or its equally polarizing black bands. But how it looked (and still looks). Bloodborne, with much less noise and media support for the type of game it is, ended up knowing himself as the best company for that long semester between this and The Phantom Pain, the fifth installment of Metal Gear Solid, whose story also gives for several thousand words.
The color of good wine
There are video games that seem to be blessed by the power of the Philosopher's Stone. Bloodborne, five years later, remains young, fresh, distinct, and just as challenging. Idiosyncrasy and independence in their vision of gender; with action, role and strategy in real time with in constant pulse with the player.
Who knows what will come next, if those evasions in interviews each time "Bloodborne 2" is pronounced or not materializes in a new installment. Be that as it may, all roads lead to PlayStation 5, the land where all Sony studios will gradually publish their works from Christmas 2020. Meanwhile, Bloodborne continues to blow candles, the first PS4 shield.
