The Critical Mistake Hidetaka Miyazaki Avoided in Bloodborne Would’ve Sunk the Game

Bloodborne remains one of the most popular FromSoftware games to this very day. Many fans of the developer have agreed a number of times that they consider Bloodborne to be the best soulslike game FromSoftware has ever developed. There are a lot of things that made that game special. One of them can be considered to have incredible combat mechanics. Another can be its mind-blowing, creepy setting.

Years have passed since its launch, but the conversations about this game have not ended. Fans can be seen discussing it online, and sometimes they wonder if they will ever see a sequel. And many others are still discussing its lore to this very day. Director Hidetaka Miyazaki himself cannot stop himself from talking about its world and the freedom it gave its players.

Hidetaka Miyazaki explains why they did not give players too much freedom in Bloodborne

When Bloodborne opens, players are literally shown a way to the first lantern. For those unaware, lanterns are the things that allow players to travel into the player base, which is called the hunter’s dream. It’s an area where customizing weapons and leveling up can be done.

FromSoftware then guides players through the whole of Yharnam. One by one, they meet those bosses, and one by one, they defeat them and gain insight into the process. Insight gives them eyes on the inside, allowing them to see what was hidden before.

Eventually, players would start noticing that they could take more than one path in Bloodborne. One would continue the story; others would take them to some hidden or side areas specifically meant for meeting new bosses and accessing some optional areas.

For example, players can simply skip the nightmare frontier level if they do not feel like exploring it. Players only go there and defeat Amygdala to get the Ailing Loran Chalice. Besides that, they are never even asked to enter the nightmare frontier.

In such a limited world with only a few extra places to explore, players might not know that it was all intentional. Once director Hidetaka Miyazaki was asked, if the game is set in a nightmare world, why can’t players get unlimited abilities, as people can control dreams sometimes? He simply said that they did not wish for players to have too much power.

It’d be no fun if you could just do whatever you wanted in dreams. So in this game, the setting of Yharnam is essentially based in reality. It’s so dark and dismal that it’s entirely possibly to interpret it as an actual nightmare in the end, but this isn’t some kind of dream world where anything you can picture will come to life.

There’s nothing wrong with it; after all,  Bloodborne is not an open-world sandbox-style game. It’s a gothic horror experience, and a player can only enjoy an experience best when they are guided through it. Too much power and too much freedom can spoil all the fun.

Besides, that restricted level design actually led to Bloodborne being one of the best horror experiences any video game has provided over the years. It would be a very long time before something similar ever comes across again.

Is FromSoftware considering a sequel, though?

One cannot help but wonder if FromSoftware is even planning a sequel to Bloodborne. After all, Bloodborne 2 has been all over the internet lately, so it would only be logical for them to start thinking about making a sequel.

This may or may not be true, but it is mostly untrue given the fact that Hidetaka Miyazaki has himself made it clear that FromSoftware does not have any authority over this IP. Maybe Sony will kickstart this project someday.