Spoilers incoming.
I’ve been loving Bloodborne — that’s hardly a state secret. It’s easily been my favourite gaming experience of 2015 so far and it’ll take a good goddamn miracle (or The Witcher 3 delivering) to lodge it from my Game of the Year list.
But on the weekend something weird happened: I finished Bloodborne by accident.
By goddamn accident.
Now that it’s been firmly established that we’re in spoiler territory I’ll explain.
With Bloodborne I’ve been avoiding Google in a very big way. I’ve even been deliberately avoiding asking for advice, directions, any of that stuff. I haven’t summoned once. I’ve been trying, as hard as it is in this day and age, to have a ‘pure’ Bloodborne experience — which makes zero sense since the game is designed around communication and sharing secrets, but that’s another story. The idea of a ‘pure’ Bloodborne experience is complete bunk to begin with, but I digress…
It was misguided. I half-recognised that fact whilst playing, and had that fact bludgeon me over the head when I literally stumbled into Hunter’s Dream and was informed by the level-up doll-lady that the wheelchair Granddad was waiting for me in the field. I wandered over, had a brief conversation with him, happily submitted to having him lop off my head…
And BAM! Game over. Finito!
I did not see that coming.
To be perfectly honest, I had no idea I was close to the end of Bloodborne. It took me around 50 hours to finish the original Dark Souls and around 45 to finish Dark Souls II. I checked my save game after the credits finished rolling: 29 hours dead. A little shorter than I expected. Truth be told, when I was informed what’s-his-name in the Wheelchair was waiting for me, I assumed it was a moment not unlike the time you meet the Emerald Herald on the way to the castle — the real Dark Souls starts here. That’s what I was sort of expecting.
At this point you have a conversation. You are asked to submit to death. I thought this would be the start of some cool, nightmarish endgame situation so I agreed. Turns out that was the end-game. Credits roll…
Goddammit.
Here’s a list of things I didn’t get to do: I didn’t get to explore the Nightmare Frontier — at all. I didn’t get the chance to explore the Upper Cathedral Ward — at all. I was robbed of two extra boss battles by actually submitting to being killed by Wheelchair man instead of refusing death. I was robbed of that ‘final boss’ feeling.
Pretty disappointing.
I’ve gone straight into New Game +, and I’m considering starting a brand new build given that I know a bit more about how the stats work (at the very least I know what Bloodtinge is) so all is not lost — I most likely will get the chance to check out these areas in the long term, but I can’t help but feel as though I’ve been robbed of an experience. That’s a bit of a shame.
Live by the sword, die by the sword I guess. I was super stubborn in my decision to avoid googling for help and it bit me in the arse in the end. But I can’t help but blame the game just a little. Some signposting wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Seriously.
Comments
33 responses to “Whoops, I Accidentally Finished Bloodborne”
I read the spoilers to make sure I completed the game with the ‘true’ ending. I also wanted to make sure I didn’t miss out on some of the optional areas like the Witches of Hemwick, and Cainhurst Castle. Finished with 45 hours racked up.
witches of hemwick optional? feel bad for people who didnt do it considering to equip any runes you need to kill them
I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, the same thing happened to me. Although, I recognised it as the ending. But I didn’t expect to be forced into New Game +, I wanted to see that ending and then reload my save to fight the final two bosses.
So I had to replay the whole game again, reached that same point at half the time. But this time I found a whole bunch of new areas, including new bosses I missed the first time. A Blood Chunk rock, didn’t screw up Eileens quests, killed the beggar when I met him, etc.
Personally, when I finished all the Souls games I considered my experience more or less conclusive and didn’t return for NG+ and my assumption was this is a common behaviour. I wonder if this is a design decision to force your hand?
I enjoyed running about again, finishing levelling up in NG+ in DS.
I completed my ‘end game gear set’, did a few bosses, got to Anor Londo again, grinded Dark Raiths for Titanite Slabs etc. But once everything hit the soft cap I felt at piece with my efforts and called it a day.
I didn’t feel as driven to complete the game for the second ending, although I think I may be for BB.
Eileen never appeared for me 🙁
Apparently its a chance thing. (Or a glitch)
Here questline is set up in 4 parts, all of which have a limit depending on how far you get in the game. If you reach a point before completing the specific quest point then the rest of her quest will fail.
When I (And my brother oddly enough) started the game without defeating the bosses, she wasn’t there. Even if you miss that, she should still to spawn at Cathedral Ward and then fight the other hunter, she should just become hostile in her last encounter if you missed her in the first place.
But for me, and my brother, she never spawned in anywhere in our first save game. I started again and ran straight to her and she was there. So I really think it’s either a chance thing or a glitch, apparently others have the same thing happen.
She appears outside Cathedral Ward overlooking the place before you kill Vicar Amelia.
As I have said above, she didn’t spawn in anywhere at any point for me until I started a new save. Before and after beating any bosses. I have looked up where she spawns and always check because she din’t appear at first and I thought it was odd.
Would love to see an article with you going back to play one of the King’s Field games and comparing it to Souls/Bloodborne!
I’ll finish it and plan to get at least 2 of the endings (Or 3 for all trophies). I try to read up on missable areas at minimum. As I play it the game gets bigger to a point where it can seem overwhelming.
Finding the abandoned hunters dream, the lecture building or the Forsaken Castle Cainhurst, it’s boss and the two covenants it can lead to was thrilling.I’m now a level 80/90 and I’m pushing through chalice dungeons before doing the one reborn. I play predominantly co-op with my brother and sometimes a friend as well. Split screen gaming is mostly gone, but we still co-op it with any game that offers it as an unspoken rule, sharing one digital copy (With my brother, not the friends).
Even with 2 or 3 people some of the bosses in the chalice dungeons know how to deal out a beating. One hit kills still happen sometimes lol (More so than DS anyway).
The ONLY thing I can’t over look for much longer is the broken networking that costs insight to use, adding salt to the wound.
Oh mark, you miss out on 2 areas completely, skip 5 bosses, skip the collection of two chalices (and that’s even assuming you finished all the chalice sets that you had access to) and complain that the game wasn’t ‘long enough’.
I’d have expected this from good ol’ patricia, but not you.
My friend, who loved DS1 to bits, said the same thing and dropped a nut when I told him about some of the missable areas and bosses. You’d think people would expect this from a Souls game by now.
Come on man, I wasn’t complaining at all.
Didn’t read most of the article but if he hasn’t played a Souls game before why would you expect anything else? It’s not like you’re given any warnings and a lot of bosses are optional. It’s very easy to trigger the end of the game quickly without having really done a lot or heard a lot of the story.
I would have done the same thing but for seeing Joab’s warning on Twitter! Luckily after seeing that I explored Cainhurst and Upper Cathedral Ward before ending it.
I did the same thing on pillars of eternity, not the actual last boss but entering the last area then going on wow this is the actual end
For me personally I knew talking to him would be game over. It was pretty obvious, I mean, there’s an air of finality when your one safe haven in the entire game is suddenly on fire.
Yeah, this was me with Rom.
Oh, you went too far? Now everything is fucked and almost everyone is dead or sick or insane. I hope you’re happy.
I just finished new game ++ last night so I’ve completed every ending. I’ve got all trophy’s except the one you get for beating a chalice dungeon boss, went to create said chalice last night after my third play through, and realised to create the chalice you need a specific chalice material you can only obtain at the last section of the game..
So in other words, I’m going to have to play new game +++ until the last area of the game to get the platinum trophy… I can’t decide if this is a good thing or not.
I’m pretty sure you can farm the chalice dungeons for all the items needed to create chalices. You just need to keep upgrading the chalices.
Yeah you can for all crafting materials except ‘living string’. This can only be obtained by killing the mother brain thing after pulling the lever and dropping it into the hole in Margot’s Loft. I wasn’t aware of this, but after pulling the lever if you backtrack to the base of the loft there is a secret elevator that takes you to where the brain lands and you can kill it for the ‘living string’ chalice material.
Oh righto thats the material you were talking about. Yeah that was a sneaky little trick they put in there.
I just backed up my save on a USB and did the multiple endings to get the three different gold trophies 😛
I’m getting near then end and I think Ima try that. Mwhahaha. Thanks for the idea. I’ll probably still start over again to play through co-op with my GF.
Now the real Bloodborne starts
So in a game all about killing stuff and cheating death by the skin of your teeth, you… submitted to being killed???
I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE AN HONOUR THING.
Not that big a deal really..I think some people miss the point of these games; you can’t really “beat them” and both seeing the credits and getting max achievements/platinum trophy is kind of a joke if you just over level.
I had a long winded post planned to explain why..but if you really enjoyed the game I think you should be able to understand the purpose is more akin to creating opportunities, unique builds and soaking in other elements that have nothing to do with rushing to the credits like more mainstream games…that’s a notion I think you have to shake if you want to really appreciate what’s good about BB. Unlike where much of the industry is heading right now..its a game about playing..not ‘beating.”
They have an end game boss “which is technically not always the hardest” and credits for those folks..as well as 7 or so new game plus cycles where difficulty ramps up considerably if they are into skill testing in pve. This is all if you decide to ignore the multiplayer pvp/co-op aspect which believe it or not even in BB is still at least 50 percent of the experience “though now somewhat individualized with the lack of trading and covenant rewards.”
I’m not trying to create some casual vs hardcore parallel or analogy, I don’t really view those things like others do. I just think a huge percentage of players who are introduced to From Software kind of miss the point of it all..
I know “we have jobs etc” ….you can still play these games casually and be “hardcore”..I’ve been playing them for years and I have all kinds of unique characters with unique purposes that took personally developed methods to create and utilize. They have all seen different npcs end up different ways, and they take advantage of, or ignore different things than each other for the sake of being the best they can be “which admittedly can always improve.”
Yeh I know that with the Souls/Bloodborne community the game is perfect in every way and any problems are on you – but I did think it was kinda harsh that it just dumped into NG+. I had the three umbilicals but didnt actually eat them, so didnt get to face off against tentacle man.
In general I enjoyed BB, but I can’t say it was as good as any souls game. The limited build options, (lets face it there is really only 1 playstyle, fast rolly guy, one gun, one weapon), somewhat limited settings/locations (it was quite cool when things changed up a bit like at cainehurst) and bosses that just didnt seem as cool as souls series.
Im not a 200+ hour sort of player, but I have played through Demon, Dark and Dark 2 probably 3 times each, but I can’t see a replay of bloodborne any time soon because I think it will feel very samey.
The same crap happend to me! I avoided youtube and google for spoilers and after beating wheelchair dude, the game finished and I did not had the chance to beat the other end boss.
NO WAY i am going to play the game all over for single boss. I am now into Dark souls 2.
This is the first spoiler I’ve read for Bloodborne.
I am glad.