It’s always been confusing to access the downloadable content in the Souls games, and this tradition continues with Bloodborne. It’s not as arcane as it was in the past, but there are steps you should be aware of — it’s not just a menu.
First, you’ll need to make your way to the Cathedral Ward, one of the early hub sections in the game. Head up the stairs to Vicar Amelia and kill her (or try!).
From here, you can trigger a cut scene by interacting with the altar, which both opens up a new section in the main game and allows you to find the DLC.
Next, head to the Hunter’s Dream, spend some blood echoes, and pick up a item called the Eye of a Blood-Drunk Hunter from a messenger on the floor.
Head back to the Cathedral Ward, then go outside the door to the left.
Look for a graveyard on the right side. Look closely — you’ll notice a guy hanging next to a tomb. Give it a moment and a horrifying creature will pick you up.
In regular Bloodborne, you’d die here and wonder what the hell happened. But now, you’re ready for the Hunter’s Nightmare. Good luck and happy hunting!
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10 responses to “How To Access Bloodborne’s The Old Hunters DLC”
I mentioned this in the article the other day about the DLC but this whole process is pretty stupid.
You need to have at least beaten Amelia (and progressed the game by examining the skull), and have collected a special item from the Hunter’s Dream. After that, you need to get yourself grabbed by the lesser amygdala next to Oeden Chapel (in much the same way that you can access the first floor lecture room and nightmare frontier, just a different amygdala) which will then transport you to the DLC area.
The fact that you need to get that far into the game though is a big pain. I finished Bloodborne a month or two ago, and upon finishing it, threw me straight into NG+ without even asking if I wanted to, overwriting my save file in the process. So now, I’m in the situation where if I purchased the DLC and wanted to access it, I’d have to start the entire game again from scratch, or progress through NG+ until I reach the DLC area…and from all reports, it’s not really an area you want to attempt to tackle on NG+ on your first attempt due to its sharp difficulty increase. So neither of those two options sound very appealing to me.
Sure, you could probably reach that point in the game pretty quickly just by sprinting past most of the enemies, but that would mean you’re severely underlevelled when you reach the DLC area (lvl 65 on NG, who knows what on NG+) so that doesn’t sound like a good plan either.
It’s kinda turned me off it. If I still had a save file just before the final boss fight, it wouldn’t be so much of an issue, but I don’t, because the game overwrote my save file and started me on NG+ automatically when I finished it. So lame. So yeah I haven’t purchased it, and not really feeling enticed to do so.
That’d a shame, because the dlc is great. If you’re wanting to level up you’re better in ng+ anyway, heaps more echoes and the difficulty isn’t that big a jump with upgraded weapons and gems.
My favourite farming spot was the lecture building, load up moon runes and a flame weapon and you’d get 100k in no time at all.
It takes less than hour to bumrush Amelia. Kill Gascoigne and go sprinting. amelia is ezpz.
You’re still going to need to spend time grinding to level up before tackling the DLC though, that’s the point. You may be able to sprint there pretty quickly, but you’re not going to have a good time once you do get there.
Although honestly, the fact that it takes an hour in the best case scenario to access the DLC is in itself a pain. Why can’t I just warp there from hunter’s dream?
Nnnahhh, not really; What level are you? The new trash mobs aren’t super hard, but they’re damage sponges and each attack has radically different timing, so it’s more learning to dodge and roll again.
Started a new game and it took me about 5 to 6 hours of play time to get to the DLC, doing the areas thoroughly, picking up all the items, helping with some co-op boss fights and taking time to go join The League. Went in at lv 41 with a +6 saw spear. I managed to unlock the first shortcut and haven’t died yet but it’s all hunter fights and super dogs and it’s very tough. I just want to pick up some of the new weapons, go level up and come back. If you start from scratch like I did you’re basically committing to playing through nearly the whole game again. Having said that I’ve played through the game about 5 times and it was nice to feel that trepidation again going into the DLC. I just wish you could access the new weapons sooner through the base game.
It was the same with Dark Souls 1, DS2 did it different as it didn’t throw you into NG+ straight away, although with the release of SotfS you basically had to replay the game to see the added content anyway. Its a FromSoft thing and it adds to the anti-casual premise of the Souls series.
It’s probably an unpopular opinion among those that aren’t massive fans of Souls games, but I like the way they’ve done this. No hand holding, no easy mode.
I personally will probably play through the entire game again DLC included.
This isn’t “hand holding” though, this is good design. I could play through the game up to the point where I can access the DLC without much issue probably, but that’s not the point. The point is the time it takes to actually do that. You’re looking at minimum one hour by the look of things (and that’s not a good approach), @bleeding_thumbs above said it took him 5-6 hours JUST to get to the DLC. That’s ridiculous.
Providing the DLC in a way that doesn’t require the player to play through hours of the game again just to access it is not “hand holding”. That’s good game design. It should have been available to be warped to directly from hunter’s dream, without needing to jump through hoops to get there.
Of course, this mostly stems from the fact that the game throws you straight into NG+ upon finishing it without asking. If it didn’t do that, it would be a non-issue. I honestly feel like I should have waited longer before playing Bloodborne – just waited until the DLC came out and play it as if it were part of the base game from the beginning.
The first play through of Bloodborne is rough. I remember finishing it that first time and thinking “thank god this slog is over”. I was curious though and started a second play through with a new character to see how much I had improved. That was when the game really got it’s hooks into me. Breezing through what used to be brick walls for me was an amazing feeling. You might not like the idea of playing through again to access the DLC but it might also give you a greater appreciation of the game. I am assuming you played through once. Please correct me if I’m wrong and accept my apologies.
It’s made to be integrated with the story/world/lore better rather than something added on.
I’m not sure if I liked how to access it but honestly doing the run to Vicar Amelia was good practice and fun. I forgot how much I really love playing this game and being back in this world. If it wasn’t fun this way of accessing the dlc I would hate
Old thread, I know, but I have a question about accessing the DLC. A friend and I ran through Bloodborne again, getting to Gerhman in both of our games but not actually fighting him. I’ve since downloaded the DLC, already having beat Vicar, I figured the badge would appear in the Hunter’s Dream, but it’s not. Is it because I’ve already started the final fight that it’s not appearing? Any info would help.
I am in the same situation as you WhitePointer and this is very frustrating. It was difficult to finish this game and now i am forced to replay a part of it in NG+ or restart from scratch to play the DLC, this is absurd. Thank you From Software for this well implemented design… 🙁
I love all the souls games but asking me to start a ng+ run just to get to the dlc is twisted. I played the crap out of my first run and was over it by the end. I wanted to play the dlc but its bringing too many bad memories of dark souls 2 dlc back where i was on ng+ and had to mission through half the game to get to the dlc. Just going to wait for ds3 this time, thanks from for being dicks again. If you have already finished the game you should be able to just warp to the dlc no excuses.