This article contains spoilers of gameplay scenarios and locations in Bloodborne, developed by From Software and published by SCE Japan Studio, and Dark Souls, developed by From Software and published by Namco Bandai Games. Bloodborne is exclusively for PlayStation 4, and Dark Souls was played on PlayStation 3.
From Software’s Bloodborne
is in many ways an excellent game. When I wrote about their last release, Dark Souls II, I worried that game
indicated a future fraught with stagnation and tedium for the Souls franchise. While I still fear that
Bandai-Namco will attempt to bring this once-thought dangerous and intimidating
series down with aspirations of near-annualization and profitability (perhaps
the immediate re-release of the game in Dark
Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin confirms my suspicions), I still believe
that Souls in the hands of Hidetaka
Miyazaki (who saved Demon’s Souls from
development hell and shaped it with his obtuse yet forward-thinking vision, and
would go on to direct Dark Souls and Bloodborne) has the potential to be a consistently interesting prospect for
years to come. Still, I don’t think Bloodborne
is a perfect game, and I’m not confident that I would name it the best Souls title. Here, though, I will only
be focusing on one aspect of the game, the lamps.