Bloodborne Official Artworks

Product Information

You see, I had found some time ago, the digital copy of ' "' Bloodborne Official Artworks", all in image format (which I also converted to PDF so you can read if you like, just a small bonus honestly), and also the first Bloodborne Collector's Edition Guide (Admittedly, this one has a much lower resolution, but it's good nonetheless). Note: This collection is mostly for research purposes if you enjoy this art please make sure to buy Bloodborne Official Artworks and support its creators. Thank you.

Each chapter is mostly independent. The final one is pure speculation building on everything from the previous chapters. I have loved the game but missed pretty much everything about its history, characters, connections and the deeper lore (BB starts as a gothic horror game, but eventually turns into a fully-fledged cosmic horror). I saw The Paleblood Hunt being recommended to people who finished the game and wanted to understand it more and I was not disappointed. It is a combination of an encyclopedia and speculative world-building. Each chapter presents the readers with "solid facts" -- pieces of dialogue or other knowledge that's explicitly in the game. And follows up with the author's interpretation of said facts, building a picture of what happened, who these beings were and why they did what they did.

This book is a very good compilation of the themes and lore of the games, which remains the richest and most complex of FromSoftware works to date.

I own a few art books and guidebooks for various other games, but Bloodborne is the one I own basically everything there is to own, so I might be a bit biased here, do keep that in mind. Unfortunately, this document is only aimed at people who have finished (all three endings of) the game. Apart from the details on some bosses and enemies (which admittedly could use more attention apart from a single image) that you might not be able to see in game, all of that is present to quench your curiosity. While yes, you have to play the game for any of this to make sense or really mean anything to you (it very much reads like an essay, not like a novella) what Redgrave has pulled off here is nothing short of creative genius.

I love this game, and I love it's visual style. Gothic Victorian exaggerations that wouldn't be out of place in a Dracula anime; connections between werewolves, lunar cycle, blood, and birth; and a Lovecraftian twist that I actually like more than his actual stories. Bloodborne captivated me because it encompassed all the things I either love seeing in movies, reading about in books or as my points of interest in general (Lovecraftian and Gothic horror elements, Gothic architecture and Victorian setting etc.). Old architecture always sparked my interest so I spent half of my gaming time simply admiring the work that went into designing the game's Victorian architecture, streets, benches, castles and even streetlamps (I'll get one of those for my house).

As someone who finished Bloodborne for the first time recently, this book served a great post-game literary analysis and exploration on the stories, atmosphere, and history of not just Yharnam, but the entire civilisation (and perhaps cosmos?) as a whole. FromSoftware, Inc. is a Japanese video game development company founded in November 1986. The company is known primarily outside Japan for being the developers of the Armored Core and Souls series, as well as Bloodborne. I'm bearing great news as I have recently got my hands on the entire digital copy of The Old Hunters Collector's Edition guide. In the realm of fan theory and the investigative efforts and research required for its creation, the Paleblood Hunt is second to none. As someone who loves content like this (I was a huge fan of the Mass Effect Indoctrination Theory), I applaud Redgrave very much for his work in this masterpiece of a game. As a literary comparison, I would reference Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. Indeed, the only reason I discovered those books was by googling "books like Dark Souls" and thank goodness I did, because they became some of my favorite novels. I often hear a lot of people say they've read this series a few different times and manage to get a different view of it each time. It's that kind of compelling prose and intrigue, where the book expects the reader to take an active part in figuring things out on their own, that you can see in these games, inasmuch as such a method of storytelling can exist in video games.

I was happy to finally get this artbook as Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time and served as my entry point to From Software's dark (and punishing) fantasy worlds. From Dark Souls to Elden Ring, each game had something new to offer me in terms of combat difficulty, fantasy settings and memorable bosses (I'm currently playing Sekiro, love the medieval Japanese setting). So I looked into it more and I was right, and this isn't a new issue. From when the document had originally dropped, to when it was revised, and long after, people have disagreed with a large part of the document, and for good reason. An intriguing read for those who have finished the game with many unanswered questions and an avid fascination with the worldbuilding and lore. The book clearly divides between fact and personal conjecture, and it is interesting to see how the puzzle pieces (from item descriptions, forgotten notes, NPC details) fit together to form a cohesive narrative.