Bloodborne is a brutal and terrifying game. The tough and relentless enemies along with the feeling of dread hanging over the city of Yharnam left an impression on me that no game has in a long time.
I was very excited to hear about The Old Hunters DLC. I was hoping it would offer more Bloodborne content and then some. Thankfully, FromSoftware did not disappoint.
The Old Hunters is a healthy sized expansion to the main game that’s very challenging and provides more places, story, weapons. It’s essentially more Bloodborne and it’s really good.
Bloodborne: The Old Hunters DLC
Platform: Playstation 4
Developer: FromSoftware
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
The Old Hunters brings players to a new nightmare realm called, the Hunter’s Nightmare. The three new areas are varied and wonderfully designed. A twisted nightmare version of Yharnam, a Research Hall where dangerous and disturbing experiments occurred and a Fishing Hamlet covered in coral and angry fish people. Once again some impeccable level design is implemented here.
The Old Hunter’s’ is probably some of the most difficult Bloodborne content. Many of main game bosses and areas gave me trouble, but three out of the five new bosses managed to take several days and nights to finally beat. I appreciate the difficulty, but some parts felt ridiculously hard, to the point of not being fair.
Also, there are several new weapons at the player’s disposal. There are more right hand melee weapons than new guns, but both receive some interesting new additions for every build. And of course the Moonlight Greatsword makes its return.
A new covenant, the League, is now available to join and summon Old Hunter NPCs. It’s very similar to the Sun covenant from Dark Souls serving as a co-op driven covenant. Helping other players beat bosses allows you to earn vermin which increase your level within the League. It’s a nice addition to the very small number covenants as well as another one you can advance within.
[n4g.com]
In usual FromSoftware fashion The Old Hunters story is still pretty vague, but it still provides the player with more answers that explains both Yharnam’s own past and what happened to the titular Old Hunters.
However, since the entire expansion takes place in a nightmare realm the environments meld together like a dream making whatever story elements being told through said environment are somewhat confusing. It’s an interesting idea, but it makes story elements difficult to understand even for a FromSoftware game.
Conclusion: 8/10
The Old Hunters is an excellent expansion to the vanilla Bloodborne experience fixing a few of the game’s problems. There are plenty of new weapons, more NPC summons and slightly fixed co-op and pvp summoning (this is a mixed issue with some people experiencing problems still.)
The lore is still rich even if it takes a moment to wrap your head around the finer details of said lore. Simply put if you enjoyed Bloodborne you need to get this expansion.
