Bloodborne begins in a blood-soaked nightmare, with a werewolf clawing at your chest as you lay prone in a hospital bed. You are then transported to Yarnum on a vague search for a cure to a disease that ails you. You are given little guidance other than vague directions and a task to hunt down the beasts that plague this land. From the beginning, there is no promise of a happy ending, but rather you are infused with a sense of dread. The world is dark and bloody, and the tasks you are given are not any better. You come to Yarnum as an outsider, and as you continue to play, it becomes exceedingly clear that this world does not want you in it. You are not welcome here.
Where most games will accommodate you when you fail, Soulsborne games are unyielding. There are no pity items or dynamic difficulty. Soulsborne games will never hold your hand. You will die over and over and over again, likely in the same places. The game insists that it can’t be beaten, until eventually you find a way to persevere. Because of this design, when you succeed in a Soulsborne game, you can be sure that you earned it. There can be absolutely no doubt in your mind that you succeeded because of your own abilities. You have proven to yourself that whoever you are fighting provides a fair challenge because they have killed you countless times, and when you have beaten them, you know that you rose to meet it. You fought those demons and won of your own merit. You persevered.
Perseverance is largely the theme of Soulsborne games. What sets you apart from all the other hunters in Bloodborne is the fact that you don’t give up. You encounter several other hunters who are famed for their power and prestige who have succumbed to madness and now slaughter innocents in the street. The only thing that sets you apart from them and allows you to succeed where they have failed, even though they all greatly overshadow you in strength, is your determination and will to overcome the odds. Each time you die, you get back up and try again. And again. And again. Because you have to. Because that’s how you win. You stand your ground, and you fight, and when the world tries to beat you down, you stare right back and say, “No.”
In this way, the Soulsborne games teach players to fight their internal demons. The dark graphics in Soulsborne games can be horrific, but they also allow players to visualize slaying their own metaphorical demons. Players can imagine themselves physically battling against their dark thoughts. So many players of Soulsborne games have provided deeply personal accounts of how these games saved them, whether it be from depression, anxiety, or even suicide. The bleak world filled with enemies is harsh and unyielding, but still players choose to face it head on because that is the only route forward. The internal strength that players find through defeating a Soulsborne game carries over into their personal lives. If they were able to push through this difficult game and win, maybe other difficult things in life can be overcome as well. Soulsborne games allow players to prove their own internal strength and ability to persevere.
Playing the Soulsborne games allows individuals to become a part of a community. One that supports them in their failures and celebrates their victories. One that understands their pain and can help them through it, and revels in their joy because they have felt it too. A community that thrives on camaraderie and works together to remind its members, “Don’t you dare go hollow.”
