bloodborne's weapons are so smart

[starcle]

one of the things i really love about games like bloodborne is how much thought gets put into everything, and the closer you look, the more you notice it. today i'm going to talk about quite possibly the most central part of bloodborne's gameplay: its weapons

something i think is really really cool is that there's a very clear timeline and progression, and you can see how the weapons influenced each other.

chronologically, i believe the first weapon to be invented (besides the beast claws, which don't really count) was the chikage, a katana. its transformation is based on blood magic, not mechanics, and the context around it gives the impression of a long and storied history. then we get the rakuyo, a much more technical version of the chikage that's actually a twinblade. here we see the first mechanical transformation, and it's also the simplest: the two blades are just pulled apart and wielded separately.

after that, we have the burial blade. like the previous two, it's a curved sword. but unlike the previous two, both sides of the blade are sharpened, so it can be mechanically connected to a long pole and used as a scythe.

once gehrman's established himself with the burial blade, things start to branch out a bit. this is the era where we get the beasthunter saif, which looks a whole lot like the burial blade but folds in on its handle like an axe rather than separating from it. there's also the beast cutter, a sort of club-whip-thing.

after this there's a sort of split between the powder keg hunters and the saw hunters, representing a greater awareness of the two main weaknesses of beasts: fire and serrated blades. both of these make sense! fire can cauterize wounds, and serrated weapons can draw a lot of blood (which is what gives the beasts their power).

the weapons of this era were increasingly brutal (with one major exception that i'll get to later). see the boom hammer and stake driver from the powder kegs, and the saw cleaver/spear (based off the beasthunter saif, with added serration) and whirligig saw from the saw hunters. note that while the powder kegs were eventually disbanded, the saw hunters seem to have mostly continued in tandem with what came next.

but at some point the hunt was no longer hidden, and the healing church started making weapons that looked more heroic, less visceral. ludwig's holy blade and the kirkhammer are both highly practical, complex mechanically yet simple to use, and look like the kind of thing you'd see a gentle savior wielding. the church pick is a less obviously "grim reaper-coded" burial blade (also imo the church pick is The most underrated weapon in the game). the threaded cane is probably the clearest embodiment of the church's hypocrisy: an elegant, dignified cane which hides a serrated whip. it's hard to overlook the historical connotations of whipping and the implicit power imbalance that comes with it... and the serration only makes it more vicious. plus, it's a clear descendant of the beast cutter, one of the most brutal weapons in the game.

that brings us to the present day at the start of the game, where most of the hunters still active are either saw hunters (mostly older) and church hunters (mostly younger, probably).

okay now let's get to the things that were hard to fit into a coherent timeline!

the tonitrus was probably invented around the same time as the powder keg weapons, but never really got off the ground, likely because bolt damage wouldn't really be useful to those fighting beasts... after all, bolt is usually effective against kin, who the healing church is actively attempting to court the favor of/turn themselves into!

speaking of kin, a lot of people think they're weak to thrust. this is a misconception. a lot of kin are weak to thrust, but a lot aren't (garden of eyes, rom, research hall patients). the kin associated with the choir and upper cathedral ward tend to be, which makes sense, since ebrietas is weak to thrust and they appear to be drawn from her. plus, they tend to give off the impression of being... full of liquid, for lack of a better way to phrase it.

now for one of the more interesting bits! the reiterpallasch is a cainhurst weapon that combines a fencing sword with a gun, and it's as cool as it sounds. it was primarily used by the cainhurst knights, who were their society's equivalent to the hunters (the royal guards were the ones assassinating yharnam hunters, i go into more detail on my tumblr). of course, knowledge of the weapon was lost with the massacre at cainhurst.

now here's the exception i mentioned earlier in the powder keg section! the rifle spear is explicitly stated to be an attempt by the powder kegs to recreate the reiterpallasch. they certainly added their own flair to it, though! the rifle spear is less elegant, but more versatile, requiring less skill from the player, and of course its gun is a shotgun blast rather than a graceful pistol.

and i'm only scratching the surface here! there's so much detail in this game.

edit: I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THE BLADES OF MERCY

the blades of mercy are a single shortsword which can be split in two. they're used by the hunters of hunters, the people who do the job no one else wants to. they're the ones who find hunters who are starting to lose themselves to bloodlust, and kill them before they kill their families. everyone knows it's necessary... i doubt they have many friends.

the job of a hunter of hunters requires grace, precision, compassion tempered by a selfless willing to stay out of the spotlight and do the necessary dirty work, and above all, ironclad self-control. sound familiar?

i think there's a really good chance the blades of mercy were inspired by the rakuyo.

Comments

[axolotls]

Really cool analysis!! I've not had time to get properly into Bloodborne yet, still going through the Souls games, but this is so fun and detailed, wow.

[starcle]

bloodborne is soooo good. i may be biased since i've only properly played elden ring and got a little ways into DS1, but there's a very good reason a lot of people consider bloodborne to be the studio's best work. IMO the reason for this is that instead of trying to make a game that could accommodate many different playstyles, they narrowed it down to "melee hyper-offense" and then were able to give a lot of options within that playstyle and design the levels and bosses with that specifically in mind. the game also takes place in a single city rather than a whole kingdom. depth over breadth, basically.