History VideoGame / Bloodborne

''Bloodborne'' is a 2015 DarkFantasy[=/=]GothicHorror ActionRPG on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 developed by Creator/FromSoftware with support from Creator/SCEJapanStudio. It is directed by Creator/HidetakaMiyazaki, of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' fame.

You are an outsider to the city, seeking a cure for a mysterious disease. However, after a blood transfusion at a local clinic, you pass out and awake to a nightmare of blood, plague, and death. Your only hope of escape is to serve as a Hunter yourself, and descend into the depths of the ancient city to hunt the beasts and madmen that lie within.

You are an outsider to the city, seeking a cure for a mysterious disease. However, after a blood transfusion at a local clinic, you pass out and awake to a nightmare of blood, plague and death. Your only hope of escape is to serve as a Hunter yourself, and descend into the depths of the ancient city to hunt the beasts and madmen that lie within.

The game owes much to its predecessors; the basic gameplay and [[JigsawPuzzlePlot storytelling style]] are nearly identical to the ''Souls'' games, but where those titles encouraged caution in battle, ''Bloodborne'' rewards a [[DeathOrGloryAttack more aggressive approach]]. Shields, ubiquitous in ''Souls'', are extremely rare and practically worthless at protecting you; firearms are the typical offhand gear, and enemy attacks can be interrupted with well-timed shots allowing for a devastating [[CriticalHit visceral attack]] to be inflicted on them . If the player takes damage, a "Rally" mechanic gives them a short window of time to heal by attacking enemies.

The game owes much to its predecessors; the basic gameplay and [[JigsawPuzzlePlot storytelling style]] are nearly identical to the ''Souls'' games, but where those titles encouraged caution in battle, ''Bloodborne'' rewards a [[DeathOrGloryAttack more aggressive approach]]. Shields, ubiquitous in ''Souls'', are extremely rare; firearms are the typical offhand gear, and enemy attacks can be interrupted with well-timed shots. If the player takes damage, a "Rally" mechanic gives them a short window of time to heal by attacking enemies.

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* AbandonedHospital: Iosefka's Clinic in Central Yharnam and the Research Hall in the Hunter's Nightmare.
* AbnormalAmmo: Regular bullets are useless against beasts, so Hunters have to use specially made ones. "Specially made" meaning the bizarre combination of blood and quicksilver/mercury.
* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The level cap is an absurd 544, but it's much lower than the caps in ''Demon's Souls'' and the ''Dark Souls'' trilogy. As for what level the game is finished at, the guide recommends you to be between levels 70-80 for the final story bosses, level 90 for the last area of the DLC, with the hardest Chalice Dungeons requiring being level 140+ ''and'' be playing in online co-op due to how hard they are supposed to be. The [=PvP=] Meta level hovers anywhere from 75 to 120.
* AcademyOfEvil: The Byrgenwerth College, which gave rise to the Healing Church of Yharnam, and the School of Mensis, which is a heretical offshoot.
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Consumable items like Blood Vials, Quicksilver Bullets and Molotov Cocktails become more expensive the farther into the game you get. Luckily, the farther you get into the game, the more Blood Echoes you also get from defeated enemies.
* AfterTheEnd: The city of Yharnam is already ruined beyond repair by the time the protagonist reaches it at the start of the game, with most of the responsible parties being either dead or [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]. [[FromBadToWorse And somehow, it only goes downhill from there.]]
* AlienBlood:
** The Rotted Corpses found in the Yharnam aqueduct and elsewhere are filled with green bile instead of blood.
** More to the point, Kin-type enemies bleed a deep grey, and perhaps most alarmingly, the [[spoiler:Plain Doll]] bleeds ''pure white''.
** The most extreme and disturbing case, though, is the Old Blood itself, the foundation of Yharnam's blood-oriented culture and the cause of the city's downfall. [[spoiler:It itself is an actual alien — the Great One Formless Oedon.]]
* AllJustADream: It's repeatedly implied that the events of the game are occurring within a dream world [[spoiler:created by the Great Ones,]] and numerous lore bits indicate that what you are experiencing may not be completely real. [[spoiler:Some of the item descriptions and two of the endings, however, indicate that the nightmare is ''very real''.]]
** You are told at the beginning, "Whatever happens, you may think it all a bad dream.", before getting your blood transfusion.
** When killed, [[spoiler:Micolash exclaims that he doesn't want to wake up and forget everything he's learned]].
** The description for the Lead Elixir consumable item, [[spoiler:which states that the recipe for it is unknown to anyone, but some postulate that it materializes only within the most desperate nightmares]].
** The "Yharnam Sunrise" ending [[spoiler:has you die in the Hunter's Dream, only to awake alive back in Yharnam as the sun rises, just like the other Hunters who "no longer dream"]].
** This game draws heavily from [[spoiler:H.P. Lovecraft]], who proposed a number of times in his works that [[spoiler:dreams and nightmares were absolutely real. They just take place in alternate dimensions]].
* AllThereInTheManual: All three ending cutscenes are rather esoteric. Their PSN trophy descriptions clear things up a bit, however.
* AluminiumChristmasTrees: For the record, Siderite is an actual metal alloy that originates from meteorites. The descriptions of the two weapons that were made with this material were not wrong when they say it had 'fallen from the heavens'.
* AlwaysNight: The game begins at dusk and soon enough shifts to nighttime, and remains that way until the end. This is a plot point; the night simply ''will not end'' until the Scourge of the Beast [[spoiler:or rather, the infant Great One responsible for creating the Nightmare,]] has been destroyed.
* AmbiguousSyntax: Once you find out what the name of the queen of the fallen Pthumerian civilization is, it potentially changes what a lot of people and notes are talking about all throughout the game. [[spoiler:"Yharnam" could refer to either the city or to the person, and it's seldom confirmed which it is whenever the term is brought up.]]
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: Due to the nature of the plagues in Yharnam, this can (and in most cases, ''will'') happen to pretty much anyone. It's noted that most of those who are hunting beasts are infected with the sickness themselves. Most of the angry Afflicted Villagers are torch-and-pitchfork mobs who treat ''you'' as the monster despite already being pretty monstrous themselves, on top of working together with their more far-gone fellows.
** It is also a special case of IronicDeath, as most Hunters and members of the Healing Church who fight beasts will usually turn into the most dangerous beasts themselves once they give in to their bloodthirsty urges (see Father Gascoigne and the Cleric Beast).
** [[spoiler:The second ending, Honoring Wishes, has the player kill Gehrman, only to be absorbed by the Moon Presence and turned into the next Watcher of the Hunter's Dream.]]
** [[spoiler:The third ending, Childhood's Beginning, in which the player kills the Moon Presence and replaces it as a new Great One, to guide humanity into its future.]]
* AnimalisticAbomination:
** Pretty much all beasts are this by definition, particularly since [[spoiler:they are created from the blood of an actual EldritchAbomination within humans]]. The Blood-Starved Beasts, Silverbeasts, and the Darkbeasts like Paarl especially stand out because of how absolutely mangled, deformed and/or otherworldly they are.
** The Nightmare is home to giant snakes that can be directly summoned at will by the Shadows of Yharnam or by anyone carrying the Madaras Whistle Hunter Tool. They're also presumably responsible for the many snake balls found within the Forbidden Forest.
* AnimalMotifs: All of the more bestial enemies you fight in the game loosely resemble some kind of actual animal, with werewolves being the standard end result of the Healing Church's use of the Old Blood. Cainhurst's blood, in contrast, produces more vampire-like beasts (ranging from the Nosferatu-style bloodsuckers in the grounds, to the Renfield-esque floor scrubbers, to the fencer knights who resemble Dracula at his most noble), while Byrgenwerth's Insight experiments produces multi-eyed, insectile creatures or blobby lumps resembling brains.
* {{Animesque}}: Inverted; much like the ''Dark Souls'' games, ''Bloodborne'' looks and feels a lot like a Western made game due to the realistic art style, and you might not be able to tell it was a Japanese game without reading the credits.
* AnotherDimension:
** The Nightmare of Mensis and Nightmare Frontier areas exist in separate [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin dream realms]].
** [[spoiler:It's implied that most of the game takes place within a dream-world created by the [[OldGods Great Ones]].]] How much of it is [[AllJustADream a dream]] and how much of it is reality being sucked into an EldritchLocation is up to interpretation.
** ''The Old Hunters'' DLC introduces the Hunter's Nightmare, Yharnam's mirror world where the perhaps-ghosts of the titular Old Hunters are trapped inside, now drunk on the blood they used to sustain their hunts and are eternally consigned to the twisted, malformed landscape of the Hunter's Nightmare — that also happens to be an incomplete and utterly bloody memory of the Cathedral Ward.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** Picking up more items after you've reached their inventory limit sends those extra items to your storage chest in the Hunter's Dream, assuming the items you've picked up haven't reached their storage chest limit yet.
** If you have spare Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets in your storage, then after dying (or transporting to the Hunter's Dream), you'll automatically replenish your on-hand supply of vials and bullets in your inventory as long as you have such extra items in your storage.
** If you have just lost a huge chunk of your health, using Blood Vials will restore a lot more of it than usual.
** All of your equipment now scales to your stats. Attires/Armors have a percentage-based defense instead of a flat static rating, while attack items like Throwing Knives and Molotov Cocktails now have stat scaling to make them viable throughout the game.
** The 1.07 patch added a new Additional Rite for Chalice Dungeons called "Shared Fixed Dungeon". Said Rite has no material requirements and locks the Chalice Dungeon to a single fixed glyph code for easier co-op and invasions.
** Before the first boss of the DLC is a desiccated skeleton banging its head against a gate; this skeleton always drops five Blood Vials and respawns. Add to that there's only three enemies between the lamp and him (an Eye Collector hag who's easily killable, and two Carrion Crows you can just run past) and it makes it likely that you'll only ever have a net gain of vials.
*** Additionally, there are two Nightmare Executioners in the same area that separately drop 10 Quicksilver Bullets and 6 Blood Vials, but you need to do Visceral Attacks to them from behind for a stable source of vials and bullets.
** Bloodstone Chunks and Blood Rocks were added to the Insight Messenger Bath inventory with the 1.09 patch, making it relatively easier to earn materials for weapon upgrades. They just cost a load of Insight to buy them.
** Using Blood Bullets - the extra five Quicksilver Bullets you get from sacrificing your HP which also happens to last until they're used or when you go through a loading screen - can never actually kill you. If you try to do it with too little HP to do it and live, the animation that plays when you try to heal with no vials will play instead.
* ArcSymbol: The 'Hunter' Caryll rune (and Caryll's runes in general), lumenflowers, bells, and the red moon.
* ArcWords: "Farewell, Good Hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world."
** Paleblood.
** Eyes on the inside.
** ''The Old Hunters'' adds more:
*** Secrets.
*** "Curse the fiends, their children too, and their children, forever, true." - the opening narration of the trailer and the first time you visit the Hunter's Nightmare, later echoed in the Fishing Hamlet. [[spoiler: This is the curse that the Fishing Hamlet's inhabitants laid upon Byrgenwerth and the Hunters in retaliation for the latter massacring them.]]
*** "A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea." - said twice by the Fishing Hamlet priest; once when he gives you the Accursed Brew tool and once in the ending narration.
* ArmCannon: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Cannon and the Church Cannon.]] They’re literal portable cannons (though, understandably, they require a lot of Strength to wield). A variant of the Undead Giant boss also uses a cannon strapped on its forearm against you in the Chalice Dungeons.
* ArmorIsUseless: The earliest proper chest piece gives you 110 Physical Defense, while the most expensive set only gives you 120. Instead, clothes are more easily selected based upon characteristics such as their resistance bonuses or simply their aesthetic appeal.
* AscendedMeme: "[=FashionSouls=]" gets a vague reference in the Attire section of the official guide, and it even gets discussed with Miyazaki during the interview with Future Press. As an actual trend in of itself, "[=FashionSouls=]" got its start in ''Demon's Souls'', where the static defenses for armor essentially became less helpful once you hit a high enough level. It continued into ''Dark Souls'' and ''Dark Souls II'', despite the implementation of an admittedly imbalanced armor upgrade system.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:One possible interpretation of the goals of Yharnam's scholars as well as the events of the "Childhood's Beginning" ending. Master Willem suggests that humanity is living on "the basest of planes" and requires "eyes on the inside" to truly awaken, thus presumably becoming [[EldritchAbomination extradimensional deity-like beings]] similar to the Great Ones. Micolash likewise mentions that Rom was "given eyes" by Kos, suggesting that she was originally a human before "evolving" into her current form. Both of them were seeking the Umbilical Cords which are said to grant these "eyes on the inside", but both had failed [[note]] Willem and the Byrgenwerth College were performing strange experiments to literally [[EyesDoNotBelongThere "fill people with eyes"]] which only turned them into deformed monstrities, whereas Micolash and the School of Mensis ''did'' obtain a Cord and were granted audience with Mergo, but they [[MySkullRunnethOver "had their brains stillborn"]] for their troubles. [[/note]]. Only the protagonist manages to "successfully" transform into a Great One, and the description of the trophy you get implies that the rest of humanity will soon follow...]]
* AttackAttackAttack: A surprisingly viable option, if you choose the exact right moment to attack that is. Enemies and bosses can often damage you at close range, but thanks to the new "Rally" mechanic, you can regain all your recently lost health as fast as you lose it just so as long as you keep whaling on the enemy ''and'' not get hit again before you do. The old gameplay of "fall back and [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe let your shield take most of the damage]]" is no longer possible, so retreating to heal is actually ''less'' survivable than getting right into an enemy's grill and {{Stun Lock}}ing them.
* AttractMode: Letting the game sit on the title screen for a while will cause it to play the cinematic reveal trailer from E3.
* BackToFront: ''The Old Hunters'' expansion pack seems to show the backstory of the game [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-12-02-bloodborne-whats-going-on-in-the-old-hunters in reverse order]], with an IronicHell laid over it. To simplify it, [[spoiler:you begin in a beast-infested Yharnam, with the Hunters there mercilessly executing their duty despite at least one section of the city clearly being lost. You continue to find Ludwig, the first leader of the Church Hunters, having fallen to beasthood in his failed attempts to contain the scourge. Continuing further takes you to the Astral Clocktower where the Healing Church experimented on their first victims and manufactured "Blood Saints" to synthesize the Old Blood for their own purposes -- the Old Blood and its proliferation by the Church being the principal source of the scourge. At the top of the Astral Clocktower you find Lady Maria, who was sent to oversee the experiments, but committed suicide from the guilt of her actions. Going past Maria takes you to the Fishing Hamlet, where the mutated residents have already been decimated by Byrgenwerth's purge, with many having been forcefully "searched for eyes" due to their contact with a Great One. And past the hamlet, you see where the story began -- at the corpse of Kos, who died during Byrgenwerth's raid, and whose child (it is heavily implied) was cut from her and taken to be experimented on before it too died as well.]]
* BadassCape: ''Bloodborne'' is ripe with Attire that features them. Here are some examples:
** The Charred Hunter Set has a long, dampened and tattered one.
** [[spoiler:Gehrman gains one for his battle [[HyperspaceWardrobe out of nowhere]] in between camera shots. It looks like the one above.]]
** The Old Hunter Set sports a tattered cape that is black on the outside and red on the inside.
** The female version of the Yharnam Hunter Set has a small cape that covers the upper left side of the wearer's body.
** The Crowfeather Set has one that's made out of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin crow feathers]] that seem to have been meticulously stitched together.
* BadassLongcoat: A number of the Attires also have either long dusters or cloaks attached to them.
* BadMoonRising: After you kill [[spoiler:Rom the Vacuous Spider, the Red Moon descends, casting an eerie but almost sunset-like light on the city, and the world as you know it changes drastically]]. And then there's [[spoiler:the TrueFinalBoss... The Moon Presence, who descends upon the Hunter's Dream, seemingly from the moon itself]].
* BandagedFace: A notable number of the more human enemies have some type of covering over their eyes, whether it be wraps of gauze or some specially made type of mask. [[spoiler:Due to all the [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow weird stuff]] seen when you have high levels of Insight, they're either intentionally blocking their vision to keep themselves ''from'' seeing too much, or that they already ''have'' seen too much and don't want to see more.]]
* BeamSpam: The A Call Beyond Hunter Tool does this, shooting out a bunch of bright homing lights that are usually enough to kill most enemies in the game with a single use. [[spoiler:Ebrietas]] has a powered-up version of it [[OneHitKill that can easily one-shot you]] if you don't dodge it.
* BeastWithAHumanFace:
** Patches the [[MeaningfulName Spider]].
** Some spider enemies from the [[spoiler:the Nightmare of Mensis]] (and sometimes in the Chalice Dungeons).
** Darkbeast Paarl has what appears to be a [[SkullForAHead skull for a face]].
** In the DLC, Ludwig the Accursed has distinctively human features on his head [[spoiler:and even speaks in an incongruous soft voice.]]
* BeatingADeadPlayer: Enemies will often go on attacking your vanishing corpse, even including bosses who are delivering a PreMortemOneLiner.
* BedlamHouse: The Research Hall, where the Healing Church experimented on human beings to gain the knowledge of the Great Ones. It's overrun by the mutated [[AxCrazy Clocktower Patients,]] and you can see evidence of some pretty awful things that went on in there, such as [[HumanPincushion syringe-filled corpses]] strapped down to beds, while those who are yet lucid and still alive are further mutated beyond all recognition and can do nothing else but [[ICannotSelfTerminate beg for you]] [[MercyKill to kill them]].
* BeneathTheEarth: The Chalice Dungeons are located deep underground, though occasionally there are cracks in the ceilings of some Chalice Dungeons that suggest they are reasonably close to the surface. Ailing Loran, in particular, appears to be built into the sides of an enormous desert canyon.
* {{BFG}}: You can get a literal '''[[ArmCannon Cannon]]''' as a ''sidearm''! Although it's a case of CoolButInefficient, due to how many Quicksilver Bullets are used per shot. [[note]] 10 before Patch 1.03, 12 after Patch 1.03. [[/note]]
** ''The Old Hunters'' DLC expansion adds two more: a portable version of Djura's Gatling Gun and a Healing Church variant of the Cannon.
* BigBadEnsemble: Despite the vast array of monsters, conspiracies, and miscellaneous lunatics you have to fight that are already present in the city and beyond when you arrive, the majority of individuals of whom are ''TRULY'' responsible for the main conflict are either already dead or missing, such as Willem, Laurence, Oedon, Kos, Mergo and [[spoiler: the Moon Presence]].
** [[spoiler: Averted with Willem, who can be found at what remains of Byrgenwerth College, though he doesn't attack The Hunter or even fight back at all, as it's indicated that his attempts to obtain power left him effectively brain dead and handicapped, being confined to a rocking chair and unable to speak]].
* BigBadWannabe: A rather mixed example. In the game proper, as the former leader of The School and the Host of the Nightmare of Mensis, thus the one who started everything within the game's events, Micolash serves as a major antagonist for The Hunter to fight and defeat, but by the time the game starts, let alone when you find him, he has become far, ''far'' less important and significant than he believes himself to still be — you don't even learn of his existence until his boss fight, and killing him does nothing to stop the Nightmare. In the backstory, Master Willem and Laurence fulfill this role more-so as the leaders of Byrgenwerth and the Healing Church, respectively, but in the game proper, they have fallen to the same fate that has befallen everyone else in Yharnam — Madness or Beasthood.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: One of the [=NPCs=] in the Forbidden Woods [[spoiler:is nice to you and asks for your help to find him a safe place so he can get away from danger. You can choose to send him to the Oedon Chapel, where the other [=NPCs=] you've told to go there are staying. As it turns out, he's an Abhorrent Beast himself and will start slowly and discreetly killing the other [=NPCs=] if the player sends him there. Although with each death, he gives you a Beast Blood Pellet, and [[AffablyEvil remains friendly to you the entire time]], only turning hostile if attacked.]]
** [[spoiler:Iosefka, the kindly doctor you meet at the beginning of the game, is killed and replaced by an impostor from the Choir after you defeat Father Gascoigne. She proceeds to tell you to send civilians you find on the street to her, promising to take care of them, when she in actuality will instead do some experimenting on them and eventually turn them into [[HumanoidAbomination Celestial Emissaries]]. You can implement LaserGuidedKarma by sending the beast to Iosefka's clinic, where the latter will experiment upon the former.]]
* BittersweetEnding: All of them to various extents, though how much depends on your personal interpretation of the JigsawPuzzlePlot. In any case, Yharnam's still falling apart at the seams and most of the survivors probably have serious PTSD at least.
** In ''Yharnam Sunrise'', [[spoiler: the player is free from the dream and can resume their life and leave Yharnam's problems behind. But Gherman is still trapped by the Hunter's Dream, and the Hunt will continue until the Healing Church collapses.]]
** In ''Honoring Wishes'', [[spoiler: the player is able to free Gherman, at the cost of having to take his place. But on the bright side, they don't have his issues with the Plain Doll and the Workshop.]]
** In ''Childhood's Beginning''. [[spoiler: the player frees Gherman, avoids becoming a slave to the Moon Presence, and becomes a Great One- but they've lost their humanity and might have killed the BigGood.]]
** If you finish the DLC, you've managed to free all hunters from an IronicHell... but not before your ally Simon has been killed by someone who wanted to keep Byrgenwerth's atrocities secret.
* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: The idea of Yharnam as an actual, functional city stretches the imagination — it looks like Victorian London as designed by M.C. Escher and [[BunglingInventor Bloody Stupid Johnson]] working together. And that's ''before'' you get to the Nightmare areas.
* BlatantLies: "I tell you, I will not forget our adage.", said [[spoiler: Laurence to Willem before leaving Byrgenwerth to focus on his own Great One-related ambitions. The adage in question is "Fear the Old Blood", so this was Laurence's way of assuring Willem that he'll be careful with the blood of the Great Ones... before promptly founding the Healing Church and then ''transfusing said blood to the citizens of Yharnam en masse.'' Due to HanlonsRazor, Laurence may have ''really'' been trying to use the Old Blood responsibly, and just happened to have ''[[EpicFail astronomically]]'' failed in that regard.]]
* BloodierAndGorier: You ''have'' read the game's title, right? ''Bloodborne'', true to its theme, is '''much''' bloodier than the ''Souls'' games. The player character and enemies alike can [[BloodSplatteredWarrior become covered in blood as they fight]].
* BloodMagic: ''Everywhere''. Every magical invocation requires the use of blood as a medium, including healing sickness, traversing the ancient tombs of the Great Ones, empowering Vileblood weapons, and casting spells using the specialized Hunter Tools when Quicksilver Bullets are in short supply. [[spoiler:Even the material used to make the Quicksilver Bullets is itself implied to have come from the blood of the Great One, Oedon.]]
* BloodSplatteredWeddingDress: [[spoiler:Yharnam, the Pthumerian Queen.]]
* BloodStainedGlassWindows: Lots of brutal fights occur in churches. The church that sees the most bloodshed is undoubtedly the Grand Cathedral, where you fight Vicar Amelia, the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst [[spoiler:or Eileen if you didn't advance enough in her questline]], the Celestial Emissary and [[spoiler:Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos]].
* BloodLust: Every Yharnamite shares this; from alcohol to medical use, blood is everything for them.
* BloodyHorror: The Game. ''Tainted'' blood serves as TheCorruption, the resulting monsters have a serious bloodlust, and the players themselves spends the game injecting, consuming, losing and throwing around a ''lot'' of the red stuff.
* BodyHorror: There is not one character in this game who does not go through some horrifying transformation, madness-inducing revelation, or other form of turning into a beast. Special mention goes to the lower parts of the Forbidden Woods, which feature Huntsmen [[spoiler:whose heads burst into a large cluster of snakes as you approach them]].
* BodyOfBodies: The One Reborn is a massive amalgamation of decaying corpses wrought together to form an abomination that's not even remotely human nor animal in appearance. The lower portion is made up of several human limbs (of which several of them twitch in a random pattern), and there's a larger skeleton acting as the "upper body", akin to a nightmarish centaur. And there's two distinct ends of the body, with each acting on their own...
** The endgame Scourge Beasts of Yahar'gul are living amalgamations made of various body parts, even having a ''leg'' for a tail.
* BodyMotifs: Eyes are a recurring element in ''Bloodborne''. Many characters and enemies wear blindfolds, as excessive blood use causes the eyes to decay. Scholars of Byrgenwerth and the Church make cryptic references to "lining the brain with eyes," with evidence suggesting that this may be literal. Certain changes occur if the player has enough Insight, the most obvious one being several enemies having many more eyes. Even the [[MeaningfulName name]] of the GreaterScopeVillain, Oedon, which is derived from "Oedipism", suggests that enucleation is a very common thing in Yharnam.
* BonusBoss: A good chunk of the game's bosses are entirely optional; the only completely necessary boss fights are Father Gascoigne (to enter Odeon Chapel and change the phase to Evening), Vicar Amelia (to enter the Forbidden Woods and change the phase to Night), Shadows of Yharnam (to enter Byrgenwerth), Rom the Vacuous Spider (to change the phase to Blood Moon), The One Reborn (fought right after Rom), Micolash (to enter Mergo's Loft), and Mergo's Wet Nurse (final boss).
** The Cleric Beast is probably going to be the first boss you find, and drops the Sword Hunter Badge, which allows you to explore Cathedral Ward. Fighting him is also one way to get the insight you need before you can level up.
** Old Yharnam has the Blood-Starved Beast, which gives you a lantern in Old Yharnam and access to the first Chalice Dungeons.
** The Witch of Hemwick grants you access to the Workshop Tool needed to use Caryll Runes, which give you a number of useful buffs.
** Matyr Lorgarius blocks the way into the section of Cainhurst Castle where Queen Annalise lives. Defeating him is a godsend for Bloodtinge builds as it allows you to get the Chikage, one of the game's best Bloodtinge weapons.
** Darkbeast Paarl drops the Spark Hunter Badge (which allows you to buy various Bolt items) and allows you to befriend Retired Hunter Djura.
** Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos, requires breaking a window to even reach and gives access to the Isz Chalice Dungeons.
** There are actually ''three'' bosses with a claim to being the FinalBoss, but this is route-specific. You only need to fight Mergo's Wet Nurse to trigger the burning of the Hunter's Workshop and the LastSecondEndingChoice, and can get ''Yharnam Sunrise'' without any further violence, but if you want ''Honoring Wishes'' you'll also need to fight Gherman, the First Hunter, and if you want ''Childhood's Beginning'' you need to fight both of the above plus the Moon Presence.
** The Chalice Dungeons are entirely optional and grant access to several unique bosses; Keeper of the Old Lords, Watchdog of the Old Lords, Forgotten Madman, Pthumerian Descendant, Bloodletting Beast, Pthumerian Elder, and finally Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen.
*** The DLC adds 5 new bosses, but only 4 are required to complete the DLC's story. The last is Laurence, the First Vicar, a Cleric Beast on fire who will only fight you if you find his human skull first.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:If you choose the third ending of the game, the second and second-to-last boss fights are both with fallen Hunters that use a giant, oversized cleaving tool and a Blunderbuss [[note]] Dragoon in Gascoigne's case. [[/note]]. Both bosses have [[SequentialBoss three distinct phases]], they're both [[BossBanter very vocal during their fights]] and they both eulogize themselves after you put them down. Furthermore, if you fight the Moon Presence, it moves and feels very similar to a beast, much like Father Gascoigne's final moments.]]
** This also extends to ''The Old Hunters'' DLC. The first and last boss (that is, if you fight it first) is a Cleric Beast. [[spoiler:The second one is Laurence's original beast form.]]
* BoringButPractical:
** The Saw Cleaver you can get at the very beginning is one of the best weapons in the game, dealing damage on par with weapons obtainable much later on if significant resources are invested into it. Its versatile moveset, low stamina cost per swing and adaptability in combat only adds to its general usefulness. Even when it may be lacking in some aspects, such as stagger capability, it still functions reasonably well as a backup weapon when needs must.
** While the Whirligig Saw is pretty cool from a visual aspect, its most effective move is its tricked L2 attack, which holds the saw in place in order to apply continuous damage. It's not flashy, but the DPS potential, combined with the ability to move while using it, will stagger all but the beefiest enemies in the game with the only limit being the amount of stamina needed to sustain it. Many bosses will have their limbs crippled, opening them up to Visceral Attacks, and its passive bonus to Beast-type enemies (which a LARGE chunk of enemies are) makes it an even nastier combination, not to mention the extra damage you can deal to them if you also applied a Fire Paper to it ''and'' consumed a Beast Blood Pellet too.
** The Tonitrus is regularly derided as the least exciting Trick Weapon in the game — beneath its crackling electric aura, it's a plain, simple mace with an equally plain, simple moveset. Its 'Trick' is nothing more than a short-lived damage buff. Despite this, you're still going to want one — it swings reasonably fast, has a reasonable stagger effect, consumes surprisingly little stamina per swing and hits like a truck with the buff on, letting it sustain incredibly high DPS for a remarkably long time if you remember to regularly buff it using its Trick. Most importantly though, it's the only Trick Weapon that naturally deals Bolt damage, which Kin-type enemies are cripplingly weak to, and several of the most dangerous enemies in the game happen to be Kin.
*** In other words, the Tonitrus will melt through Kin foes that would otherwise pose a deadly threat to a Hunter wielding any other weapon, making it an incredibly useful trump card, and its drawback -- its lower-than-usual durability -- only becomes a significant problem if you're extremely careless. Most of the time, it just means you'll have to pay a tiny amount more of Blood Echoes in repairs whenever you stop by the Hunter's Dream.
** The Blacksky Eye Hunter Tool, which fires a simple and straightforward projectile... that happens to use only one Quicksilver Bullet per cast, has a fast attack animation, does good damage with high Arcane, and can stagger nearly every common enemy including even smaller bosses to death.
** Running. You ''do'' want to fight enemies, for their Blood Echoes and random drops or to be able to safely explore, but never underestimate the power of just booking it. Almost every single enemy will not be able to hit you if you just keep running without stopping for too long, and you can still pick up items lying around the world if things are a bit too dangerous or when you're gunning for a specific item, and if you've cleared an area, you can get back to where you were very quickly by just running past all the enemies. But do it too much and, like any RPG, you'll screw yourself over on Blood Echoes and items, but if you know what you're doing or are simply going back over an area after you've cleared it already, then there is never any reason not to do it.
** The humble Hunter's Torch doesn't have much variety in its moveset, but it has a simple jabbing attack that's great for staggering smaller enemies to death, including the dreaded Brainsuckers. Additionally, because it can be obtained near the beginning of the game - of which is filled almost exclusively with Beast-type enemies that are weak to Fire - and on top of having a surprising B scaling in Arcane, it's not a bad choice to help even the early game gap for Arcane builds that are struggling, besides being a reliable source of light.
** If you plan on abusing the Parry mechanic, and don't care to do much damage with firearms, the basic Hunter's Pistol you can get at the beginning of the game will serve you just fine. Yes, it doesn't do as much damage as the likes of even the Repeating Pistol you get soon after, let alone the Gatling Gun or Cannon you can also get, but it only uses one Quicksilver Bullet per shot (as opposed to the Repeating Pistol using ''two'' per shot), and since 99% of the damage dealt from a parry comes from the Visceral Attack afterwards - which scales off your Strength or Skill - only one weak bullet per parry is all that you need to make the most out of the mechanic.
* BossArenaRecovery: Conveniently, there just happens to be Antidotes lying around the Blood-Starved Beast's arena.
* BossBanter: Most of the bosses you fight who are still capable of speech tend to be quite talkative, either in the fight or when transitioning through their phases.
* BossCorridor: Quite common. Among others, Darkbeast Paarl, Mergo's Wet Nurse, [[spoiler: Ludwig the Accursed]] and the [[spoiler: Orphan of Kos]] all feature such examples. In addition, every single Chalice Dungeon boss has one as part of the basic level design.
* BossInMookClothing: The endgame's NPC Hunters, due to being created the same way as the player's Hunter, [[https://youtu.be/f5JJK1IktUM?t=10m15s have been revealed]] to have maxed-out stats and weapons, with some even having Blood Gems slotted in their weapons ''and'' Runes equipped. Add in the fact that enemies have an infinite supply of Quicksilver Bullets plus items and... well, let's just say that they can be harder than most of the bosses.
* BossRush: The last three bosses in the game, [[spoiler:Mergo's Wet Nurse, Gehrman and the Moon Presence]], are all fought in quick succession with no additional dungeons between them. [[note]] Though the only one you ''have'' to kill is Mergo's Wet Nurse, and depending on your choices, you may not even find [[TrueFinalBoss the Moon Presence]]. [[/note]] In the DLC, there's also the Living Failures and [[spoiler:Lady Maria]], whose boss rooms are literally right next to each other.
* BottomlessMagazines: Zig-zagged like crazy. Enemies with firearms have an infinite supply of bullets, but need to reload between shots unless they can use the same mechanics and weapons as a player character would. On the other hand, you don't need to reload ''at all'', but instead you have a limited supply of anywhere between 20 to 32 Quicksilver Bullets on your person, in addition to the ability to create 5 emergency Quicksilver Bullets drawn out of your blood whenever you want them.
* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Ultimately, little the player does affects the overall situation. [[spoiler:You've only accomplished killing a few lesser Great Ones in a city that's close to finished, anyways. Entities like Oedon aren't even inconvenienced by your actions, and depending on the ending, you either blithely leave the cycle, become its next integral part, or in the ending where you actually ''do'' Punch Out the Moon Presence, replace it with ''yourself'', transformed into an infant Great One. While the cycle is broken, there's no telling what you, in your now possibly alien mindset, have in mind for "Humanity's Next Childhood".]]
* BrownNote: Appropriately enough for a video game that is heavily inspired by [[spoiler:Lovecraft and the CosmicHorrorStory genre]], this is actually incorporated as a gameplay mechanic: [[SanityMeter Frenzy]]. Frenzy builds ''extremely'' fast upon viewing otherworldly horrors in the game (particularly the Winter Lanterns and [[spoiler:Brain of Mensis]]), and if it fills up, you'll lose close to '''90%''' of your health. The consumable item called Sedatives can be used to stop your Frenzy meter from filling up before it's too late.
* BrutalBonusLevel: All of the higher-level Chalice Dungeons could qualify, especially if you decide to use Fetid or Rotted Offerings to spawn additional enemies inside them. The Defiled Chalice Dungeons must receive special mention, as not only are they exquisitely difficult in their own right, but your health is cut in half the entire time.
* CallBack: Some of the enemies and weapons reference other ones from the previous games.
** The Vileblood Pistol, Evelyn, sounds suspiciously similar to a certain crossbow from the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' trilogy.
** The Vileblood Katana-Sabre hybrid, Chikage, is another bloodthirsty weapon for the franchise.
** The Cleric Beast is based on Manus, the final boss in the ''Artorias of the Abyss'' DLC of ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI''.
** The [[RecurringElement Moonlight Greatsword]] makes a triumphant return in ''The Old Hunters'' expansion.
* CameBackWrong: Highly implied to be how the Hunter's Nightmare was formed. If someone tried to make a replica of Yharnam by memory, just memory, it would look like the Nightmare.
* CastFromHitPoints: The Chikage and Logarius' Wheel both have tricked modes that make the weapon more powerful at the cost of draining your health. Ironically, the latter is a weapon of the Healing Church Executioners, who claim the moral high ground over the "depraved, blood sucking" Cainhurst Vilebloods, which used the former.
** Made even more ironic in the DLC, where the weapon of choice of the Healing Church assassin Brador is the Bloodletter. Said weapon requires impaling yourself through your midsection to create what is essentially a two-handed morning star from crystalized blood.
* CastFullOfCrazy: Almost every character you encounter that is still capable of speech is either insane or slowly going insane. Even the ''protagonist'' may not be all there in the head; as the more [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow Insight]] you gain, the more you start hearing and perceiving things that weren't there before, culminating in being haunted by the sound of a crying baby at all times ([[spoiler:who is presumably [[EldritchAbomination Mergo]]]]).
* ChainsawGood: The Whirligig Saw's two-handed tricked form is essentially a mace with an attachable set of buzzsaws for a head.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: So you used the Tiny Music Box against Father Gascoigne, but listen closely to the tune. When you get to Mergo's Wet Nurse, it will shock you.
* ChekhovsGun:
** The Old Hunter Bone's description about the "art of Quickening" may seem like just another part of ''Bloodborne'' lore, but when [[spoiler:you refuse to leave the Hunter's Dream, Gehrman will use the technique against you]]. In the DLC, Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower will ''also'' use the art. [[spoiler: Unsurprising, given that that she is heavily implied to be the old hunter whose bone allows you to use the art in the first place.]]
** The One Third of Umbilical Cord items initially seem to be just more powerful Insight items with some minor lore tidbits attached to them, but consuming at least three of them [[spoiler: unlocks the TrueFinalBoss]].
* ClosedCircle: Yharnam is one of these, though the confusing, interconnected city layout and the massive amounts of Gothic architecture seen throughout hides it well. Justified somewhat, as [[spoiler:Yharnam is part of a dream]].
* CityOfAdventure: Most of the game is set within the ancient city of Yharnam, but the player will have the ability to journey to outlying locales.
* CoatHatMask: Seems to be the standard for most of the Attires in the game. Though the mask part can vary, in that it either covers the lower face or just the eyes.
* CombatStilettos: The female version of the Black Church set has these.
* CompanionCube: [[spoiler:The Doll is implied to be this if she isn't [[ThePowerOfLove loved or appreciated]]. If she is, she gains sentience.]]
* CoolButInefficient: What the Powder Kegs, and their predecessors the Oto Workshop, are known for.
** One Powder Keg firearm is the Cannon. It's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin; a portable cannon you can carry around. It's incredibly powerful, [[NecessaryDrawback but not only does it require 30 Strength and 13 Skill to wield, it also consumes 12 Quicksilver Bullets per shot]]. In-universe, this is generally how the Powder Kegs' weaponry are perceived: powerful, but too unwieldy compared to the Trick Weapons and firearms devised by the other Hunter groups. In the Cannon's case, it's [[EveryoneHasStandards too unwieldy for even the Powder Kegs themselves]].
*** ''The Old Hunters'' reveals that the Healing Church did design a variant of the Cannon for their brawnier Hunters. Unfortunately, the level of brawn required to wield them was supernatural, and anyone strong enough to lift a Church Cannon also happened to have their mind degraded too far by the Scourge of the Beast to use it, leading the Church to quietly put their Cannons into permanent storage.
** Another Powder Keg Trick Weapon is the Stake Driver. When in its tricked form, it does massive damage with its Charged R2 attack, similar to the Cannon, but it requires a longer charge time in return, long enough for you be attacked out of the charging animation.
* CoolOldGuy: [[spoiler:Retired Hunter Djura, assuming that the player can figure out how to make him non-hostile. If the player agrees to spare the beasts he protects, he will even give them his Powder Keg Hunter Badge and a gesture.]]
** Gehrman falls under this as well. At first, he's a laid-back old dude who gives you useful hints and information. He's also not above getting a kick out of misleading comments.
* CopyAndPasteEnvironments: The Chalice Dungeons largely consists of this, with variations depending on which type of Chalice it is.
* CorridorCubbyholeRun: One possible feature of the Chalice Dungeons; long corridors with giant boulders rolling through them at regular intervals, some of which have [[OhCrap Pthumerians blocking the cubbyholes]].
* CorruptChurch: The Healing Church. Their solution to the Scourge of the Beast? Initiate a massive hunt against the beasts that is tantamount to a WitchHunt, since most of the city's citizens are already infected themselves, and see the uninfected as the ''real'' beasts to be slaughtered. [[spoiler: And they ''caused'' the Scourge of Beasts as a side effect of their blood ministration, and covered up the connection by blaming outsiders and assassinating anyone who looked to be putting the pieces together. See, the Healing Church started as aa splinter faction of Byrgenwerth's scholars, used the Old Blood to continue their research upon the citizens of Yharnam, who the Church used as fodder for whatever hideous experiment they thought of in their attempts to elevate themselves to Great One status.]]
** [[spoiler:Laurence, the founder of the Healing Church, left Byrgenwerth when they refused to use the Old Blood in their ascension research. While it ''was'' true that the Old Blood had great healing properties, they are more {{Lovecraftian Superpower}}s than anything else. Laurence naively thought the Church could "purify" the blood, as seen in LostInTranslation below. In his zeal to spread and refine the technique to this end, he wound up popularizing Blood Ministration and fostering Yharnam's obsession with blood, turning Yharnam's citizenry into lab rats.]]
** [[spoiler: And according to one comic, the Church also created the Ashen Blood plague that destroyed Old Yharnam by dumping some strange powder into the water supply.]]
* CosmeticAward: The [[spoiler:Yharnam Stone]], which you get for [[spoiler:clearing all the [[BrutalBonusLevel Pthumeru Chalice Dungeons]]]].
* CosmicHorrorStory: This becomes increasingly prominent as you find references to "Great Ones", and stumble upon increasingly horrifying tiers of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. Then you learn that there's ''something'' going on with the moon... [[spoiler:and that monstrous beings are using Yharnam as a kind of nursery to turn mankind into their "surrogate children", since they can have none of their own]].
* CosmicHorrorReveal: This far into the article, it should be clear to you by now that this is not actually a GothicHorror story. In-game, this reveal happens by [[spoiler:gaining enough Insight or by defeating Rom, which causes the moon to turn red and cause several eerie changes throughout Yharnam, such as the enemies becoming more eldritch, the surviving non-hostile [=NPCs=] behaving strangely, and the sudden appearance of the giant Cthulhu-headed spiders hanging on the sides of the buildings]].
* CozyCatastrophe: Invoked and defied. Some houses contain sounds of merriment, as the Yharnamites inside attempt to party through the night of the Hunt. Judging from the screams, insane laughter and eventual silence that will come from those houses later in the story, it does not end well for the people inside of them.
* CrammingTheCoffin: The Cramped Casket enemy is this coming around, not as the result of disposing of a murder victim, but because of cheapskate tenement landlords only buying one coffin for an entire family ''to share'' after TheVirus killed everyone in their house. The result is [[BodyOfBodies a nightmarish heap of screaming, fused-together zombies]] dragging around their coffin as their foot while [[ZombiePukeAttack gobbing out semi-congealed rotting blood clots as their ranged attack.]]
* CreepyCathedral: Half of the buildings in Yharnam are either [[HauntedHouse creepy mansions]] or this. The Cathedral Ward is the most notable example.
* CreepyGood: Many of the characters that help you are kind of creepy in their own right, including [[HunterOfTheirOwnKind Eileen the Crow]], [[TheGrotesque the Oedon Chapel Keeper]], [[UglyCute the Messengers]] and even [[CreepyDoll the Doll herself.]] Also, [[spoiler:the Moon Presence]]. ''[[AmbiguouslyEvil Maybe.]]''
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Healing Church is basically the Catholic Church, if they worshiped a bunch of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, complete with a focus on communion.
* CueTheSun: After you kill [[spoiler:the Orphan of Kos]] in ''The Old Hunters'' DLC, the constant thunderstorm in the area lifts, and for perhaps the first time in the whole game, you're able to clearly see the sun.
** [[spoiler:The Yharnam Sunrise ending also has this happen after Gehrman beheads you in the Hunter's Dream. You wake up in a deserted square in the seemingly abandoned Yharnam as the morning sun rises over the city.]]
* CultureChopSuey: As per usual in From's ''Souls'' series, there's a lot of Japanese influence in what is otherwise a European-Gothic fantasy world:
** The Healing Church visually takes ''many'' cues from Catholicism, as well as some Catholic practices such as the veneration of holy blood and saints, but otherwise shares a lot of beliefs with Shintoism. Jerks San Frontieres elaborates on the Shintoist belief system of the Healing Church [[https://youtu.be/PNNczeUHYvE?t=6m45s here.]]
** The Cainhurst nobility use a variety of imported "Eastern" weapons such as the [[KatanasAreJustBetter Chikage and the Rakuyo]] in their arsenal, as well as traditional European-style longswords, rapiers and pistols.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:D-I]]
* DamageSpongeBoss: [[spoiler:The Orphan of Kos]] has 20,000 HP, which is [[LightningBruiser only]] [[TheBerserker one]] [[TurnsRed part]] of what makes it so ridiculously hard.
* DamnYouMuscleMemory: The health-replenishing Blood Vials have their own dedicated button. Unfortunately, it's the same button from the ''Souls'' games that lets the player switch weapon stances (the Triangle button). The new button that changes your weapons' stance/form is the L1 button.
** When using the Beast Claw with the Beast's Embrace Covenant Rune or the Kos Parasite with the Milkweed Covenant Rune, your dodges have changed animations that don't quite match up with the invincibility frames you get. It's not enough to be blatantly noticeable, but it's ''just'' enough to mess up your timing if you're not used to the weapons.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to the other ''Souls'' games alongside BloodierAndGorier, this game takes the whole CosmicHorrorStory element and ramps it UpToEleven.
* DarkIsNotEvil: There's evidence to suggest that this may very well be the case for many of the Great Ones, with the Moon Caryll Rune even describing them as "sympathetic in spirit." [[spoiler:Some, like the Brain of Mensis, are shown to be {{Non Malicious Monster}}s, while others, like the Moon Presence and Ebrietas, do seem to want to help humanity in their own way. However, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters problems arise]] when humans decide to abuse the knowledge and power of the Great Ones for their own ends.]]
* DarkWorld: The Hunter's Nightmare in ''The Old Hunters'' is a twisted version of Yharnam, featuring the same buildings and streets within the same kind of eldritch landscape found in the Nightmare Frontier.
* DaylightHorror: Unlike the rest of the game, the Nightmare Frontier and the Hunter's Nightmare take place in bright daylight. It doesn't make them less unnerving.
* DeadAllAlong:
** Once you know the password needed to enter the Forbidden Woods, [[spoiler:you'll see that the gatekeeper who asked you for it is not only dead, but his body is also in a mummified state. How he was able to speak to you earlier is never explained, but it's possible he gained enough Insight to survive the death of his body]].
** [[spoiler:Micolash, one of the bosses of the Nightmare of Mensis]] is found in Yahar'gul as a mummified corpse and is oblivious to the death of his physical body.
** In ''The Old Hunters'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:Kos herself has passed away long before the Hunter arrived at the Hunter's Nightmare. The only thing left is her Orphan, the FinalBoss]].
* DeadlyEuphemism: Subverted. [[spoiler:'Escaping the Hunter's Dream']] initially sounds like this, once you discover the method, but no, [[spoiler:Gehrman]] is being totally open and honest with you — [[spoiler:having him ritualistically kill you in the Dream with his Burial Blade will indeed result in you waking up in the real world, safe and sound]].
* DeathOrGloryAttack: The game is focused on dealing more damage than the opponent while risking your own life to defeat them. Basically, [[Manga/{{Berserk}} act like Guts]].
* DegradedBoss:
** The Shadow of Yharnam bosses appear as regular enemies in the Nightmare of Mensis.
** The Keeper of the Old Lords Chalice Dungeon boss becomes a regular enemy in harder Chalice Dungeons.
** The Blood-Starved Beast reappears as a mook in the [[DownloadableContent Hunter's Nightmare]]. It's also in a small pitch-black cave, so it's [[FakeDifficulty nigh-impossible to see]] without a Torch (which fills up your ranged weapon slot). It doesn't [[TurnsRed Turn Red]] this time, though, making it slightly easier.
* DemBones: One boss, Darkbeast Paarl, is a giant electrified werewolf skeleton covered in a few remaining clumps of fur.
** The Skeleton Puppets are disjointed skeletons that are suspended and moved about with magic in a manner resembling their names.
* DevelopersForesight: Performing gestures in front of the Plain Doll causes her to react in various ways: she applauds, bows and tilts her head curiously depending on the gesture used.
** A minor event at the bridge near the Tomb of Oedon, which has a party of Huntsmen and a fiery boulder trap. If you approach the bridge from the Tomb, the Huntsman's Minion who pushes the boulder will do so when alerted to your presence and then turn to face you... while the aforementioned party of Huntsmen will start running away from their own boulder trap.
* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: [[spoiler:If you use the "Make Contact" gesture in front of the Brain of Mensis after dropping it into a pit, after about a minute or so of holding the gesture, it will give you a Rune!]]
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: One ending has you defeating [[spoiler:[[EldritchAbomination the Moon Presence]], the monstrous perpetrator of the hunting cycle and the TrueFinalBoss]].
** With the kind of enemies that show up in this game after a while, this trope is all over the place. One starts getting the feeling that if [[PlayerCharacter the Good Hunter]] was allowed to roam the actual [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraft]]-verse, the books would be [[LovecraftLite a lot less bleak]].
* DifficultButAwesome: A design point.
** Bloodtinge builds undergo serious MagikarpPower — they're almost completely useless for a very long time, but making them work turns weapons like the Repeating Pistol and the Chikage into boss-destroying badasses, along with making Visceral Attacks effectively {{One Hit Kill}}s. [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1FBpusLDOME See for yourself.]]
** The Chikage has a lot against it — its tricked form drains HP at a steady rate, which can really screw over a weak Hunter, and its over-reliance on Bloodtinge for damage makes it initially weaker than most Skill weapons. Then you get it all upgraded, kitted out with the right Blood Gems and properly built your Hunter to wield it, and then all of a sudden its doing unbelievable amounts of damage and out-ranging most weapons that other NPC Hunters or invaders have that deal comparable damage.
** The Bloodletter relies heavily on taking a huge chunk of your own health for its powerful tricked form, which is very dangerous and chews through vials if you can't make Rally the damage back in time. While its untrick form is mediocre, its tricked form is ''highly dangerous'' in both PVP and PVE: the tricked L2 causes an AOE attack that applies ''Frenzy to everyone it touches'', including yourself, making it even more likely that you'll kill yourself with it. However, skilled Bloodletter users can cause some insane amounts damage with this if they have low Insight and are smart about their timing, causing a Hunter to go from full health to dead in a Frenzy application plus one or two R1's.
** The Stake Driver doesn't have that much of an impressive moveset, and its tricked form makes its already rather lackluster range even worse and turns attacking more than one enemy at a time a chore. However, if you practice on the timing of its tricked and Charged [=R2=] attack, it can potentially deal out more damage in one hit than just about any weapon in the game, and its tricked mode (including the aforementioned charge attack) deals exclusively Thrust damage, which will make it tear through late-game enemies that have weak resistance to that damage type.
** Builds that dump Endurance have less of a safety net, and have to focus more on stamina management, but it allows you to put those points elsewhere, like maxing out Strength and Skill for the Saw Cleaver, or maxing Strength and Arcane for the Moonlight Hunter's Greatsword.
* DiscOneNuke: There's a specific Chalice Dungeon accessed by a specific.....rather suggestive glyph, [[spoiler:cummmfpk]], that, after only a few runs (run to the next room, let the unseen enemy kill itself, use a Hunter's Mark to warp back to the lantern to respawn the mob, repeat), can get you enough Blood Echoes to soft cap several stats at once. That being said, the earliest you can access it is after killing the Blood-Starved Beast, and beating the first two bosses of the chalice you get from it.
* DifficultySpike: Even for a ''Souls'' game, once you [[spoiler:kill Rom]], Yharnam and Yahar'gul get a lot more dangerous with the addition of Bell-Ringing Women buffing and reviving enemies, and new enemies throughout Yahar'gul. What follows Yahar'gul are the [[spoiler:Nightmare Areas like the Frontier and the Nightmare of Mensis]], which are both quite hard as well.
* DisabilitySuperpower: [[spoiler:While Gehrman lost half of his right leg, he is able to FlashStep, which is far more effective than dodging/side-stepping.]]
* DisconnectedSideArea: A couple. Notably, the Nightmare areas are floating off in their own space, disconnected from the rest of Yharnam.
** The Astral Clocktower is perhaps the most prominent building in the Cathedral Ward, but is unreachable in the base game, which is odd in a series where if you can see a place, you can normally go there. You actually have to traverse the DLC to reach it in the Hunter's Nightmare, and it's where you find Lady Maria.
** Byrgenwerth is an in-story example. When you finally reach it after braving the Forbidden Woods, it's a single building, seemingly too small to be the great seat of learning you've heard much about to this point. You later find the other parts of it, notably the Lecture Hall and the Research Hall, [[spoiler:as part of the Nightmare areas]].
* DoesNotLikeGuns: Some of the weapons revealed in ''The Old Hunters'' specifically mention early Hunters who hated firearms, such as Simon, who Simon's Bowblade is named for, and Simple Gratia, the Hunter who instead opted to punch beasts with a giant hunk of iron rather than use the firearms she was completely hopeless with.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** The Foreign Set is oddly similar to some of UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla's clothing.
** The game itself feels like a Victorian Era ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' game, with all the blood and monsters along with a BFS that's incredibly popular to players because of its good scaling.
* DoorToBefore: EVERYWHERE. The level design uses fewer checkpoints and many more shortcuts back to earlier areas than previous ''Souls'' games. It's often possible to have a shortcut leading straight to the boss of an area right next to the save point for the beginning of that area.
* DreamEmergencyExit: The "Yharnam Sunrise" ending [[spoiler: has you die only to awake alive back in Yharnam as the sun rises, implying that the entire game is nothing more than a dream]].
* DreamLand: Many of the settings in ''Bloodborne'' [[spoiler:(possibly even ''[[AllJustADream the entire GAME]]'')]] take place in various dream and nightmare realms evocative of H.P. Lovecraft's Dream-Cycle.
** The Hunter's Dream is a fantastical replica of the Abandoned Workshop, kept in pristine condition away from the rotting touch of time [[spoiler:and created by the Moon Presence]]. This is the only safe place in the entire game [[spoiler:before you have to fight Gehrman]] and acts as the player's hub for the game.
** The Nightmare Frontier is a vast, canyon-like nightmare filled with various Silverbeasts and yeti-like monsters [[spoiler:that is theorized by fans to be what remains of the lost civilization of Loran, which was pulled into the Nightmare by the Great Ones in the same vein as Yharnam is during the game]].
** The Nightmare of Mensis is a nightmare realm created when the School of Mensis and their leader, Micolash, contacted the Great Ones and had their minds pulled into the Nightmare. [[spoiler:Their mummified corpses are found by the Hunter earlier in the game.]]
** The Hunter's Nightmare is a [[{{Hell}} Hellish]]-realm [[spoiler:created by the now-dead Kos/Kosm to punish the Old Hunters of Byrgenwerth]]. Those who become drunk on blood are trapped in the lower levels of the Nightmare, a canyon-like mockery of Yharnam with a river of blood [[spoiler:that leads to the monstrous Ludwig the Accursed]]. Found in a secret gateway [[spoiler:in the Astral Clocktower, guarded by the Hunter Maria, is the Fishing Hamlet preserved in time where the dead Kos and her orphaned child dwell]].
* DreamWithinADream: If the events of the game are AllJustADream, then the Hunter's Dream and the Nightmare Frontier/Nightmare of Mensis are a DreamWithinADream.
** At a certain point in the game, you can find Gehrman asleep in the back garden of the Hunter's Dream having a nightmare.
* DreamsVsNightmares: The game is a [[CosmicHorrorStory Lovecraftian]] take on this trope: You play a HunterOfMonsters based in the PocketDimension of the Hunter's Dream, who invades the pocket dimensions created by the nightmares of undead {{Eldritch Abomination}}s (one in the main game, and a different one in the DLC), ostensibly, to stop the curse they put over Yharnam. However, while the Hunter's Dream ''looks'', at first glance, like the GoodCounterpart to Mergo's and Kos' nightmare worlds, it is eventually revealed that [[spoiler:it is likewise the domain of a Great One, the Moon Presence (or the Doll, depending on your interpretation of the game), who just happens to favor peace and quiet unlike the other two, but is otherwise just as removed from human morals as them]].
* DrivenToMadness: Happens to nearly everyone who is still alive in Yharnam once [[spoiler:the moon turns red]].
** And it's implied that [[spoiler:it happens to your Hunter by the end of the game if you refuse Gehrman's offer to release you from the Hunter's Dream. It doesn't help that every time you experience something horrifying or otherworldly, your ''Insight'' grows]].
* DropTheHammer:
** The Kirkhammer definitely qualifies, since it has a head the size of the player character's torso, and it features a detachable hilt with a silver longsword in it.
** The Boom Hammer acts as one, but with a built-in miniature furnace, allowing for flaming explosions.
* DualBoss: The Witch of Hemwick is this, though the second Witch doesn't appear until the first is at around half health. They each spawn nightmarish creatures that do most of the fighting for them. They also cloak themselves and teleport around whenever they aren't summoning {{Mook}}s. If one dies and the other isn't killed fast enough, the first will get back up with some more HP.
** To be more specific, the second Witch ''is'' present for the whole fight, but her health bar doesn't show up, making it likely that you won't even be aware that you've hit her. Additionally, she doesn't make obvious signs of her presence such as bright red lights until the first Witch has been killed once. As such, running into her is entirely by luck until she makes her presence known.
* DuelBoss: Father Gascoigne, who is a Hunter himself and even uses the Hunter Axe and the Pistol (which functions more like the Blunderbuss -- aka a Dragoon -- for some reason), both of which are potentially your starting weapons.
** [[spoiler:Gehrman, The First Hunter, is also one, though the player can choose not to fight him.]]
** Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower in the ''Old Hunters'' [=DLC=] is another one.
** [[spoiler:The Orphan of Kos is a ''very'' twisted variant.]]
* DumpStat: Of all the six stats, Endurance. This is because Stamina is really efficient here, and a number of weapons are best when you have high stats in two different stats.
* EarlyGameHell: ''Bloodborne'' is popularly considered to have the hardest first area out of all the ''Souls'' franchise. Enemies roam around in groups and most can use speedy combos that can kill you in a few hits.
** On the other hand, you receive some of the better starting weaponry in the franchise, once you visit the Hunter’s Dream for the first time.
** What ''really'' makes it hurt is that you can't level up until you acquire Insight, because the Doll doesn't come to life until you have at least one point. This means either finding a Madman's Knowledge or ''running into a boss'' before you can improve your stats (though you don't have to ''defeat'' the boss in question). There are two possibilities for running into a boss at the start of the game. One boss is on a bridge behind a pair of werewolves, who move faster and hit ''much'' harder than anything you face up to that point, and given the narrow confines, you ''will'' draw aggro on them. That's the ''easy'' option. The other is [[WakeUpCallBoss Father Gascoigne]].
* EldritchAbomination: There are a number of cryptic references to eldritch entities called Great Ones, [[spoiler:several of which can be fought as bosses. Consuming three of the One Third of Umbilical Cords will allow you to fight the Moon Presence, the creature responsible for controlling the nightly hunts]].
* EldritchLocation: The Nightmare Frontier, and the other Nightmares traversed throughout the game. The Old Hunters DLC is notable in that it takes place entirely within a Nightmare that starts off as [[DarkWorld a hellish reflection of Yharnam]] and eventually leads into [[spoiler:a fishing hamlet that is in fact situated in the sky ''above'' the Yharnam reflection]].
** [[spoiler:The Lecture Building has somehow been made adrift somewhere in the Nightmare, presumably as a result of eldritch experimentation.]]
** The Chalice Dungeons. There's some implication that time isn't flowing linearly in them or that it's necessarily aligned with the timeline of the rest of the world, what with you encountering people and creatures that honestly should be long gone but are still very much alive and kicking. To say nothing about how some of them even change shape (to justify the procedural generation of the Root Chalice dungeons).
* EldritchOceanAbyss: The ocean is one of the [[EldritchAbomination Great Ones']] preferred homebases, particularly of the one known as Mother Kos. In ''The Old Hunters'' DLC, you actually get to visit the [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth Innsmouth]]-like Fishing Hamlet where Kos washed ashore in the backstory and even find her NotQuiteDead corpse.
* EquipmentBasedProgression: Largely averted; while there are other weapons to get in the later areas of the game, the starter weapons are more than enough to get a player through to the endgame. Other weapons are basically just there for the players' personal playstyles and their choice of aesthetics.
* EquipmentUpgrade: The real crux of ''Bloodborne''’s progression are the upgrades through Bloodstones and Blood Gems; any weapon can be upgraded to their endgame levels if given enough Bloodstones and Blood Echoes.
* EveryProperLadyShouldCurtsy: One of the gestures, which you get after rescuing Arianna.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Forsaken Castle Cainhurst is close enough to Yharnam that it can be seen from Hemwick Charnel Lane, but the ground there is covered in snow and your character's breath fogs as they walk around it.
* EvilIsVisceral: The School of Mensis has the most gruesome motifs, and being as its ''modus operandi'' is kidnapping people as fodder for their rituals, it's by far the most malevolent faction in the game. [[spoiler:Their headquarters in the Hidden Village of Yahar'gul is home to BodyOfBodies creatures, most notably The One Reborn, and the walls of Mergo's Loft are lined with eyes and guarded by a giant, rotten disembodied brain that's ''also'' lined with eyes.]]
* EvilVsEvil: While they were once united, [[spoiler:the Byrgenwerth College and the Healing Church went their separate ways long before the start of the game. The upper echelons of the Healing Church itself, the School of Mensis, and the Choir, have also split by the time of the game and each pursue their own, different means of ascension. They don't like each other much. When you travel to the Unseen Village post-Blood Moon, you'll find the ground littered with the corpses of Church Hunters, suggesting that the Choir tried and failed to stop Mensis' ritual.]]
* {{Expy}}: The Pthumerians are a long-dead civilization of tall humanoid people who wielded the now-forgotten art of fire magic, both as a weapon and as a means of gaining immortality, which in turn has rendered them into a shambling horde of mindless undead beings. Sounds an awful lot like the gods of Lordran from ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI''.
* ExtranormalInstitute: Byrgenwerth College, where the nightmare began.
* ExpansionPack: ''The Old Hunters'', which was originally supposed to be two separate DLC packs.
* EyesDoNotBelongThere: The descriptions of [[spoiler:the Eye Caryll Rune, Great One's Wisdom, the One Third of Umbilical Cords, and the rantings of Micolash and the fake Iosefka]] imply that gaining Insight causes eyes to grow on a person's brain. Whether this is literal or metaphorical is never clarified (though considering the Brain of Mensis, it might actually be the former), but it's undoubtedly true that the more Insight you have, the more one can see through the illusion that the Great Ones have cast upon the world.
** Certain enemies also have many, ''many'' eyes, either by default or when they start appearing once you gain enough Insight.
** The massive building in the Nightmare of Mensis has eyes coming out of the floor, the walls and the ceiling. There's even eyeball ''spiders'' that are pinned to the floor/wall/whatever.
* EyeScream: Many of the Healing Church-associated characters wear bandages over their eyes, with indications that they've possibly enucleated themselves or outright carved their eyes out to attain inner sight. The enucleation angle is supported by the spinning eyeball of a Huntsman in the cinematic trailer,[[note]]meaning that while the eye is intact, it's disconnected from the muscles and optic nerve[[/note]] while the outright removal of eyes is supported by the inhabitants of Hemwick Charnel Lane, the Eye Collector enemies as well as the jars of eyeballs found scattered about in certain levels.
** The item needed to enter the Hunter's Nightmare is the "Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter", which has a [[HellishPupils collapsed pupil]].
** The Orphan of Kos wields what appears to be ''[[UpToEleven a PLACENTA covered with a cluster of them]]''.
* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: Everything that's happened in Yharnam is due to [[spoiler:the Great Ones' attempts to create more of their kind through the use of humans. You fight two of these victims; Rom, the Vacuous Spider, and Mergo's Wet Nurse. The Celestial Children and the stillborn fetuses that compose the Red Jelly Chalice Dungeon item are also the products of Great Ones mating with humans, a practice that evidently dates back to the Pthumerians.]] Both the Childhood's Beginning and Honoring Wishes endings [[spoiler:make this happen to you, but just what happens to you changes]].
* FantasticVermin: "Vermin" refers to tiny parasitic creatures that infect the bloodstream. They're invisible except to a certain magical vision, but are theorized to manifest themselves in the "slow poison" status effect within gameplay. The League has discovered the vermin and hunts down infected humans and creatures, collecting and destroying the vermin in their blood.
* FantasyKitchenSink: Pretty much every single monster from GothicHorror exists in ''Bloodborne's'' setting, including countless varieties of [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent werebeasts]], [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolves]], [[OurGargoylesRock gargoyles]], [[WitchClassic witches]], [[OurMagesAreDifferent sorcerers]], [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], [[RevenantZombie revenants]], [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]], [[ArtificialHuman Frankenstein]]-[[FleshGolem esque]] [[ArtificialZombie humanoids]], [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]], and [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons]], all intermixed with ''Bloodborne'''s take on the more human antagonists ubiquitous to Gothic settings like [[CorruptChurch evil corrupt clergy]], [[MadScientist mad scientists]], [[TownWithADarkSecret hostile townspeople]] with TorchesAndPitchforks (plus rifles, swords, axes, flamethrowers...), and [[KnifeNut violent]] [[ReligionOfEvil blade-wielding]] [[{{Cult}} cultists]]. Then there are the [[EldritchAbomination Great Ones]] (the source of many of the aforementioned monsters), Cthulhu-esque aliens straight out of a CosmicHorrorStory. ''Then'' there are other creatures (most, but not all, also linked in-universe to the Great Ones) dumped in from other genres seemingly at random, like [[AllTrollsAreDifferent trolls]], [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mermaids]], [[OurHydrasAreDifferent hydras]], [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaurs]], [[OurLichesAreDifferent liches]], [[OurGiantsAreBigger giants]], [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti yetis]], ''The Fly''-esque half-insect half-human abominations, [[BigCreepyCrawlies giant spiders and scorpions]], TheGrays, [[FleshGolem flesh golems]], [[OurZombiesAreDifferent conventional zombies]], and so on.
* FinalBoss: The main game has three of them; [[spoiler:Mergo's Wet Nurse]] is the last plot-mandated boss you have to face if you [[spoiler:choose to "Submit Your Life" in the Hunter's Dream]], but [[spoiler:choosing to "Refuse"]] results in [[spoiler:Gehrman]] acting as the last boss. [[spoiler:[[GuideDangIt But if you consumed at least three of the One Third of Umbilical Cord items]] before choosing "Refuse" and defeat Gehrman, you will then face the TrueFinalBoss, The Moon Presence.]]
* FindTheCure: People journey to Yharnam in search of a medical remedy that once made the city famous: a {{Panacea}} said to cure any illness. The protagonist is one of those foreigners, seeking a cure for their own disease. Unfortunately, it seems Yharnam itself is in dire need of a few panaceas already, as most of the folk have been mutated into beasts by the plague.
* FireBreathingWeapon: One of the firearms is the Flamesprayer, a compact one-handed flamethrower.
* FlashStep: Using the Old Hunter Bone Hunter Tool boosts your rolling and quickstep speed significantly, changing the animation to make it look like you're teleporting. The description of said Tool also mentions a technique used by the first Hunters called the Art of Quickening, [[spoiler:which Gehrman uses during the boss fight against him]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** An InterfaceSpoiler example; the game itself starts off as a Gothic Horror game with beasts and such in a Victorian setting, but [[spoiler: a consumable item called '''Madman's''' Knowledge mentions Insight, or inhuman knowledge. And this is ''before'' meeting a seemingly out-of-place {{Cthulhumanoid}} {{Mook}} in an area filled mostly with deranged villagers and werebeasts.]]
** In ''The Old Hunters'', upon finding the Whirligig Saw, a strange, pale mollusk-like creature will suddenly fall from the sky. [[spoiler:Looking down into the sea from the Fishing Hamlet reveals that the Hamlet is actually above The Hunter's Nightmare, trapped behind a barrier.]] This reveal itself is also foreshadowed in some of the Rune descriptions, specifically those that ask the user to [[spoiler:look above their heads, up to the cosmos]].
** Upon inspecting the apparent corpse of [[spoiler:Lady Maria]], she tells you that "A corpse... should be left well alone." Sure enough, the DLC ends with [[spoiler:you finding the corpse of Kos (or some say Kosm), and having to face off against her orphaned child]]. Maybe you really should've taken her advice...
** Early on in Central Yharnam, just past the Huntsman's Minion banging away at the gate, one can hear the music box that the Young Girl is playing, albeit very faintly. Just as this comes within earshot, the player character walks up a staircase, and at the top of it is a baby carriage. [[spoiler: This is a bit of subtle foreshadowing for Mergo, as the music box is playing a fragmented version of the "Lullaby for Mergo" song from the soundtrack.]]
** An out of the way room in the second floor of the Lecture Hall has two notes cryptically saying "The nameless moon presence that was beckoned by Byrgenwerth" and "Three third cords". These refer, respectively, to [[spoiler: the TrueFinalBoss and the items needed to access it]].
* ForDoomTheBellTolls: Mysterious witches called Bell-Ringing Women appear throughout the Unseen Village (they also appear if you're ringing a bell for assistance from another player, or sometimes in Chalice Dungeons, but the Unseen Village is their main playground). Their bell-ringing summons up and strengthens enemies, and for the final area of the Unseen Village, they combine their powers to summon up The One Reborn.
* FullHealthBonus: There's a class of blood gems (that can be [[SocketedEquipment kneaded into weapons]]) that boost your damage output while you are at maximum health. However, given that this is a {{soulslike|RPG}} and you lose health at the drop of a hat, this bonus only matters for the opening attack of an encounter, or if you are really, really good at dodging and parrying.
* FunctionalMagic: While the game itself doesn't call them magical outright, the Hunter Tools are basically Bloodborne's version of Device Magic that allows for the use of various supernatural powers through the use of these items. The Caryll Runes could also be considered a form of Rule Magic as they are the language of the Great Ones that grants strength to Hunters that etch the Runes into their minds. Blood Gems, Bloodstone Shards/Chunks, Blood Rocks and Blood Echoes could be considered a form of BloodMagic and/or GreenRocks that the Hunters use to enhance their weaponry and themselves.
** The Accursed Brew: Allows you to throw a concoction of curses at foes.
** The Beast Roar: Allows you to unleash a loud roar that repels nearby foes and objects, particularly projectiles.
** The Blacksky Eye: Allows you to fire small meteor-shaped arcane blasts.
** The Empty Phantasm Shell: Allows you to enchant Arcane damage to your weapon for a time, if applicable.
** The Executioner's Gloves: Allows you to summon three wrathful spirits that lock onto a target.
** The Old Hunter Bone: Allows you to briefly utilize the Art of Quickening; it drastically speeds up your rolls and quicksteps. Basically, it grants it's user the ability to FlashStep.
** The Tiny Tonitrus: Allows you to unleash blue lightning strikes that go forwards in front of you.
** The Choir Bell: Allows you to heal and remove various status afflictions within the area of effect. Also affects allies.
** The Augur of Ebrietas: Allows you to summon multiple tentacles from your hand in order to knock back a foe or otherwise open them up for a Visceral Attack.
** The Madaras Whistle: Allows you to summon a giant and very hungry snake to take a big bite out the spot you've used it. Get out of Dodge before you get hurt.
** The Messenger's Gift: Allows you to transform yourself into a Messenger. Perfect for fooling Adversaries into thinking you aren't there, therefore letting you get the drop on them.
** A Call Beyond: Allows you to summon a small, but gloriously bright nova with multiple homing Arcane projectiles.
** The Caryll Runes: Typically these Runes just enhance the Hunters' abilities, but two of the Runes allow their users to transform into a either a Beast (via Beast's Embrace) or a Lumenwood (via Milkweed).
** Blood Gems, Bloodstone Shards/Chunks, Blood Rocks and Blood Echoes: Blood Gems are typically used by the Hunters to enhance their weapons with a variety of effects, such as inflicting Slow or Rapid Poison build-up per strike, empowering what blunt force trauma they can inflict, or by improving certain key gameplay elements -- such as better Rally, dealing extra damage to Beasts or Kin, or costing less stamina for anything -- although let it be known that some of these Blood Gems may come with "Cursed" effects, which may negatively influence a Hunter's or their weapons' capabilities in return for their added power. Bloodstone Shards/Chucks, Blood Rocks and Blood Echoes are typically used to upgrade or repair the Hunters' weapons as well as create Blood Gem Imprints onto the weapon to allow for the kneading of said Blood Gems.
* GainaxEnding: All three endings have varying degrees of MindScrew, depending on how much of the game's lore you've gleaned.
** Yharnam Sunrise: [[spoiler:How was Gehrman able to release you from the nightmare by killing you? Was it all just a dream?]]
** Honoring Wishes: [[spoiler:What the hell came down from the moon? Why has it turned you into the next Watcher of the Hunter's Dream? What ''is'' the Hunter's Dream, really?]]
** Childhood's Beginning: [[spoiler:Why did the Moon Presence make a pact with humans to hunt the other Great Ones? Are you the next of the Great Ones? Is this the eventual fate of all of humanity? What will happen to the Eldritch Realm now?]]
* GameBreakingBug: It wouldn't be a From game without them.
** Before the 1.02 hotfix patch, using either the Small Resonating Bell (for co-op) or the Sinister Resonating Bell (for invading) while in the Forbidden Woods would make the Lunarium Key not spawn in Byrgenwerth College, locking you out of the boss fight against Rom.
** Some of the elevators can glitch out and become unusable, most notably the one at the Altar of Despair. The elevator will stay at the bottom of the shaft and the return lever up top will either be non-operational or you can use it but the elevator won't move. Most elevators are shortcuts, meaning that if they break, it's highly annoying, but not impassible; the Altar of Despair's elevator, however, is the only way to reach it's boss, so when it breaks, you can never fight that boss again on your own. They finally fixed it in the 1.03 patch.
** The Isz Root Chalice Dungeons table can be easily glitched into only generating 32 of the 200 layout variants on the table. The specifics behind it is unknown, but it thought to be tied to how much loot you collect in all the Isz-type Chalice Dungeons.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Like the previous ''Souls'' games, all player deaths and subsequent checkpoint revivals are canon, and there is an in-story explanation for the mechanic. Here, it's because the contract you signed at the beginning binds you as a Hunter, and so no matter how many times you die, the Messengers will resurrect you at the nearest lamp until the Hunt is finished.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Despite the above however, certain enemies are, storywise, fully capable of severing the connection between the Hunter and the Hunter's Dream, which ''should'' disable their ResurrectiveImmortality. [[spoiler:Namely, Gehrman and the Moon Presence.]] Yet even when the player dies to these enemies, they can still resurrect and retry again.
* GangstaStyle: All Hunters fire the Evelyn this way.
* GaslampFantasy: Due to the merging of DarkFantasy with the GothicHorror and Victorian aesthetics of Yharnam. [[spoiler:Later turns out to be a CosmicHorrorStory as well.]]
* GatlingGood: Not if you're on the receiving end of the barrels. As soon as you step foot in Old Yharnam, the Retired Hunter Djura will call out to you to stay back, or he will be forced to stop you. Should you ignore his warnings ([[TemptingFate after all, what could that old guy at the top of that tower possibly throw at you?]]), he'll promptly start to mow you down with hot lead from atop the old clocktower, and [[GunsAreWorthless in stark contrast to the rest of the game's firearms]], his mounted Gatling gun will kill and/or stunlock you fast, turning the rest of the area into a running-from-cover-to-cover hunt. [[spoiler:The entire encounter can be resolved peacefully should you approach the area through another level's shortcut later in the game and walk up to Djura unseen.]]
** ''The Old Hunters'' DLC adds a portable, if rather heavy, version of the Gatling gun similar to the one Djura was seen using.
* GenderedOutfit: Mostly averted (both male and female characters can run around in a frilly dress), except for the Black and White Church sets (coats for males, robes for females), the Knight's set (vest and coat for males, dress-like vest and skirt for females), and the Yharnam Hunter set (BadassLongcoat with an open front for males, closed trenchcoat/apron-like garment with a upper-body cape for females).
* GenreShift: A story example. The game starts out as a GothicHorror story, but about halfway through it shifts [[spoiler:to a CosmicHorrorStory]].
* GetBackHereBoss: Micolash. Justified, since he isn't armed or mutated like most of the other bosses you fight, [[spoiler:not to mention he ''really'' doesn't want to leave the Nightmare, and it's knowledge, behind]]. He only attacks you directly (with Arcane attacks) at the end of the fight, and will spend a good chunk of it making you chase him down hallways before then.
* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Whoever's in charge of the prison in Yahar'gul doesn't seem to take many measure to escapes. They let prisoners keep all their gear, and don't even bother locking the cells they put them into.
* GiantSpider:
** The Amygdala, a 30-foot tall spider-beast with a squid-like head and 20 eyes, was seen hanging off the side of a building in the distance during the Alpha build, and is fought on foot.
** Rom, the Vacuous Spider, is a bloated insect closer to a queen larva coated in mist and fires Arcane icicles at you, though she is accompanied by several human-sized spiders.
** There are also literal giant spiders as enemies, and a giant spider miniboss bigger than the regular giant spiders serving as an early opponent in the Nightmare of Mensis.
* GiganticMoon: The moon seems way too big to begin with, and over the course of the game, it seems to get even closer/bigger. This is eventually revealed to be [[spoiler:an effect of an EldritchAbomination known as the "Moon Presence" taking a keen interest in the town of Yharnam, only being kept at bay by another Great One for a time]].
* AGlitchInTheMatrix: The Abandoned Workshop [[spoiler:is the spitting image of the Hunter's Dream, just with fewer gravestones. You can even find a chest with a copy of the Doll's set of clothes in it, and the lifeless Doll herself lying inside... ''tapping her finger'']].
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Insight represents the player character's otherworldly and eldritch knowledge. It is gained by seeing and slaying bosses, collecting the skulls of those who had said knowledge, or from seeing certain places. [[spoiler:Having too much of it causes strange effects and makes certain enemies stronger.]] Related to this is the Frenzy effect, which builds up as your character witnesses things that are so horrifying and unknowable, it literally ''makes their heads burst from madness''. And the more Insight you have, the weaker your Frenzy resistance.
* GoodVersusGood: One possible interpretation for the battle against the FinalBoss. [[spoiler:Gehrman is fighting the Hunter not out of malice, but simply to free them from the Dream, and because he has no wish to let another person suffer his fate. Meanwhile, the Hunter could be opting to fight Gehrman for the express purpose of freeing ''him'' from the Dream he so desperately wishes to escape from. On that note, the final battle of the game is a case of two people fighting each other for each other's sake.]]
* GoOutWithASmile: After you kill Mergo's Wet Nurse, the baby EldritchAbomination it was guarding screams and cries as it dies. However, if you play the tiny music box, the baby will laugh instead.
* GothicPunk: The game has a very Gothic-Victorian Era feel likened to the Jack the Ripper era of Victorian London.
* GovernmentConspiracy: The Choir, a shadowy organization who control the Healing Church and thus Yharnam itself. They want to use the blood of the Great Ones to gain higher knowledge of the cosmos and transcend their human bodies, and pursue this goal with inhuman enthusiasm by performing ghastly experiments on other human beings, including children, which turn them into deformed monstrosities.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Formless Oedon is implied to be responsible for the Nightmare, but he never even appears in the game, having long ago transcended beyond the need for a physical body.
* GreyRainOfDepression: The Fishing Hamlet is shrouded by a constant downpour, fitting for one of the bleakest, most difficult areas in the whole game.
* GuideDangIt: It is a ''Souls'' SpiritualSuccessor, after all.
** Getting all the Hunter Badges is no easy feat, but each Badge unlocks more items for the player to use.
*** The Saw Hunter Badge is found in Central Yharnam.
*** The Sword Hunter Badge is received by killing the Cleric Beast.
*** The Powder Keg Hunter Badge is in Old Yharnam on Retired Hunter Djura.
*** The Crow Hunter Badge is received by finishing Eileen's questline or by killing her.
*** The Radiant Sword Hunter Badge is found in the Healing Church Workshop.
*** The Spark Hunter Badge is received by killing Darkbeast Paarl.
*** The Cainhurst Badge is received by joining the Cainhurst Vilebloods Covenant.
*** The Wheel Hunter Badge is received by finishing Alfred's questline or by killing him.
*** The Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge is found in the Upper Cathedral Ward.
*** The Old Hunter Badge is received by [[spoiler:killing Gehrman]].
** Certain weapons have hidden damage bonuses:
*** Serrated Weapons, all of which have a flat 20% damage bonus against Beast-type enemies. The weapons in question being the normal mode of the Saw Cleaver, both modes of the Saw Spear and the tricked mode of the Threaded Cane. ''The Old Hunters'' also adds the Beast Cutter and the Whirligig Saw, with both of them retaining the damage bonus in both of their modes.
*** Righteous Weapons, which have a varying damage bonus against Unrighteous-type enemies[[note]]namely, four enemy types found in Forsaken Castle Cainhurst, three of which can be found elsewhere in the Chalice Dungeons[[/note]]. The normal mode of the Threaded Cane has a 20% bonus, both forms of Logarius' Wheel have a 30% bonus, and the normal mode of the Kirkhammer and both forms of Ludwig's Holy Blade have a 50% bonus. ''The Old Hunters'' also adds the Holy Moonlight Sword, with both of its forms having a 50% damage bonus.
*** The Church Pick is a special case as it has a built in effect to its Thrusting attacks (which is every attack in its transformed mode) that does 20% more damage to enemies vulerable to Beast Hunter damage (normally only available via Beast Hunter blood gems, this includes enemies that vulerable to Serrated damage plus many more) and/ or Righteous damage. This set it apart from the more typical Serrated and Righteous weapons because unlike them the bonus only applies to certain attacks, while all other Serrated and Righteous weapons have the bonus to all attacks in one or both of their forms.
** The Graveguard set is found by jumping the cliff with the Celestial Children underneath on the other side within the Forbidden Woods.
* GunsAreWorthless: Zigzagged. The firearms found in the game are on par with Victorian Era firearms technology, but ammunition is limited, and they are deliberately weaker than the Trick Weapons, being used to make riposte openings instead: Miyazaki wanted to make sure the players wouldn't just use guns the entire game. However, while they lack the damage of melee weapons, they do have enough stopping power to make even bosses stagger. ''However again'', there are the odd few firearms that actually ''do'' deal a good chunk of damage, and anything used by enemies will be ''painful'', since they either [[TheGunslinger focus on firearms]] or don't plan for ripostes [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard and compensate by doing far more damage with them than your firearms will ever do]].
** To be specific, shotguns like the Hunter Blunderbuss, Rifle Spear and Ludwig's Rifle have low individual bullet damage, but their wider spread makes up for it. Pistols, on the other hand, like the Hunter Pistol, Repeater Pistol, the Reiterpallasch and the Evelyn, trade this spread for more damage and a quicker draw. The stranger ones like the Flamesprayer and the Rosmarinus have a DPS kind of damage output and thus require a steady stream of ammo. The two Cannons, while powerful, consume the most ammo out of the entire arsenal per shot, Hunter Tools and all. And the Gatling Gun, though its rapid fire and decent damage are very effective, is absolutely ravenous with the bullets.
* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The first third of the game is about hunting down beasts strewn about Yharnam in search of something called "Paleblood", with strong GothicHorror elements. The second third is about branching away from Yharnam and out into the wilderness surrounding the city, where the game takes on a more FolkHorror, TorchesAndPitchforks approach. The final third of the game [[spoiler: is about tracking down the Paleblood's location, trapped within the dream dimensions of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and firmly lands in the realm of cosmic horror]]. Interestingly, the ''Old Hunters'' DLC acts as a microcosm of this plot progression, beginning in the Hunter's Nightmare (a twisted version of Yharnam), continuing into the Research Hall (styled after the labs of [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} Victor Frankenstein]]), and ending in [[spoiler: the [[LovecraftCountry Fishing Hamlet]]]].
* HandCannon: What some of the most powerful pistols arguably are, especially with high Bloodtinge: the Evelyn, the Repeating Pistol, and [[UnusableEnemyEquipment Gascoigne's Dragoon,]] [[spoiler:not to mention Gehrman's Modified Blunderbuss]].
* HandicappedBadass: Some of the [=NPC=] Hunters, like Father Gascoigne and Retired Hunter Djura, bandage or possibly remove their eyes, likely due to gathering too much Insight for them to handle.
** Gehrman may have lost his right foot, [[spoiler:but he can still kick your ass six ways from Sunday if you refuse to leave the Hunter's Dream when given the choice]].
* HauntedCastle: Forsaken Cainhurst Castle.
* HealingPotion: What the Blood Vials are used for. You will be using them a ''lot''.
* HealItWithBlood: Hunters heal themselves with blood vials, which contain special blood that heal the player by 40% of their max health. Considering how ''[[NintendoHard brutally difficult]]'' this game is, you better stock up on these vials (after all, this game is made by [[Creator/FromSoftware the same minds]] behind ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'').
* {{Hell}}: As hellish as Yharnam and the dream realms are, [[spoiler:the Hunter's Nightmare]] is the closest to an ''actual'' Hell. [[spoiler:Various monsters and enemies found there were either taken to or ended up wandering into it after becoming blood-drunk as punishment for the Old Hunters' misdeeds at the Fishing Hamlet by the Great One Kos. Many of the characters found there are those who have been presumed missing or dead during the main ''Bloodborne'' storyline, and the blood river that leads to Ludwig the Accursed even possesses allusions to the blood river found in Naraka, the Hindu/Buddhist Hell.]]
* HellIsWar: Replace "war" with "the Hunt" (which is probably worse) and then you have the Hunter's Nightmare.
* HellIsThatNoise:
** The Cleric Beast's screaming cry.
** The Carrion Crow's demonic cawing. So '''fucking''' loud!
** All the ambient sounds: Odd mutterings, random growling, the random crying baby...
** Vicar Amelia's agonized screaming is sure to linger with you once the fight is done.
** [[spoiler:The Orphan of Kos]] is almost weeping throughout its boss fight, making it even more disturbing than it already is.
** The screaming and gibbering of the Research Hall Patients, which sounds less like those of monsters and more like human beings in agony.
** The alien, off-key singing of the Winter Lanterns, which you hear long before you see the actual enemy.
* HeroesPreferSwords: Two Healing Church Trick Weapons have a silver longsword that also works as a handle connecting them to their tricked forms; they are what makes the previously mentioned Kirkhammer and Ludwig's Holy Blade whole.
** ''The Old Hunters'' adds the Church Pick and the Holy Moonlight Sword to their arsenal -- with the latter more so than the former.
* HiddenVillain: [[spoiler:The Moon Presence, whose existence is only vaguely alluded to in the description of a single item that's very difficult to find, before it shows up in the ending to either make you its servant or fight you to the death.]]
* HighClassGlass: True to the Victorian setting, it's possible to give your character a monocle during creation.
* HistoryRepeats: [[spoiler:Yharnam was not the first and will probably not be the last to suffer the Scourge of Beasts and inevitable tampering with the Great Ones. Before it came Loran, now buried by sand storms and overrun by powerful beasts, and before them came ancient Pthumeru.]]
* {{Homage}}: The overall design of Hemwick Charnel Lane seems to be heavily influenced by the opening village level of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4''.
* HourglassPlot: This is one possible interpretation. [[spoiler:Once you've made the CosmicHorrorReveal, [[EldritchAbomination the Great Ones]] become these alien, unknowable ''things'' that barely even seem to register the fact that they're literally crawling on top of the city of Yharnam. Even the occasional one that pays you enough attention to try to pick you up seem to regard you with roughly the same significance as you would a bug. As you progress, however, you learn that the Great Ones are generally sympathetic in spirit: Rom tries to ''protect'' mankind from ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow that would make them GoMadFromTheRevelation; Ebrietas tries to teach mankind about the secrets of the cosmos in a way that won't ruin them; the Wet Nurse attempts to help humanity transcend and become godlike in their own right, which would also fulfill the Great Ones' desire to sire descendants, and the Brain of Mensis just wants to be left alone. Mankind, in return, kill Rom precisely ''because'' they wish to discover what secrets she's been keeping from them, they become {{Mad Scientist}}s and ChurchMilitant {{Sinister Minister}}s who abuse Ebrietas' gifts in order to oppress each other and [[TranshumanTreachery transcend their own humanity,]] they launch a hunt to kill the Wet Nurse's protégé, and capture, experiment upon, enslave and finally butcher the Brain of Mensis. The real turning point in the story is arguably when Amygdala, who tries to play her traditional role completely straight, ends up with a lethal case of [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu Cthulhu Breaking Her Arms]] [[RussianReversal Punching Out A Human]], and it culminates with the Moon Presence, who's possibly trying to free humanity of the Great Ones' influence [[WellIntentionedExtremist by exterminating its own kind]], finding itself on the receiving end of the extermination once a human has discovered a way to usurp the Great Ones by becoming Great Ones themselves. That's right, in this story, [[HumansAreCthulhu humans can end up being, quite literally, Cthulhu]] ''to Cthulhu''; putting aside the few case of BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu described earlier in this page, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans are a race which can exploit, betray and exterminate a race of Lovecraftian aliens for no greater or knowable reason than simply because]] ''[[ForTheEvulz we can.]]'']]
* HufflepuffHouse: The Cainhurst Vilebloods. They're an old enemy to the Healing Church and have similar goals as to what it and its branches in the Choir and School of Mensis are trying to accomplish. However, they were effectively wiped out by the Healing Church's Executioners some time before the game begins, and exploring their Castle is completely optional.
* HumansAreCthulhu: The Doll claims that the Messengers help the player because they love and ''worship'' Hunters. Given the idea of Gods in the game, the trope stays in-context.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: For all the monsters in the game, it's the humans who are responsible for most of Yharnam's problems by misusing power they were given in pursuit of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascension]]. [[spoiler: The Great Ones may be dangerous and alien, but they are "sympathetic in spirit", and it's the Byrgenwerth College and its derivatives that massacred the Fishing Hamlet, performed horrible experiments on Yharnam's citizens, and caused the scourge of beasts and the Blood Moon, all in order to make themselves Kin of the Great Ones. And all of this was ''entirely'' their own idea.]]
* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: The Hunter of Hunters Covenant consists of Hunters who hunt down other Hunters when they become intoxicated by their bloodlust, or in other words, 'blood-addled'.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Yharnamites disdain outsiders and the description of the Constable's Set ([[spoiler: Valtr's clothing]]) states that they enjoy stories of pompous and ignorant foreigners getting into trouble because of it; and yet, Yharnam is currently barely holding together ceause a plague brought on by the Yharnamites' ignorant misuse of the Old Blood.]]
* ICannotSelfTerminate:
** [[spoiler:Gehrman]] wants to die so he can finally leave the Hunter's Dream, but refuses to kill himself because that would mean someone else would have to take his place.
** Some of the Patients in the Research Hall are so deformed and in such pain that they're unable to kill themselves, capable only of pleading for someone else to do it for them.
* IChooseToStay: In the ''Honoring Wishes'' and ''Childhood's Beginning'' endings, [[spoiler:the Hunter refuses to leave the Hunter's Dream, either to pledge themselves (or possibly being gang-pressed into service) to the Moon Presence or attempt to slay it]].
* IconicOutfit: The Workshop version of the Hunter's Set. While most of the promotional footage uses the version without the short cape, the very first CGI trailer released for the game used the version with it.
* IconicStarterEquipment: The player character is commonly shown wielding the Saw Cleaver and wearing the Hunter Set, the former being one of the choices of starter weapon, and the latter becoming available very early in the game.
* IaijutsuPractitioner: The transformed heavy attack of the katana-esque Chikage has the Hunter sheath the blade and redraw it. A unique quirk of the weapon also encourages the player to do this manually: normally, the tricked heavy attack [[CastFromHitPoints drains a large amount of the Hunter's health]], but combo-ing said heavy attack out of the transformation animation (which is sheathing and then redrawing the blade) is both faster and less taxing on health drain than normal.
* ImmortalProcreationClause: [[spoiler:The Great Ones are unable to have children and thus yearn for surrogates among humanity.]]
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Logarius' Wheel, the weapon of choice for the martyr Executioners Covenant. It's basically a torture method turned into a way of fighting. It works all the same.
* InMediasRes: The game doesn't tell you how you came to be in Yharnam or why. The opening is just a creepy doctor mentioning something about "Paleblood" and that you need an infusion of Yharnam blood to begin exploring the city's mysteries.
* InvisibleToNormals: [[spoiler:With high enough Insight or the blood of a Great One like Rom, you'll be able to see the giant Amygdalas clinging to the Cathedral Ward's spires.]]
* InUniverseGameClock: Event/plot-induced time advancement format. There are four time stages that permanently affect the world, and some quests, events and secrets are restricted to a specific stage. At the start of the game, it's sunset. Entering the Odeon Chapel triggers the Evening phase (lighting is slightly altered, [[spoiler: Iosefka is replaced by her impostor]], several questlines begin). Approaching the beast skull on the Cathedral altar triggers Night (the Forbidden Woods and beyond can be accessed). Approaching the apparition of [[spoiler: Queen Yharnam]] triggers the Blood Moon (everything goes crazy), which will stay up until the ending (which takes place in the Hunter's Dream).
* IronicHell: Hunters who become consumed by the Hunt and their own thirst for blood are sent to the Hunter's Nightmare, a distorted version of Yharnam where they'll be trapped in an unending Hunt that [[AndIMustScream not even death can offer them any reprieve from.]]
** [[spoiler:The Hunter's Dream is Gehrman's Ironic Hell; a quiet and peaceful version of his own Workshop where he'll be able to teach new Hunters the ropes, and where his only other company is a doll in the spitting image of his pupil Maria... but ThisIsntHeaven; The Doll isn't Maria, [[ExtremeDoormat it lacks]] [[ActionGirl her spark,]] and its likeness only serves as a reminder of Gehrman's past sins and failures, and even if the Workshop was his haven in the past and teaching the young ones was his greatest joy in life, this is where he'll be and what he'll do ''[[WhoWantsToLiveForever for the rest of eternity...]]'' by the time the game starts, it's heavily implied that Gehrman has already gone through ''hundreds'' of iterations of the Hunt, and he's grown to despise both the Workshop and The Doll. But if he were to ever give up his role as the Watcher of the Hunter's Dream, a new Hunter would have to take his place and become bound to it, [[SelfSacrificeScheme so he must kill all new Hunters that stumble into his Workshop in order to save them from the same hell he has suffered for so, so long.]]]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:J-P]]
* JigsawPuzzlePlot: In grand ''Souls'' tradition. While the overarching plot is relatively easy to identify, many of its specifics are deliberately left vague, and various plot elements remain open to interpretation. Anybody who claims to have a full understanding of what's going on in the game is missing the point entirely.
* KarmicTransformation: According to the Sword Hunter Badge, the clerics of the Healing Church, the CorruptChurch responsible for both the outbreak of the Scourge of Beasts and a [[KnightTemplar heavy-handed way of dealing with them]], tended to turn into the most hideous beasts of all.
* KillItWithFire: Beasts are particularly vulnerable against fire.
* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Boss fight victories usually end with the message "PREY SLAUGHTERED" flashing in green. [[spoiler:Killing Mergo's Wet Nurse, the Moon Presence, and (in the DLC) the Sweet Child of Kos nets you a red "NIGHTMARE SLAIN" instead.]]
* LastSecondEndingChoice: [[spoiler:Choosing to consume three pieces of Umbilical Cord will cut off the chance for one ending, and then another choice lies in accepting or refusing Gehrman's request.]]
* LeanAndMean: The beast plague elongates the limbs of those afflicted while remaining the same width, causing nearly all the beast-type enemies in the game to appear extremely thin and emaciated.
* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: Yahar'Gul stands out as the only non-boss area in the game that has any background music playing, which comes in the form of some ''very'' unsettling OminousLatinChanting. However, speaking to Sister Adella will confirm that the chanting is happening in-universe, as she can hear it too. And when you approach the gate to the heart of the Unseen Village, it gets louder.
* LethalJokeWeapon:
** The wooden shield, which, despite being a shield, barely blocks any damage and requires you to give up your gun for it. ...but it ''does'' block gunfire quite well, making it situationally useful in areas with a lot of gun-toting enemies. The Loch shield, on the other hand, doesn't block physical attacks very well, but it ''does'' block spells, meaning it's incredibly useful against arcane builds focused on spellcasting and some of the worst DemonicSpiders in the game.
** The Pebble, while it doesn't do any huge damage, since there's no such thing as poise, you can lob a pebble and knock enemies into a BottomlessPit if you timed it well. And if you think it cannot kill? Wrong. You can deliver a OneHitKill to [[spoiler:Yamamura and Brador]] with pebbles. CherryTapping to the finest.
** The Kos Parasite. Equipping it, you may note, does nothing but make you swing your arm around like an idiot. Equipping it while transformed into a Lumenwood, however, gives you the weapon's true power, turning it into a massively long-reaching arcane whip with some fantastic stats. This is, of course, having to contend with the Lumen's... erm.. uneasy movement abilities, so only very skilled players will be able to use it effectively. Even if you equip it without transforming, it ''does'' increase unarmed damage, and you can further raise its potentials with flat-damage Blood Gems and investing in Arcane scaling, making unarmed combat viable.
** The Amygdalan Arm seems initially like a slow, weird club you have to go through hell to get (fighting past the Gatling Hunter and a Blood-Starved Beast). But then you realize that it can stagger most enemies in its normal form (which you normally need to be using a two-handed weapon to do), and its basic moves strike down, making it good for killing enemies low to the ground (such as Spiders or Worms), plus it scales incredibly well with strength and as a blunt weapon has ''huge'' rally potential. And then you realize that its transformed version is a scythe with a ''huge'' range, and you might start using it regularly.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: The initial release was criticized for this; while transitioning between areas was seamless, the game still had annoyingly long load times when dying [[WarpWhistle or traveling to and from the Hunter's Dream]]. While the devs eventually found a way to shorten the load times (and also changed the loading screen to display random item descriptions to make the loading times more bearable), the fact that you have to travel to the Hunter's Dream to level up remains a bit of a hassle.
* LostInImitation: In-Universe, the Reiterpallasch's design was mimicked by the Powder Kegs in the form of the Rifle Spear.
* LostInTranslation: Quite a few things, apparently, mainly due to the original script being in Japanese, a language with a lexicon ranging from "multiple words for the same thing" to "specific concepts that are difficult-to-impossible to translate". Although in a vicious cycle, the Western lore hunters look to the Japanese script for answers, while the Japanese lore hunters do the same with the English script.
** One of the very first notes you get in the game, apparently written by your character to himself, is the "handwritten scrawl" note in Iosefka's Clinic. It says "Seek paleblood to transcend the Hunt." [[https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/b3bxzt/various_translations_of_seek_paleblood_to/ It can be more accurately translated as]] "Seek "''light bluish blood''" to ''complete'' the Hunt." This drastically changes the meaning in two ways. First, it makes it clear that your character doesn't ''know'' what "pale bluish blood" is, and was told to seek it by someone else. Second, it says that finding whatever that is will finish the Hunt, not "transcend" it. In context this transforms the note from a cryptic breadcrumb into a relatively straightforward goal for your character. [[http://soulslore.wikidot.com/bb-future-press-guide-interview Miyazaki]] confirmed in an interview that the "pale bluish blood" referred to the color of the sky after killing Rom, brought about by the Mensis Ritual and Mergo, and that you were supposed to put together the connection as "stopping this ritual will stop the scourge." Not only that, but the Japanese version specifically calls the note an [[NoteToSelf autograph]], making it clearer that you wrote it to yourself.
** The game revolves around an extreme version of the Japanese concept of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegare kegare]]'' — spiritual filth/corruption/uncleanliness brought about by natural things such as menstruation, spilled blood, death, and childbirth — which brings certain things and events into a whole new light.
*** The Japanese script never refers to the Vilebloods as such; they are just called the Cainhurst ''ketsuzoku'' (blood relatives or kin) — joining the Vilebloods basically means that you are joining the Cainhurst family. The term "Vileblood" comes from the fact that the Cainhurst bloodline is steeped in ''kegare'', due to them using spiritually unclean blood in their blood ministration. This brings the ''modus operandi'' of Logarius' Executioners to a new light: they slaughtered the Cainhurst nobility not because they were a physical threat to the Healing Church, but because their blood was so spiritually unclean that it was considered a ''source'' of spiritual uncleanliness.
*** The creation of the Healing Church was Laurence's way of spiritually purifying the Old Blood so that it could be used to gain Enlightenment/Insight.
*** The reason that the "Vermin" that the League seeks to destroy look like centipedes is due to them being the most common animal associated with ''kegare''.
** The Japanese description of the Old Hunter's Bone doesn't specify whether it came from a man or a woman — gendered pronouns really only show up in Japanese if you're deliberately trying to point out gender — it just states that they were an apprentice to Gehrman. The English translation uses male pronouns and therefore closes itself to possible interpretations. [[spoiler:However, further context in the game ''very'' strongly suggests it is none other than Lady Maria's bone.]]
** The Tomb Prospector Set can be more directly translated as Grave Robber, a more apt description of the Byrgenwerth archaeologists. Likewise, the Harrowed Set is blatantly called a Disguise Set, with the description outright saying that the Disguised ones were pretty much [[BigBrotherIsWatching sanctioned to find out the secrets of the Yharnam citizens]] under the pretense of beast hunting. Which explains not only their fear of the Church, but their immense hatred for Hunters.
** Rom's Japanese title is a fairly vulgar term for "Stupid", somewhat akin to "retarded", carrying a significantly greater pejorative context than the English translation "Vacuous".
** The connotations of Laurence and Willem's talk has a different tone in the Japanese script. The English script has Willem outright accusing Laurence of betraying him, while the Japanese script has him say "You also think to betray me?", putting their talk after one of the Byrgenwerth scholars betrayed their work to the Cainhurst nobility. Also, the "fear the old blood" adage has a different tone. The English version is "We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood"; while the Japanese version is "We are made human (by the blood), we surpass humanity (by the blood), we lose our humanity again (by the blood)". The notion of using blood to surpass humanity is missing from the English script, and the Japanese version of the last verse is "We urge you to fear the blood as you proceed".
** The Japanese version's words for Insight and Frenzy are Enlightenment and Insanity, making it a little more on-the-nose, though it loses the 'eyes on the inside' pun of the English version.
* LordBritishPostulate: Applied to the player, of all things! Normally, it's impossible to die in the Hunter's Dream [[spoiler:except at the hands of the BonusBoss]], but many players have found ways to do so anyway, such as by using CastFromHitPoints weapons.
* LovecraftLite: [[spoiler: Ultimately, while the Great Ones exert greater control over, and have far more understanding of, the universe, humans are more than capable of comprehending and utilizing their abilities. The player will also likely end his or her game having slain a half-dozen of them — some of which in the very dreams they dominate over.]]
** The Great Ones themselves aren't really even evil in the traditional sense, with the Moon Caryll Rune's description stating that, "The Great Ones that inhabit the nightmare are sympathetic in spirit, and often answer when called upon." It's a notion that is furthered by Great Ones like [[spoiler:Ebrietas aiding The Choir in the search for the eldritch truth, and doing so with no ill will towards them, the Moon Presence creating the cycle of the Hunt to give humanity a fighting chance against the beasts]], and so on.
** [[spoiler:It's interesting to note that the human factions have been terrorizing the Great Ones just as much, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters if not more so]] than vice versa, having robbed the Orphan from Kos' corpse, enslaved the Brain of Mensis and kept it around like a tortured lab animal, and peddled the blood of the Great Ones as an all-cure to unsuspecting Yharnamites. Ebrietas, Rom and the Orphan of Kos don't attack the player unless they attack first, and even the Moon Presence doesn't attempt to battle you unless you show hostility, at which point it is clearly startled. They may not necessarily be "good" so much as just [[BlueAndOrangeMorality very alien]], but they're arguably victims moreso than they are predators, and what harm they cause to humans is primarily due to them being dangerous to humans' sanity [[BrownNote just by existing]].]]
* LowLevelAdvantage: If your character is below level 30, Chime Maidens will not spawn automatically in [[spoiler:Nightmare Frontier and Nightmare of Mensis]] unless you use a Sinister Resonant Bell to summon them or have a Co-Operator present. Without the presence of Chime Maidens, the other players cannot invade your world. Also, since your weapon level and upgrades do not affect the summoning range, a purposefully under-leveled character with late-game weapons and upgrades can [[CurbStompBattle obliterate new players without them]].
* {{Lunacy}}: Lore notes throughout Yahar'gul state that madmen — aka the Healing Church and its followers — toil to beckon the moon, and that's not even the tip of the iceberg. When night falls and the moon comes out, most everyone in the city begins to experience SanitySlippage. [[spoiler:Killing Rom [[BadMoonRising turns the moon crimson]] and dyes the sky purple with Paleblood, unleashing all sorts of freaky monstrosities and driving people even crazier than they were before. The TrueFinalBoss is an eldritch creature called the Moon Presence.]]
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: No parrying aside, the Wooden Shield can sometimes block bullets and other small projectiles, leaving you unscathed. This makes the Wooden Shield somewhat useful.
** ''The Old Hunters'' DLC introduced the Loch Shield that is useful against arcane attacks, making two shields in total.
* MacGuffin: Paleblood. It's never made clear what exactly it is, just that it's somehow motivating the PlayerCharacter. Various notes you come across in your journey also keep cryptically referencing the word. [[spoiler:One interpretation is that the Moon Presence is the mysterious Paleblood, while cut lines in the game files from the Blood Minister in the opening and Gehrman suggest that your PlayerCharacter is afflicted with a disease or curse known as Paleblood that somehow makes you key to realizing a plan to "transcend the Hunt" by stopping the Mensis ritual and maybe defeating the Moon Presence.]]
* MacrossMissileMassacre: A Call Beyond, which unleashes a barrage of shooting stars and chase after your foes like homing missiles.
* MadnessMantra: Wouldn't be a CosmicHorrorStory without some!
** From a random townsperson: "Bless us with blood, bless us with blood..."
** From the Research Hall patients: ''"Plip, plop, splish, splosh..."''
** From Yamamura: "Shrouded by night but with steady stride. Colored by blood, but always clear of mind. Proud Hunter of the Church. Beasts are a curse and a curse is a shackle. Only ye are the true blades of the Church."
** From the White Nun after Ludwig: "But beware the frailty of men; their wills are weak, minds young..."
* MagicMissileStorm: As mentioned under "Macross Missile Massacre," the "A Call Beyond" weapon, which is cast by squeezing a tiny EldritchAbomination to make it gob "small exploding stars" that track enemies. Certain monsters can also cast it, at a greater proefficiency than the player (they get three salvos to your one and can cast it at-will, whereas it costs the Hunter seven bullets).
* MagicMusic: The Choir Bell uses Quicksilver bullets to heal you [[spoiler:and ''kills'' Eileen when she's wounded]].
* MagikarpPower:
** Arcane-focused builds have amazing offensive potential... too bad you'll be almost halfway through the game before you can get any really good gear for them, and have to go through the entire DLC to get the truly dedicated Arcane weapon. Once you ''do'', though...
** Similarly, Skill builds, particularly Skill/Tinge, can feel like this. Most early, pre-Amelia weapons favor Strength over Skill, and the Skill weapons have less stagger and can feel less intuitive and "powerful" than early Strength weapons like the Hunter Axe; there's a total of three Skill-favoring weapons in the early game (and putting the Saw Spear there can be pushing it, in some definitions). The DLC is similar, with the first Skill weapon being a fair way into the first area, one other requiring seeing a quest through to the final area or attacking an NPC, and one being locked behind the hardest non-boss fight in the ''game''. However, once you get to said DLC and/or go to Cainhurst, you can begin to get a wider variety of Skill weapons, in particular the Cainhurst ones (one of which also grows powerful off of Bloodtinge), the Saif, and the Bowblade, which you get if you do that quest or kill the NPC. You'll also begin to ''gain'' some of that Skill, which means your viscerals will start hitting ''really'' hard... and guess which weapons have the fastest backstab attacks or built-in, special guns? Once you have the Bowblade, a good 30+ Skill and Tinge, a Clawmark rune, and another Skill weapon of your choice, you'll have all the tools and power you need to completely break the game in half, even compared to Strength or Arcane builds.
* MakeMeWannaShout: The Beast Roar Hunter Tool, which unleashes a sound wave powerful enough to deflect bullets and other projectiles.
* MarsNeedsWomen: [[spoiler:The core purpose of the Great Ones manipulating Yharnam and the Phthumerians is to use humanity to bear its children.]]
* MatchstickWeapon: The basic Torch and Hunter's Torch can be used as melee weapons that deal physical and fire damage (though only the latter is viable against all but the weakest foes), provide light in darker levels, and make the beasts of the Old Yharnam area cower in fear whenever they see it.
* MeaningfulName:
** The Amygdala, which are named after a part in the brain of the same name that deals with emotions (in particular the flight-or-fight response, i.e. fear and aggression).
** Chikage (千景) translates from Japanese to "Thousands Views", which can be interpreted as DeathOfAThousandCuts. However, it's also a bit of Japanese wordplay, as "血影" which literally means "Blood Shadow", can also be read as "Chi Kage"; alluding to its transformed mode. Likewise, Rakuyo (落葉) translates from Japanese to "Deciduous Leaf" or "Falling Leaf" in reference to the allegorical legend surrounding the two swordsmiths. The differing names may be a vague reference to the legends of the swordsmiths UsefulNotes/MuramasaAndMasamune: the Chikage being a stand-in for Muramasa's bloodthirsty blades and the Rakuyo for Masamune's divine blades.
** Reiterpallasch roughly translates from German to Cavalry Sword.
** Tonitrus translates from Latin to Thunder.
** It turns out that Yharnham itself shares its name with [[spoiler:The Pthumerian Queen]] and may well have been named after them, suggesting from the beginning the settlement has been tied with the catacombs beneath.
* MedievalStasis: Pointedly averted, in contrast to the ''Souls'' series. Various burials and ruins indicate that the world Yharnam inhabits has advanced as a fairly steady pace like our own. The Chalice Dungeons showing off the remnants of the [[{{Precursors}} Pthumerians]] also make this clear; when their civilization fell the Pthumerian soldiers were still wearing mail and plate and primarily using halberds, swords, and crossbows complemented by the occasional crude arquebus or blunderbuss, while Yharnam's military technology has progressed into the late 19th century (with primitive machine guns, artillery firing explosive shells, cartridge-based firearms, repeater pistols, reliable incendiary hand grenades, and so on). Ditto the architecture.
* {{Metroidvania}}: A rare [=3D=] example. There's an interconnected world full of shortcuts and warp points that encourages exploration, gradual progression of your character, locked doors and areas that require special items to gain entry, and a wide array of weapons, tools, and gear to experiment with for added customization. Also, the fact that [[RespawningEnemies all enemies excluding bosses respawn upon death or returning to the Hunter's Dream]] easily gives this game an old-style Franchise/{{Castlevania}} feel, [[GothicHorror as if the setting]] [[SceneryGorn and atmosphere]] didn't do that already.
* MercyKill: When [[spoiler:Gehrman]] offers you "mercy", or [[spoiler:vice versa]].
** The duty of t he Hunter of Hunters is to kill their fellows before they fully succumb to the Scourge. Eileen the Crow is the leader of this covenant, and her questline involves helping her put down Henryk, an old hunter about to fully lose himself.
** Pretty much any time you defeat a named Hunter in a BossFight.
*** Father Gascoigne is a very prominent example. Eileen even tells you that it had to be done when she deduces that you killed him.
*** Then there's Ludwig, who is so far gone that he's pretty much turned into a giant, mutated centaur.
** Everyone and everything in the Hunter's Nightmare. Per Lady Maria's cut dialogue: "I know what you did to them. It's not your fault. The nightmare held them, and now they are free."
* MindScrew: '''Copious amounts.''' Several things are flat-out never explained, such as [[spoiler:the Hunter's Dream, the Formless One's motives, the weird blood moon that rises at certain points, the degrading nature of Yharnam, etc.]], the world is populated with mind-destroyingly powerful {{Eldritch Abomination}}s [[spoiler:that the Church worships]] and are capable of completely altering reality at ''their will'', the game world changes completely over time, and several instances will leave you wondering if what just happened actually ''happened'' or if [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness your character isn't just completely bonkers.]]
* MiniBoss: There are several, most of whom are Hunters scattered throughout Yharnam. They make up for their lack of brute strength with their agility. They can also parry your attacks.
** Notable ones include [[TrueCompanions Henryk the Old Hunter]], [[HunterOfHisOwnKind Eileen the Crow]], [[MartyrWithoutACause Vileblood Hunter Alfred]], and [[AwesomeButImpractical Retired Hunter Djura]].
* MixAndMatchCritters:
** [[spoiler:Vicar Amelia]] is a massive, snarling beast with features of bears, wolves, and stags, with a large mane of hair on its back, [[spoiler:as an exaggeration of her human self's long hair]].
** Also, later on in the game, you'll encounter crows with dog heads and dogs with crow heads...
* MixAndMatchWeapon: The game has a notable focus on "trick weapons" which possess two different forms that can be cycled through on the fly. Also featured are "off-hand weapons" which, while usually firearms, can be torches or shields as well.
** The Standard Workshop Weapons are weapons that don't have any strong affiliation with either the ''Healing Church'' or the ''Vilebloods'', but belong instead to the old Hunter's Workshop which now exists only in the Hunter's Dream.
*** The Saw Cleaver and the Saw Spear, both Saw Hunter Weapons, are [[SerratedBladeOfPain saws with handles that fold out to make them behave like a cleaver and a spear respectively.]]
*** The [[AnAxeToGrind Hunter Axe]], a Saw Hunter Weapon, can transform between a one-handed axe and a two-handed axe resembling a halberd, which is another MixAndMatchWeapon all on its own.
*** The Threaded Cane, a Saw Hunter Weapon, transforms between [[CaneFu a cane]] and a [[WhipSword metal serrated]] [[WhipItGood whip]].
*** The Tonitrus, one of Archibald's infamous creations. It's [[CarryABigStick a mace]] that can [[ShockAndAwe generate electricity]].
*** The Burial Blade, [[spoiler:Gehrman's]] Weapon of Choice and the original Trick Weapon. It's [[SinisterScythe a scythe]] with a detachable blade that can act as [[SinisterScimitar a scimitar]]. Like the Blade of Mercy, the blade is made of the magnetic mineral siderite.
*** The [[HandCannon Hunter Pistol]] is a standard-issue firearm ideal for dealing solid single-target damage. The Pistol's weight also makes it great for ripostes owing to its faster draw.
*** The [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter Hunter Blunderbuss]] is another standard-issue firearm meant for damaging hordes of enemies on its own. The wide spread of this firearm means that there's little room for error to dodge the spray.
** Powder Keg Weapons are known for being the most damaging, but the most difficult to use, usually requiring a large amount of Strength and some Bloodtinge to wield efficiently.
*** The [[PileBunker Stake Driver]], Djura's favorite weapon, is an arm-mounted dagger with a very powerful critical attack.
*** The Rifle Spear, a mimic of the Cainhurst Reiterspallasch, is exactly how it sounds; [[BladeOnAStick a spear]] that can transform into [[BoomStick a rifle]], or more accurately a [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter shotgun]], with an attached [[BayonetYa bayonet]].
*** The [[PlayingWithFire Boom]] [[DropTheHammer Hammer]] is a Powder Keg variant of the Tonitrus. It's a powerful hammer that houses a miniature furnace that ignites when it hits. This requires continuous priming to use the fire attack of the weapon.
*** The [[ChainsawGood Whirligig Saw]] is the preferred weapon of choice of Valtr, Master of The League. It's a mace that connects to a head of buzzsaws.
*** The [[GatlingGood Gatling Gun]], a smaller, more portable version of Djura's stationary one, was once used by one of his disciples. The Gatling Gun consumes the equivalent of one quicksilver bullet per second, yet sprays a larger amount of bullets than first thought, since it was designed to be more efficient than standard firearms.
*** The [[HandCannon Cannon]] is a prototype of the more standardized Church Cannon. While it is definitely more powerful than the Church version, it's less efficient in quicksilver bullet usage, consuming a total of 12.
*** The [[SniperRifle Piercing Rifle]] wasn't actually created by the Powder Kegs themselves, but rather its predecessor, the Oto Workshop. The design meant that parrying would be difficult to do, but this also meant it would be the most powerful single shot firearm and the one with the most range. This design also meant that it can penetrate many enemies with ease.
** The Hunter of Hunters is a group that kills other hunters that have been driven insane by the nature of the Hunt. This is not honorable in any way, as they know they signed up to MercyKill their fellow Hunters. Eileen The Crow is an aging veteran and one of the few Hunter of Hunters remaining. Their signature weapon is:
*** The Blade of Mercy. It's a [[CoolSword lightweight short-sword]] that is made with a magnetic metal known as siderite that can also be split [[DualWielding into a pair of daggers]].
** The Healing Church Weapons are known to be more strength based weapons than the others because of the strength and handling required and are meant for the larger enemies that, ironically, most of the Healing Church Hunters become. Some of the Church Hunters preferred to abandon the use of guns or used smaller weapons, which were mocked by the others.
*** The Beast Claw, made by the Irreverent Izzy, is a two-pronged claw made of the still living bones of a Darkbeast. When transformed, it turns both of your hands into beast talons, with the left hand becoming the size of the actual weapon. If equipped with the Beast's Embrace Covenant Rune, it's given a new moveset and a massive damage boost, though in order to get the rune, you need to beat the BonusBoss of the DLC, [[spoiler:Laurence, The First Vicar]].
*** The [[DropTheHammer Kirkhammer]] is the most common trick weapon the modern Church Hunters use. It consists of a silver short sword and a large stone block into which the sword can be inserted to create an enormous maul.
*** Ludwig's Holy Blade, a more mundane imitation of Ludwig's Holy Moonlight Sword that was used by his successors. It's a one-handed [[SilverHasMysticPowers silver]] [[CoolSword longsword]] that can be used in tandem with its massive sheath to become [[{{BFS}} a two-handed greatsword]].
*** The [[{{BFS}} Holy]] [[SilverHasMysticPowers Moonlight]] [[RecurringElement Sword]], Ludwig's personal weapon; the ''Bloodborne'' iteration of one of Fromsoft's {{Recurring Element}}s: the Sword of Moonlight. This version of the arcane blade has the base form of a silver claymore, and a transformed mode with the weapon's typical glowing blue blade. The transformed mode even has the SwordBeam attack from the ''Dark Souls'' versions, but it uses Quicksilver Bullets rather than a chunk of weapon durability.
*** The [[CoolSword Church]] [[BladeOnAStick Pick]] is one of the oldest Church weapons known to exist. Thought to be a myth by the current Healing Church members, it's essentially a large sword that transforms into a long war pick. Its design is both eerily similar to a wooden stake and reminiscent of the Hunter Axe.
*** [[BowAndSwordInAccord Simon's Bowblade]] is wielded by its namesake. Simon himself hated guns with a passion and preferred to use his signature Bowblade, which others mocked him for due to the impracticality of bows when compared to firearms. The standard form is a twisted scimitar, while the bow form uses Quicksilver Bullets as its arrows and is one of the stronger ranged weapons.
*** The Repeating Pistol is a gun with a somewhat misleading name. Though the name implies it is capable of rapid-fire, it instead simply fires two bullets at once. While it does consume an additional bullet, it's also the most powerful pistol in the game, albeit very inefficient to use.
*** Ludwig's Rifle is the firearm of Ludwig and his followers. While it has poorer scaling, the weapon has a longer range and a more narrow spread than the Hunter Blunderbuss.
*** The [[HandCannon Church Cannon]] is the Healing Church's version of the Powder Keg Cannon. Intended to be used by large brutes, this cannon was unfortunately too complex for them to utilize fully. Unlike the prototype, The Church Cannon fires in an arc.
** The Executioners were a fanatical group of Hunters that pledged their lives to battling the Cainhurst Vilebloods. Formerly led by Martyr Logarius, nearly all the original Executioners are long gone by the time The Foreign Hunter meets Executioner Alfred, Logarius's last surviving disciple. While they're still members of the Healing Church, they have a preferred weapon in the form of:
*** Logarius' Wheel. This trick weapon resembles a Heavy Torturer's Wheel. Transformed, however, it opens up to unleash a [[BloodMagic mystical blood vapor]], which augments it with arcane damage that amplifies the more it revs, but saps the wielder's health in increasing amounts as well.
** The Cainhurst Vilebloods were a decadent noble family shunned by the church for their use of unclean blood, until they were all but wiped out by the executioners. Cainhurst weapons require a more bloodtinged wielder to be effectively used.
*** The Chikage, a strange [[KatanasAreJustBetter katana]]-sabre hybrid used by the Queen's Royal Guards. Its transformation is actually [[BloodMagic a powerful blood rite]] that slowly saps the wielder's health away but gains bloodtinge scaling and a rapid poison effect.
*** The Reiterpallasch is the standard Vileblood weapon. It's [[RoyalRapier a rapier]] that has [[{{Handguns}} a pistol attachment]]. This mechanism was mimicked by the Powder Kegs in the form of the Rifle Spear.
*** The Rakuyo hails from the same eastern country as the Cainhurst Chikage, but lacks the connection to blood magic. Instead it's reliant on pure skill, being a twinblade that can be split into a katana and offhand dagger. It was once wielded by Lady Maria of The Astral Clocktower, a distant relative of the queen and [[spoiler:the person the Doll was based on]] who hated the blood-thirstiness of the Chikage.
*** The Evelyn is a powerful single-shot pistol that relies even more on bloodtinge than the Hunter Pistol.
** The Old Hunter Weapons are actually more bizarre than the current Trick Weapons in design, where some of the hunters dislike and tend to forego firearms. These weapons draw out a more significant amount of blood than the current Trick Weapons in comparison. Unfortunately, this lack of restraint was one of the reasons why The Old Hunters were driven mad in the first place.
*** The [[PowerFist Fist of Gratia]], while not a trick weapon itself, is very useful with the Bowblade, Rifle Spear, and the Reiterpallasch. Essentially a chunk of iron with finger holes in it that functions like a set of brass knuckles. This improvised slab of iron was used by the hulking huntress Gratia, who was hopeless with firearms.
*** The Beast Cutter is the predecessor to the lighter Threaded Cane and the cleaner Saw Cleaver. It's a massive blade that can separate into a whip sword.
*** The Beasthunter's Saif, the basis of the Saw Cleaver, is a trick weapon that has a secondary blade on the inside. The untransformed mode is essentially a large saif, hence the name, while the transformed mode is similar to the Saw Cleaver and Saw Spear, only it's noticeably quicker and can cover more ground with each swing, something that's essential in all ''Souls'' games.
*** The Bloodletter is a unique weapon wielded by Brador. This weapon is similar to [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsII Sir Alonne's Bewitched Blade, mechanically speaking]]. Initially a mace, its real power is revealed when the wielder's blood is given to it, transforming it into a LivingWeapon and also the only one that can inflict frenzy.
*** The Kos Parasite is the Kin version of the Beast Claw. Earned from defeating the [[spoiler:Orphan of Kos ([[MadnessMantra or some say Kosm]])]], to utilise it fully, one must discover the Milkweed Covenant Rune, the Kin equivalent to the Beast's Embrace Covenant Rune.
*** The Amygdalan Arm is a trick weapon severed from a small Amygdala. Usually used only by madmen, the weapon's untransformed mode is a large club, while the transformed mode works like a sentient chain sickle, which implies that, like the Beast Claw, the Arm is still alive. On a side note, in a sense, this is ''Bloodborne's'' version of the Dragon Tooth.
** The League is a new covenant that all players can join even if you don't have the DLC. This is a covenant that encourages players to help others, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything sound familiar yet?]], and have an online ranking with it. Basically, ''Bloodborne's'' Warriors of Sunlight. However, unlike other join-able factions, it doesn't have an associated weapon. The "League Cane" is just the covenant register, with the scroll listing all the members hidden within the handle. The closest thing they have to an affiliated weapon is the whirligig saw wielded by their leader.
* MolotovCocktail: A potent weapon against crowds and beasts.
* MookMaker: Chime Maidens. In addition to appearing whenever the player calls for help via a beckoning bell, attempting to summon [[PlayerVersusPlayer adversaries]] by ringing their own bell, they can also be found in later levels summoning mooks until killed. They're especially dangerous in the [[BonusDungeon Chalice Dungeons]], where they often appear in groups, and start to summon [[DemonicSpiders spiders]] as the player gets into the deeper dungeons. [[ZergRush Lots of]] [[SpiderSwarm spiders]]. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard Who can spot the player from several rooms away]].
* MonsterIsAMommy: Or rather, the EldritchAbomination ''Wants'' To Be A Mommy. The Great Ones [[MysticalPregnancy keep impregnating humans]]. The resulting offspring die, but [[MarsNeedsWomen it doesn't occur to them to stop trying]].
** [[spoiler:As revealed in the ''Old Hunters'' DLC, the now-dead Great One Kos is revealed to have been pregnant. In fact, her offspring, The Orphan of Kos, is the final boss of the aforementioned DLC.]]
* {{Mordor}}: The Nightmare of Mensis, an [[AnotherDimension alternate dream world]] created by the villainous [[AcademyOfEvil School of Mensis]]. It is a twisted expanse of black mountains made of fused-together, screaming faces rising impossibly high over an endless sea of fog, where the only building in sight is an enormous cathedral that [[spoiler:serves as a prison for one EldritchAbomination and an incubator for another.]] It helps that it's TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon of the game.
* {{Motif}}: ''Sound'' and ''Water.'' The currency of Bloodborne is ''Blood Echoes.'' Bells are spiritually significant tools used by enemies for summoning. Players use bells to summon allies. Father Gargiscone can hear blood "singing" to him. [[spoiler:The voices of the Great Ones, especially ''Oedon,'' is heard like ripples in a lake or sea. And in ''The Old Hunters,'' the deformed patients of Maria's clock tower constantly hear the sound of water flowing. The DLC ends in the beach where Kos lies dead.]]
* MultiArmedAndDangerous:
** Amygdala is a gargantuan humanoid with several elongated limbs mimicking a GiantSpider, and makes use of most of them during her boss battle. You can hack them to debilitate her.
** Mergo's Wet Nurse is a six-armed wraith that wields a sickle-like blade on each hand, and mainly tries to dice you up in a flurry of slashes.
* MultipleChoicePast: Character creation has you choosing your origin/upbringing before your journey to Yharnam in order to generate your stats, replacing the "class" system from the ''Souls'' games.
* MultipleEndings: With potentially all the endings coming to pass, on different nights, in different dreams, eventually.
** ''Yharnam Sunrise'': [[spoiler:With the night coming to an end and a number of the other Great Ones' vanquished, Gehrman offers to release you from the Hunter's Dream and forget all you have seen. Agreeing has him behead you with his scythe. You awake the next morning back in the Cathedral Ward's graveyard. The Doll is then seen in the Hunter's Dream, kneeling at a gravestone and wishing you farewell.]]
** ''Honoring Wishes'': [[spoiler:You reject Gehrman's offer and have to fight him instead. Upon defeating Gehrman, his Eldritch master, the "Moon Presence", descends to make ''you'' its next emissary. Some time later, the Doll is seen pushing you in Gehrman's wheelchair back towards the mansion in the Hunter's Dream. The Hunt begins again, with you as the next Keeper of the Hunters.]]
** ''Childhood's Beginning'': [[spoiler:The Hunter consumes at least three of the four pieces of EldritchAbomination umbilical cord hidden across Yharnam to "ascend to the level of a Great One" and face the Moon Presence instead. However, after you defeat the Moon Presence, you end up ''turning into an infant abomination'' yourself. You are eventually found by the Doll as a small slug/squid creature, seemingly to be raised into the next of the Great Ones.]]
* MutualKill: A collective example; the Executioners' assault on Castle Cainhurst appears to have all but wiped out both sides of the conflict, leaving only Alfred[[labelnote:*]]Who wasn't present[[/labelnote]], Annalise[[labelnote:*]]CompleteImmortality, sealed away at the end of the battle and so effectively a casualty anyway[[/labelnote]], and possibly the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst as the survivors of their respective factions.
* MyRulesAreNotYourRules: Enemy Hunters use many of the same maneuvers, weapons, and techniques that the player is capable of. However, they deal a lot more damage with their attacks (including their guns), have BottomlessMagazines, and have much more health at their disposal. But on the other hand, they can't replenish health via the Regain system, and none seem to carry as many blood vials as the player does.
** NPC Hunters can use their firearms while wielding their trick weapons in two-handed mode, which you can't. But on the other hand, the player character is the only person that can perform Visceral Attacks, even though you are just as susceptible to staggering as any enemy in the game. [[spoiler:Though there are four exceptions to that rule: Djura, the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, Gehrman, and Lady Maria.]]
* MysticalPregnancy: [[spoiler:Arianna ends up impregnated by a Great One in the game's later half.]]
* MythologyGag:
** Yharnam borrows artistic direction and mood of the Tower of Latria from ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls''.
** The Cleric Beast draws from [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsI Manus's design]].
** In the alpha, Gascoigne would say "sick creature... may you rest in peace... [[VideoGame/DemonsSouls Umbasa]]" when he kills you. This line is cut in the final game.
** The armor, stance, appearance, and occupation for the Executioner enemies hearkens back to [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsI Executioner Smough]].
** You once again have to run across a bridge while a huge monster fires ranged attacks at you. In ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'', these were dragons breathing fire at you. Here, it's [[spoiler:a Lesser Amygdala firing lasers at you in Yahar'gul, Unseen Village]].
* NeverTrustATrailer: The "Face Your Fears" trailer ends with the Hunter walking through a pitch-black Grand Cathedral and examining Laurence's skull on the altar, before a Cleric Beast appears behind him. In the actual game, that room of the Cathedral is always well-lit, and the sequence of events is backwards; you have to defeat Vicar Amelia (who isn't ''the'' Cleric Beast- he's a Central Yharnam boss- but is ''a'' Cleric Beast and shares the same theme music) before touching Laurence's skull.
* NewGamePlus: Returning from the ''Souls'' series is the feature to replay the game's story, while keeping your equipment and ramping up the difficulty. [[WordOfGod Miyazaki and his team]] even claim to have trouble beating it!
* NiceHat: Too many to list. Needless to say, hats are ''very'' in vogue are in Yharnam, as just about every person is wearing one.
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: Yharnam is a land without sunlight, lit only by the moon. [[spoiler:This is justified, however, as the Hunter is trapped inside a dream. And the Moon exists as a [[EldritchAbomination presence]]. Should they free themselves from the dream, the morning sun would be seen again. However, if the Hunter chooses to free [[DeathSeeker Gehrman]] by killing him or become a [[EldritchAbomination Great One]] by defeating [[TrueFinalBoss Moon Presence]], the Hunter will never see the sun again.]]
* NinjaPirateRobotZombie: The Beastly Scourge in the game manages to combine ''four'' different monsters into one lifecycle. The Scourge is triggered by consumption of the Old Blood (vampire) -- which originates from [[spoiler:otherworldly Great Ones (EldritchAbomination)]] -- and first turns the afflicted into mindless, deformed husks (zombie), before finally transforming them into lycanthropes (werewolf).
* NintendoHard: Compared to the slow, cautionary pace of ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', head-on combat is far more faster and much more aggressive than the ''Souls'' games. Though Blood Vials and game's Rally mechanic makes healing in the game much more easier, this is compensated by the enemies and bosses' attacks and [=AI=] being far more faster, aggressive, and damaging than their ''Souls'' counterparts. Especially with ''The Old Hunters'' expansion and the game's NewGamePlus, the game significantly turns up its difficulty.
* NoNameGiven: The old man during the intro administering you the Yharnam blood is only mentioned in the credits as "Blood Minister". The Lonely Old Woman and Bigoted Old Man you can save in Central Yharnam and the Cathedral Ward aren't named either.
* NonIndicativeName: The OST track "Soothing Hymn" is not very soothing.
* TheNoseKnows: Weirdly, everyone in town notices your smell. Somehow you smell like the moon and that marks you as a Hunter. Either there's something very wrong with you, the townspeople, or ''both.''
* NotUsingTheZedWord: The people of Yharnam are effectively vampires, and the Scourge of Beasts pretty much turns people into werewolves...but neither term is ever used.
* ObliviouslyEvil: It's implied that the Great Ones are this for the most part. They don't seem to mean any ill will towards humans, and some of them even tried to help mankind by sharing their knowledge, but somewhere along the way things went terribly wrong and created the apocalyptic scenario Yharnam is now experiencing.
* OldMaster: All the old Hunters are fearsome opponents due to all the years spent honing their craft.
** Retired Hunter Djura, an old man from a long-defunct sect of Hunters who will hunt ''you'' if you insist on coming into Old Yharnam. Even without his Gatling gun, [[LightningBruiser he's a serious threat]].
** Gehrman, an old man in a wheelchair who was once a great Hunter. [[spoiler:If you refuse his "mercy" at the end of the game, he will show himself to ''still'' be a master Hunter, becoming a FinalBoss, and arguably one of the toughest bosses in the game.]]
** Eileen the Crow, an old woman who still serves as a deadly Hunter.
** Henryk the Old Hunter, Father Gascoigne's former partner, counts as well, as he can potentially [[spoiler:kill Eileen]] if you don't help her kill him first.
* OminousLatinChanting: ''Several'' examples, and "''sanguine''" usually appears somewhere in the lyrics. It's taken [[UpToEleven up to eleven]] in [[spoiler:Yahar'gul [[PrisonEpisode if you end up there early]] by getting killed by a Snatcher (or some say Kidnapper).]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQcKBUcgmA Listen]]. What makes it scarier is that [[spoiler: this chant is ''diegetic'' - the closer you get to the One Reborn's boss room, the louder it gets]].
* OncePerEpisode: The game reuses themes and plot points featured in both ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''.
** A mighty kingdom is left in ruins after a ZombieApocalypse. ([[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolf apocalypse]] in this case.)
** Adventurers making a pilgrimage to an ancient, forgotten land in search of a cure to a mysterious disease that afflicts them.
** A [[HungryWeapon cursed katana that damages its wielder]]. (Okay, [[InsistentTerminology Katana-Sabre Hybrid]], but close enough.)
** A huge monster blocks your path and fires a ranged attack at you.[[note]]In ''Demon's Souls'' and ''Dark Souls'', you have to cross a bridge while a dragon/drake breathes fire at you. In ''Bloodborne'', you have to cross a bridge while a Lesser Amygdala fires lasers at you.[[/note]]
** Miyazaki's favorite DirtyCoward, Patches, shows up. He'll also try to kick you off a cliff ''yet again''.
** The gods of the world are [[JerkassGods jerks]] who care very little for the well-being of humanity.
*** This one is actually subverted; the Moon rune states that "The Great Ones are sympathetic, and will often answer when called upon." And [[spoiler:Kos and Ebrietas]], at the very least, actively answer prayers addressed to them.
** Downplayed compared to ''Demon's Souls'' and ''Dark Souls'', but the [[spoiler:cyclical]] nature of the conflict is still implied in one ending, and possibly two.
* OneStatToRuleThemAll: Arcane is among the most incredibly useful stats to raise and to base a character build around. Most stats raise only one thing (Strength raises strength weapon adjustment, skill raises skill weapon adjustment, etc.), but Arcane raises elemental weapon damage (and all enemies have an elemental weakness), increases the attack damage of most attack items (like firebombs), grants access to the use of magical items, and raises item drop rates. Long story short, even if your build is strength or skill based, many advise raising your arcane during your second playthrough so you can make the best use of all of your items, and broaden your arsenal so that you're up for the challenge. ''The Old Hunters'' DLC introduces the Kos Parasite, a peculiar weapon that turns you into a [[HumanoidAbomination Lumenwood Kin]] and it ''only'' scales with Arcane. In other words, if your primary weapon is the Kos Parasite, you don't even need to raise any other stat at all.
* OntologicalMystery: Unlike the ''Souls'' games, ''Bloodborne'' lacks an introductory cutscene that explains the setting's background. It simply begins with your character receiving an injection of mysterious blood and then waking up some time later to find the clinic abandoned and city overrun with beasts and mad Hunters, with no immediate explanation of how things got that way. You'll have to rely on the StoryBreadcrumbs to find out.
* OrphanedEtymology: On several occasions. It's never explicitly made clear exactly ''where'' the game takes place, whether it is a ConstructedWorld or an AlternateUniverse, but considering [[EldritchLocation how damn weird]] Yharnam and the other in-game locales get, it may not even matter anymore:
** [[spoiler:The imposter]] Doctor Iosefka mentions her Hippocratic Oath at one point.
** [[spoiler:Ludwig]], in the ''Old Hunters'' DLC, calls his [[spoiler:Church Hunters]] "noble Spartans".
** The Molotov cocktail item; presumably, Vyacheslav Molotov doesn't exist in Yharnam.
** The rapid-fire rotary gun is called the Gatling Gun. Perhaps it was invented by a Richard Gatling in the ''Bloodborne'' world as well?
** Some of the books in Gehrman's room are dated to [[https://68.media.tumblr.com/f22751c8b606bfaa3767e5ca7f484070/tumblr_inline_ojw8t4aBt41sxj4ge_540.png 1872]], implying Yharnam somehow uses the Gregorian calendar.
** There are Polish prayers written on some of the graves in Hemwick (which ''isn't'' TranslationConvention, as it's the same in all versions of the game).
* OurMonstersAreDifferent: As mentioned under FantasyKitchenSink, ''Bloodborne'' has takes on many, many creatures of western folklore. Examples include:
** OurMermaidsAreDifferent: ''The Old Hunters'' has what's probably the closest analogue to mermaids in the ''Bloodborne'' world. They're white, woman-shaped mollusk-like creatures that frequently inhabit large ammonite shells who [[spoiler:appear to worship Kos, and have been transformed into their state by her influence]].
** OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: The beast-disease infecting the citizens of Yharnam turns them into mixes of humans and various beasts, like wolves, spiders, crows, and so on. In general, most of these resemble werewolves of some sort; this is the most common enemy type, as opposed to the ''Souls'' series' usual penchant for undead zombie-folk. The origin behind the lycanthropes -- [[spoiler:them being hybrids between humans and a squid-like EldritchAbomination of the full moon]] -- is also fairly unusual. While vulnerable to conventional weapons (albeit highly resistant, to the point where late 19th century small arms are said to do nothing to them), they notably appear to possess the classic vulnerability to silver, given that Ludwig's Holy Blade is made of the stuff. Unique to ''Bloodborne'''s take, they're also particularly vulnerable to fire. Understandable as the beast-turned's hair are usually visually depicted as oily and frayed, and Yharnamites seeming to have poor eyesight due to the effects of their affliction to the point where many bandage over their eyes.
** OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: A lot of the more mutated beast forms hardly even resemble werewolves, either leaning more into another animal type like a stag or goat, or going straight into AnimalisticAbomination territory.
** OurCentaursAreDifferent: Ludwig, unique among the beasts, resembles a half-horse, half-man abomination, in reference to Mezu, the Japanese Buddhist guardian of hell.
** OurVampiresAreDifferent: After Blood Ministration became '''the''' medical practice in Yharnam, the ''sheer popularity'' of it (healing, an alternative to alcohol, maybe even an alternative to ''sex'') shows such blatant undertones of vampirism without it ever being mentioned. Even ''you'', as a Hunter, heal by injecting a Blood Vial into your thigh or splattering beast blood onto your wounds. Perhaps vampires never appear because in a world where everyone commoditizes blood, it would be ''redundant.'' The Cainhurst Vilebloods, or what is left of them, embody the typical Eastern European vampire appearance-wise: tall, pale-skinned nobles dressed in central European medieval finery who live in a musty old castle. Their preferred method of gaining blood, however, is to salvage blood dregs from the corpses of the slain for their Queen.
** OurZombiesAreDifferent: On top of the [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Beastly Scourge]], the Chalice Dungeons feature more conventional zombies in the form of the various Pthumerian enemies. They resemble emaciated corpses, but retain [[MusclesAreMeaningless superhuman strength]] and are still intelligent enough to use weapons. [[EliteZombie They come in many varieties]], from basic civilian Labyrinth Watchers with [[ImprovisedWeapon knives, sickles, and cleavers]], to the former soldier Labyrinth Warriors with mail armor and swords/crossbows/flails/halberds, to the [[GiantMook Watchers]], to various types of undead mages... not to mention the Kidnappers. It's implied that these zombies are somehow sustained by [[TouchedByVorlons Great One contact]].
** OurLichesAreDifferent: Martyr Logarius is basically a lich, being a visibly-decayed undead sorcerer with a specific purpose, who nonetheless still maintains enough sapience to remember his mission and fight intelligently. One of his attacks also seem to use damned souls as ammunition...
** OurHydrasAreDifferent: The large Snake Balls in the Forbidden Woods are land-dwelling hydras: large, multi-headed, hostile serpentine monsters with deadly poisonous breath, spit, and blood.
** OurGargoylesRock: Grey gargoyle-esque creatures resembling half-men, half-bat hybrids attack you at Cainhurst Castle. They resemble stone gargoyles and will perch themselves still on walls when inactive like them, but they appear to be flesh and blood.
** OurGiantsAreBigger: Several types of giants to be found in this game, including the Church Giants at the Cathedral and the Undead Giants in the Chalice Dungeons. They're all implied to be the result of [[MadScientist mad science experiments]].
** AllTrollsAreDifferent: Huntsman's Minions are technically beasts created by the plague, but they heavily resemble trolls, including having the characteristic facial features, size, physique, simple speech patterns, and hunched posture. You even fight some of them under a bridge. They usually carry concrete blocks as weapons, and like the other beasts (and mythological trolls), are particularly vulnerable to fire.
** OurDemonsAreDifferent: The Moon Presence is called the Moon Demon in the Japanese text. What this means, and how this distinguishes it from the other Great Ones, is never elaborated upon.
** OurGhostsAreDifferent: The Labyrinth Spectres that haunt the Chalice Dungeons are pretty standard ones, being white spirits covered in ectoplasm that can turn invisible, teleport, turn intangible, and so on. The main difference is that they can be physically killed. Ditto the Silver Ladies at Cainhurst. The Orphan of Kos as seen in the Hunter's Nightmare is also basically a ghost, a vengeful spirit who torments others because it is unable to move on due to the injustice it was dealt in life. [[MercyKill Letting it pass]] ends the Nightmare.
** OurSpiritsAreDifferent: In addition to crossing over with the above, you can summon helpful phantoms with the Choir Bell, a la the white phantoms in ''Dark Souls''. Spirits in general seem to exist separate of one's body in the ''Bloodborne'' universe, as indicated by the existence of the Hunter's Nightmare.
* OutsideGenreFoe: The starter monsters and bosses draw from GothicHorror, and while they're very intimidating, they are at least understandable. Then you get halfway through the game [[spoiler:and the enemies start becoming more and more alien and bizarre, dreams and reality merge, and the Great Ones start showing up. The giant werewolf of Vicar Amelia is downright mundane compared to the unspeakable ''[[EldritchAbomination thing]]'' hidden beneath the altar where Amelia was praying...]]
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling:
** The first floor of the Lecture Building can be accessed relatively early and has a lecture theatre containing 16 Slime Scholars who will give you about 11k Blood Echoes total (without any Moon or Heir runes equipped). They also fairly commonly drop Quicksilver Bullets. It's pretty much your best bet for farming until you can access the harder Chalice Dungeons.
** In terms of non-root Chalice Dungeons, area 2 of Ailing Lower Loran has a room with two Chime Maidens inside it. After dispatching the enemies outside the room, one can simply stand there and kill an endless stream of red spiders, which give over 1500 echoes each with the three Moon runes.
** One infamous root Chalice Dungeon that exists (colloquially known as the [[spoiler:Cum Dungeon due to its code, CUMMMFPK]], has a loading glitch that allows players to obtain ''83,000'' blood echoes in a few seconds. The reason is that there's an NPC Hunter that spawns in the path of an axe trap, and though can't stagger out of the way because his model and animations are not loaded, his hitbox is. So he gets repeatedly hit until he dies, and then the game assumes that you did it and gives you the Blood Echoes.
* PileBunker: One weapon available in the game is the "Stake Driver", a large gauntlet-like BladeBelowTheShoulder that can be extended and retracted.
* ThePlague: The Scourge of Beasts infecting Yharnam turns those afflicted into mindless monsters, with the later stages of the disease turning the infected into literal beasts. [[spoiler:Although Yharnam isn't the first place this has happened.]]
* PlagueDoctor: One of the available attires is the plague doctor-esque Crowfeather Set, the signature of the Hunter of Hunters covenant.
* PlatonicCave: Heavily implied to be [[spoiler:the entire setting]].
* PlayerHeadquarters: The Hunter's Dream.
* PlotDeviceAllAlong: The Umbilical Cords may seem like a rare type of Insight-obtaining item, [[spoiler:but really, consuming at least three of the four you can find will unlock the third ending]].
* PortalPool: The Byrgenwerth Lake, which contains a portal to an eldritch realm containing Rom.
* PosthumousCharacter: Laurence, the chief disciple of Master Willem. [[spoiler:As well as Kos, the Great One the School of Mensis sought after.]]
* PoweredByAForsakenChild: There are two primary sources of Yharnam blood. [[spoiler:The Choir found ''Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos'' in the Isz Chalice Dungeons, relocated her to the Grand Cathedral, and used her blood for its healing properties. And the Pthumerians originally used Queen Yharnam and her dead, unborn child Mergo for their blood.]]
* ThePowerOfBlood: The use of blood is a central theme of the game.
** Blood Ministration, Yharnam's unique medical practice, is based on receiving a transfusion of unique unknown blood in order to cure illnesses. Something happened to those who have received blood ministration, causing the beast outbreak that has enveloped Yharnam. [[spoiler:Said healing blood is also implied to be what created the bridge between the human world and the Nightmare Realm that causes the game's plot to begin with, though the link between the two worlds is seemingly what the Byrgenwerth scholars had wanted in the first place, with the blood being an added bonus.]]
** Blood Echoes replaces souls from the ''Souls'' games as the level-up and item-buying currency.
** A stock of blood vials is used to recover health, replacing the Estus flask from the ''Dark Souls'' games.
** The Rally mechanic allows you to regain health if you cut into enemies immediately after your own injuries and bathe in their blood.
** Dying to an enemy can potentially cause them to take your Blood Echoes, which makes them stronger. The player then has to slay said enemy in order to re-obtain their Blood Echoes.
** Bloodstones and Blood Gems are used to upgrade and augment your equipment.
** The player can sacrifice some of their health to create five temporary blood bullets at any point.
--> '''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]]:''' ...something of a pattern emerging here. It’s all blood, all the time. It’s like that time of the month at the all-female gladiatorial arena.
* PowerOfLove: [[spoiler:The Plain Doll implies that being loved makes her sentient.]]
* PreAsskickingOneLiner: "Tonight...[[spoiler:Gehrman]] joins the Hunt."
** Also, [[spoiler:[[WhamLine "A corpse... should be left well alone."]]]]
** "Beasts all over the shop... You'll be one of them, sooner or later."
* PreMortemOneLiner:
** Father Gascoigne: ''"Too proud to show your true face, eh? But a sporting Hunt, it was!"''
** Retired Hunter Djura: ''"I should think you still have dreams? Well, the next time you dream, give some thought...To the Hunt, and its meaning..."'' [[note]]The "To the Hunt, and its meaning" part gets cut off by the load screen.[[/note]] [[spoiler:Alternatively, ''"You still dream, I should think, then come as often as you like, I'll show you another death."'' [[note]]When you double-cross or attack Djura after befriending him.[[/note]]]]
** Eileen the Crow: ''"You still have dreams? ... Tell the little doll I said hello..."''
** [[spoiler:Gehrman]]: ''"You must accept your death. Be freed from the night."''
* PrepareToDie: Yes, it's not an official ''Souls'' game, but it's essentially a gothic spin on the ''Souls'' formula. As such, you'd better be prepared to die. A lot. '''Because ''Bloodborne'' is a hard game.'''
* ProceduralGeneration: The Root versions of the Chalice Dungeons. While the default Chalice Dungeons have a set layout, the Root versions always have a random layout. The Root versions even provide a "world seed" code, so that each particular layout can be saved and shared.
* PunnyName:
** The School of Mensis. It's a dirty joke, since Mensis can refer to a woman's menstrual cycle as well as to the moon, and blood, the moon, and pregnant women feature heavily in ''Bloodborne'', which in itself is a pun.
** The Church Cannon is a pun on "church canon", which refers to the rules that the church operates under.
** Insight, which causes eyes to grow on the brain. Sight on the inside, if you follow me.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Q-Z]]
* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: It's not hard to sport this look. Just combine the Threaded Cane with the Hunter armor set and top hat.
* RainOfBlood: A brief, subtle one after you complete each boss fight.
* {{Reconstruction}}: Of GothicHorror. This game revists all of the classic hallmarks and makes them all proper scary again. Infectious werewolf bites not doing anything for you? How's about a [[ZombieApocalypse werewolf apocalypse]]? Witches dancing in the light of the full moon laughable? Not when you walk in on the witches and they stop dancing to descend upon you with meat cleavers and red-hot pokers. The tragedy of Victor Frankenstein no longer resonating with you? ''The One Reborn'' is here to remind you how a botched attempt at creating life can turn out. TorchesAndPitchforks are a lot less silly when they're all pointed at ''you'', and there's so much bloodletting and blood-consumption that everyone in town is pretty much ''already'' a vampire. This is also probably why NotUsingTheZedWord is in play; if it doesn't have a familiar label, then old horrors are new again. And if you thought [[spoiler:the CosmicHorrorStory]] was becoming old hat, this game makes that fresh again too; all the [[spoiler:eldritch horrors are an OutsideGenreFoe that just ramps up the horror due to how unexpected and ''wrong'' they are.]]
* RecurringBoss: The Chalice Dungeons have a tendency of recycling bosses between dungeons. When you've finished them, you'll have lost count of how many Undead Giants, Merciless Watchers, Keepers of the Old Lords, and Watchdogs of the Old Lords you've killed. Major bosses from the main game also show up, most notably the Blood-starved Beast, Ebrietas, and Rom.
* RecursivePrecursors: The Healing Church was preceded by the Byrgenwerth College, [[spoiler:who in turn based their teachings on the ancient relics of the Pthumerians]].
* RegeneratingHealth: Of a sort. The Rally system focuses on regaining health, and certain weapons regain more health than others -- the weapon with the most regain potential is the [[AnAxeToGrind Hunter's Axe]]. Different weapon forms also have different rally values, with the transformed Burial Blade beating even the Hunter's Axe when in scythe form.
* ReligionOfEvil: The Healing Church is founded on the use of a substance that turns people who take it too much into werewolves, and they ''know this''. Their excuse is that it's "frailty of men" causing the problem (which falls a little flat when you consider that the people who resist the Scourge become the worst beasts when they do turn), and to blame outsiders for Yharnam's werewolf apocalypse. [[spoiler: The part most people ''don't'' know is that the Church worships eldritch entities called the Great Ones, and desires to ascend to their level, a goal which involves [[MadDoctor unethical experimentation]] on ordinary citizens and turning them into [[WasOnceAMan mini-abominations]]. It's a unique case where the religion is actually eviler than the gods it worships, since the Great Ones are [[BlueAndOrangeMorality alien at worst]] and seem to want to be helpful, while the Church subjects people to horrible fates knowing full well what they're doing.]]
* RemixedLevel: The Hunter's Nightmare in the DLC, which is most of the areas you explore in Yharnam proper (e.g. the Cathedral Ward, Old Yharnam, etc.) with completely different level designs and enemies.
* RiversOfBlood: In the DLC ''The Old Hunters'', there is a literal river of blood flowing through the fake-Yharnam portion of the Hunter's Nightmare. The banks of this river are completely filled with [[spoiler:[[NotQuiteDead still somewhat living]]]] shriveled up corpses, and at the end lies Ludwig. Castle Cainhurt also has a somewhat dried up version of this. Interestingly these rivers have their own local fauna, as both happen to have giant blood-sucking ticks gorging on the blood, with the ones in the Hunter's Nightmare being much more engorged and dangerous due to there being more blood to feast on.
* RomanceSidequest: Defied. If the Hunter can acquire a Ring of Betrothal, then they can use it to propose marriage to Annalise. She rejects it, but she's flattered, and [[PetTheDog lets them down gently]], noting that, should she accept, you'd be in danger, and you're far too important to her for her to let that happen.
** Repeatedly asking after the first time gets her to giggle like a school girl, lets you know that the thought is enough, and pretty much suggests she wouldn't mind if not for the goals of Cainhurst. Considering the ring itself is a random reward from a chalice dungeon, it's entirely possible it's a nod to the fandom wanting to "wife" characters in other ''Souls'' games.
* SadBattleMusic: Like ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'' before it, the track used for the final boss of ''Bloodborne'' -- [[spoiler:Gehrman, the First Hunter]] -- is not an epic and orchestral score, but a sad and somber piece.
* SamusIsAGirl: You probably couldn't tell that the Hunter on the cover of The Old Hunters with the Rakuyo trick weapon is Lady Maria of The Astral Clocktower until you meet her in-game. Oh, and she's [[spoiler:the person that the Doll is based on]].
* SanityMeter: The Insight mechanic and the Frenzy meter. Insight is gained either from using certain items or from encountering and slaying bosses. The more Insight you have, the more you see of this world: more enemies show up, enemies gain new attacks, and the enemies get harder. (Plus, there's the Amgydalas just hanging onto the walls that you can see once you have enough Insight.) Most dangerously, though, is: having a great amount of Insight greatly reduces resistance to the "Frenzy" status effect, which allows certain enemies to kill you almost instantaneously. However, Insight can be spent either by summoning another Hunter online or through the Insight shop in the Hunter's Dream.
* SanitySlippage: What you presumably experience when your Insight rises ([[MindScrew or maybe you become more sane?]]).
** Also experienced by most of the [=NPCs=] in the game. Most of the ones who won't leave their homes will start to go insane if you check in with them as the game goes on, with some going silent eventually, and of the [=NPCs=] you ''do'' save, some of them begin to crack after the Red Moon Event. The church lady is just huddled over chuckling to herself and will apparently kill the other young woman under certain conditions. The young woman begins to hunch over as a strange affliction takes her. Ironically, the old lady starts off in a terrible mood and devolving into panic much faster, only to become very calm (and mistaking you for her child). This is because she evidently went ''so'' nuts that she began taking sedatives to calm down (she'll even share).
* SceneryGorn: Just like its predecessors. The environments are dark, dank, and filled with death, disease, and decay.
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: Mainly with the bosses. Father Gasciogne, at the end of the first area, is one of the hardest bosses in the game, and one of the few you cannot summon NPC help for. After him, the next few are relatively little trouble until you meet Vicar Amelia (and even she isn't bad if you summon the NPC helper). You may also go down into Old Yharnam to fight the Blood Starved Beast, who is ''at least'' as hard as Amelia with its poison abilities.
* SexSlave: Not actually possible in the game, but Gehrman tells you "You're welcome to use whatever you find. ''(whispers)'' ...Even the doll, should it please you..." The doll professes to love you, but also states it was built that way, and so is probably not capable of consent.
* ShockAndAwe: The Bolt Paper and the Tonitrus Trick Weapon, a mace that can spark itself for seven seconds.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: The Hunter's Blunderbuss, Ludwig's Rifle, and any other spread-shot firearms count.
* ShoutOut:
** The Yharnam Hunter outfit is inspired by the IconicOutfit from ''Film/BrotherhoodOfTheWolf''.
** To ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'':
*** The Hunter's Mark has been compared to the Brand of Sacrifice, although the Heir rune fits the motif better.
*** A more specific ''Berserk'' Shout-Out, but this time it's one to the ''darkest moments'' in the series: [[spoiler:should Arianna be in the Oedon Chapel when the Red Moon Event happens, she disappears into the Tomb of Oedon sewer. Upon finding her, she's sitting in another chair with a Kin baby at her feet. Arianna's SurprisePregnancy and subsequent labor/childbirth mirror Griffith/Femto's rape of Casca and the early childbirth of her and Guts' demonically corrupted child.]]
*** Another specific ''Berserk'' Shout-Out. Logarius' Wheel, the signature weapon of the Executioners covenant, is highly reminiscent of the torture wheel used by Mozgus' musclebound disciple.
*** Some find Annalise's helmet design to bear more than a passing resemblance to Griffith's iconic birdlike headwear.
*** [[spoiler: Much like Guts, the Orphan of Kos was born from its mother's dead body.]]
** The Beast Cutter weapon from ''The Old Hunters'' is very similar to Zabimaru, Renji Abarai's zanpakuto in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', from the shape to its trick mode being a whip-sword.
** The Gold Ardeo helmet bears a heavy resemblance to the iconic helm of [[VideoGame/{{SilentHill2}} Pyramid Head]], although it is shaped like a conical pyramid rather than a rectangular pyramid. Fittingly, the Gold Ardeo forms the helmet portion of the Executioner Set.
** The snail women from ''The Old Hunters'' resemble the snail people from ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}''.
** ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore''
*** The Reiterpallasch is a reference to Wynne D. Fanchon from ''Armored Core: For Answer''; she piloted an AC named Reiterpallasch.
*** The Stake Driver, being a PileBunker, resembles the Parrying Blade which can be attached onto various AC as melee weapons.
*** The Whirligig Saw is a reference to the Grind Blade, an Overed Weapon consists of six chainsaws attached onto an oversized drill arm.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''
*** The Evelyn pistol is a reference to the repeating crossbow Avelyn from the ''Dark Souls'' trilogy.
*** Alfred, [[spoiler:The Executioner]], who openly asks you to co-operate with him is a reference to Solaire of Astora. The two even have the same voice actor. [[spoiler:When you give him the Unopened Summons, he says "Praise the Good Blood", which is a reference to "Praise the Sun" message seen all over the place.]]
*** Valtr also takes on a part of Solaire's character; in his case, being the leader of a co-op covenant.
*** Patches [[spoiler:the Spider]] is a recurring character who kicks people into various pits by tricking them with treasures below. Should they survive, Patches will beg for forgiveness and become a merchant.
*** One of the patients in the Research Hall who has become nothing but a head asks if she can curl up and turn into an egg. Curling up in a giant bird's nest and ''pretending'' to be an egg is how you return to the Undead Asylum in ''Dark Souls 1''.
** ''VideoGame/KingsField''
*** The RecurringElement, [[spoiler:Moonlight Sword, the InfinityPlusOneSword crafted by Guyra and reappeared throughout games created by Creator/FromSoftware, appears as Ludwig's signature weapon]].
*** There are two small islands on either side of the broken stone bridge to Cainhurst. One of them resembles a scale version of the Island of Melanat from ''King's Field II''.
** The entire plot plays out like one giant [[spoiler:[[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraft]]]] novel, with similar themes and entities to boot. Specifically, it's an homage to [[spoiler:his Dream Cycle stories, which feature an alternate dimension that can be accessed via sleep and intersects with our world at points. It is also the home of some of Lovecraft's eldritch abominations, most notably Nyarlathotep.]]
*** A great deal of the story can be attributed to Lovecraft's works: [[spoiler:Yharnam is, essentially, Innsmouth, but with beastmen instead of fishmen; Byrgenwyrth College is Miskatonic University, but without the voice of reason; the Amygdala enemies are entities similar to the invisible spawn of Yog-Sothoth from ''The Dunwich Horror''; and the Pthumerians, the race that came before mankind, are like The Great Race of Yith, minus the bizarre non-human anatomy. Oh, and The One Reborn? That could easily have come out of Reanimator.]]
*** [[spoiler:The Fishing Hamlet in the ''Old Hunters'' DLC is a shout-out to ''The Shadow Over Innsmouth'', complete with malformed Deep One-like fish monsters. At least for the first third up to the lighthouse, as fans have attributed the last two-thirds to have being influenced by the works of Creator/JunjiIto: from the lighthouse to the beach appears to have been influenced by ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}'', with the beach containing Kos being influenced by ''The Thing That Drifted Ashore''.]]
** The lantern-bearing groundskeepers in the Cathedral Ward cemetery are near-identical in design to the gravediggers from the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series -- in both hooded and hatted varieties. Additionally, the eyes that cover their lanterns beginning with 15 insight are a reference to the "Lantern of Insight" card from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' -- which Hidetaka Miyazaki is a fan of.
*** Speaking of which, the entire Cainhurst Castle area is an obvious homage to the series too: a huge, isolated castle in the middle of a lake in a mountainous region, haunted by all manner of classic horror creatures, from ghosts to sentient gargoyles to zombified servitude, culminating in a very tough boss fight against a skeleton wielding a scythe and his perpetually spawning flurry of pointy weapons which must be carefully dodged. Further, Cainhurst contains almost every enemy weak to the [[GuideDangIt unmentioned]] righteous damage type. The first available weapon with righteous damage? The Threaded Cane, which transforms into a whip.
** The final fight with [[spoiler:Gehrman]] is very similar to the final boss fight with The Boss from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' (such as the fight being in a field of white flowers, fighting your tragic mentor in a final duel to the death).
** The entire game is ''extremely'' similar in theme, tone, and visuals (down to the environment, the monster design, and the sword-and-pistol-wielding masked hero in a tricorn and longcoat) to Creator/GuyDavis' graphic novel ''ComicBook/TheMarquis'', [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/4e8fd4c347c9e4cbc885083ed042bd51/tumblr_mhr8l9BGi81s3utsio1_1280.jpg published 15 years earlier]].
** The shape of the Whirligig Saw's mace head in normal mode has been likened to Bramd from ''Demon's Souls''.
** Kos and Oden are the names of two gods from Fritz Leiber's [[Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser Lankhmar]] stories.
** The visual design was arguably influenced by ''Anime/AngelsEgg'', including [[spoiler: the underwater Yharnam]] as seen from the fishing hamlet.
* ShownTheirWork: Ever wonder why the moon is so ridiculously big? It's a reference to an old Italian saying, ''"La Luna del Cacciatore"'', which translates to [[MeaningfulName "The Hunter's Moon".]]
* SchrodingersButterfly: The vague nature of the narrative combined with dreams being alternate dimensions and the general presence of madness, liars, hallucinations and ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow at every corner means it's difficult to take anything you see in the game at face value.
* SilverBullet: Or rather, quicksilver (i.e. mercury) bullets infused with blood are a staple in a Hunter's arsenal.
* SilverHasMysticPowers: Many of the Healing Church's weapons are forged from silver and deal Arcane damage. Many of them also have a hidden "Righteous" damage-type modifier that deal bonus damage against the enemies of the Healing Church, primarily the enemy-types found in Cainhurst Castle.
* SinisterScythe:
** Martyr Logarius wields a staff adorned with a sickle blade that glows red. He mainly uses it to conjure dark magic, but is not above trying to slash you with it, in addition to wielding a sword in his left hand.
** [[spoiler:Gehrman, the First Hunter,]] carries a large scythe on his back, and uses it in conjunction with both a blunderbuss and a pistol during [[spoiler:the FinalBoss battle]].
* SinsOfOurFathers: The central theme of the ''Old Hunters'' dlc. [[spoiler:The Byrgenwerth scholars once found a fishing hamlet where the villagers worshipped the Great One Kos (though some say Kosm). [[ForScience To sate their thirst for knowledge]], the scholars murdered and violated the villagers, and may even have killed Kos and her unborn child, though it's just as likely that she was already dead. The villagers implored Kos to give them revenge, and Kos obliged, cursing the scholars and their metaphorical descendants, the Hunters, with a blood thirst that would eventually trap them in the Hunter's Nightmare, an afterlife where they would be lost in their bloodlust forever.]]
* SmallSecludedWorld: The Hunter's Dream, a cozy little cottage located in a separate dream world that serves as your PlayerHeadquarters.
* SnakesAreSinister: The deeper parts of the Forbidden Woods are plagued with venomous snake monsters. Most of them show up as swarms of multi-headed serpents that appear to be tangled up in a ball, but they also have the ability to parasitically infect others, as demonstrated by the hunter mobs they burst out and take control of. [[spoiler:As well as to the Shadows of Yharnam, who summon bigger snakes out of the ground.]]
* SortingAlgorithmOfWeaponEffectiveness: Notably averted. Although there are many different weapons and armors to collect, they are not necessarily upgrades, instead providing different trade-offs[[note]]Although there are some intentionally bad "joke" armor pieces[[/note]]. It's fully viable to play through the entire game with the weapons and armor found at the beginning.
* SoundtrackDissonance: Some boss {{leitmotif}}s fall under this. "Lullaby for Mergo" is a childish, soothing jingle that happens to play when fighting one of the darkest and most unnerving bosses in the game. It's not helped by the boss' disturbing introduction, much less the accompanying baby wails.
* SpiritualSuccessor:
** For ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''. Like those two titles, ''Bloodborne'' is an ActionRPG with horror elements. Similarly, the game is directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who also directed ''Demon's Souls'' and the first ''Dark Souls''.
** More than a few fans have also noted how the game's Victorian Era-like setting reminds them of ''VideoGame/NightmareCreatures''.
** Some fans consider the game a 3D ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' game done right when compared to Konami's own varying track record of 3D ''Castlevania'' titles.
*** This comparison is further cemented when players reach Forsaken Cainhurst Castle, which is a dead-ringer for Dracula's Castle.
* StarPower: How "A Call Beyond" works. It creates small exploding stars as a ProjectileSpell.
* StartXToStopX:
** Laurence, the Byrgenwerth Heretic, may have undertaken one of the most ill-advised examples of this trope in history. Scattered bits of lore and notes from the Lecture Hall suggest that, as [[spoiler:Yharnam fell apart under the blood curse and the Great Ones' presence,]] he attempted to [[spoiler:purge the Great Ones and exterminate the beasts by ''summoning another Great One'' -- namely, the Moon Presence, which created the Hunt and the Dream to give humans a fighting chance against the beasts, but also sealed Yharnam in an endless nightmare realm until the job was done. Yet, [[CrazyEnoughToWork it actually does seem to work]]. If the player decides to submit their life at the end of the game, then the Dream burns, the nightmare breaks, the Scourge is stopped, and all the corporeal Great Ones and their acolytes are slain by the Hunter, allowing them to leave the city peacefully.]]
** This is pretty much what the first three quarters of the game consist of you doing. In order to stop [[spoiler:Mensis' Ritual]] once and for all and reach the [[spoiler:infant Great One that's responsible for the horrors in Yharnam]], you have to [[spoiler:venture into Byrgenwerth]] and eliminate the one thing preventing the ritual from seeing completion, [[spoiler:Rom the Vacuous Spider, and allow the Nightmare to fully take hold of the city.]]
* StealthPun: ''The Old Hunters'' added two new dog types. One of these are German Shepherds covered in blood. They're bloodhounds!
* StoryBreadcrumbs: In grand ''Souls'' tradition, there is a story, but you will need to hunt high and low for its bits and pieces... or go read a wiki.
* SummonMagic: The Executioner's Gloves summon ghosts to attack the enemy as a ProjectileSpell. And the Augur of Ebrietas is used to (partially) summon a Great One to kill your enemies.
* SuperhumanTransfusion: All Hunters first receive a blood transfusion, which gives them access to the Hunter's Dream, visceral attacks, and the ability boost their attributes with Blood Echoes, as well as generally superhuman strength, toughness, and speed... and though there's a risk of the Hunter losing themselves to madness and turning into a beast, at least two Hunters (Eileen the Crow and Djura) have been able to leave the Hunter's Dream behind and remain sane despite being fairly old.
* SurvivalHorror: Has some elements. You gain powerful melee attacks very quickly, and you can and will slaughter hordes of enemies throughout most levels, but it’s just as easy to end up on the wrong end and get killed or burn through your limited (though renewable) healing items in the process. It’s sometimes wiser to sprint past crowds of opponents than to engage them.
* SwipeYourBladeOff: When the Chikage is transformed, the blade becomes coated in thick blood. The animation for transforming it back has the Hunter do this (it can even be comboed into an attack!), instantly cleaning the blade.
* SwissArmyWeapon: The more complex Trick Weapons switch between two completely different armaments, such as a cane that loosens its inner mechanisms to unleash a serrated whip, a sword that props a large block of stone onto the blade to become a greathammer, or a curved sword that ''somehow'' turns into a bow.
* SwordAndGun: The mixture of melee combat and gunplay is to make the gameplay much more aggressive. The character is even featured in the cover using a Saw Cleaver in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other.
* TakeThatAudience:
** The description of the shield subtly [[JustForPun bashes]] players who were expecting to rely on them the same way they used to in From Software's previous games.
-->"Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity."
** In the choice of the Villagers who hide behind wooden shields, the shields can be staggered through in a single hit, leaving them wide open to attack, and even if they shield bash you, it does almost no damage.
** The game takes the piss out of people who spam-abused dodge-rolling in previous titles by way of the Merciless Watchers; grossly overweight mace wielding ogres in the Chalice Dungeon, naked except for boots that ''somersault'' across the floor to get in swinging range of you. This variant has quickly become a laughingstock of a mob; if you pop in an old ''Souls'' game and [=PvP=] one of the overwhelmingly common heavy armor builds that curls up like an armadillo to backpedal out of a whiffed attack, so will they.
* TheTheocracy: Yharnam appears to be completely under the control of the Healing Church.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Gaining too much Insight can cause some weird things to happen. [[spoiler:The whole game is possibly an even deeper extension of this, with the world acting as a mass shared lucid dream that the player traverses through.]]
* ThunderboltIron: A less supernatural and more cosmic/natural example in stories; the Blade of Mercy and the Burial Blade are forged from [[http://www.galleries.com/Siderite siderite]], a meteoric iron alloy which becomes magnetized after it has been heated. For the Blade of Mercy, the magnetic field is what keeps the twin blades together, as the wielder must force the blades apart in order to use the transformed state. For the Burial Blade, the magnetic field helps keep the scimitar-like blade attached to the folding scythe snath. Keeping with the mythical "magic" properties associated with thunderbolt iron, both weapons cause both regular physical damage and arcane damage.
* TimeyWimeyBall: Implied to be what's going on in the lower Chalice Dungeons by way of AlternateUniverse (similar to the alternate worlds in ''Dark Souls''), due to [[EldritchAbomination Great One]] interference. Supposedly the Chalice Dungeons are just sealed ruins of civilizations from thousands of years ago placed firmly in our world; that sort of works for the upper ones, assuming the [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombified Pthumerians]] simply [[PerpetualMotionMachine don't require food]], but it looks less likely the deeper you go. Firearms still work long after they would have broken down from lack of maintenance; early-stage Beast Patients show up rather than being entirely replaced with Scourge Beasts, which should have happened over thousands of years; Celestial Children in their larval forms remained ungrown. This is made more or less explicit by the final two dungeons, Isz Gravestone and Great Pthumeru Ihyll. The former has Ebrietas as the end boss despite you having already killed her present self in the main game, while the latter ends with a fight against Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen, fully in the flesh rather than as a wraith (the state you find her in the main game). She's ''visibly pregnant'' with Mergo, who can also be dead in the main game at this point and was supposed to have been stillborn long before the game began; heavily implying you've traveled to an AlternateUniverse of the past, soon after Odeon impregnated the queen.
* TitleDrop:
-->''"We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open... Fear the old blood."''
--->-- [[spoiler:'''Master Willem''']]
* TooSpicyForYogSothoth: If you've consumed at least three [[spoiler:[[ItMakesSenseInContext Umbilical Cords]], whatever power they bestow upon you forces the Moon Presence to back off after attempting to embrace you. This also initiates the TrueFinalBoss fight]].
* TorchesAndPitchforks: The chosen weapons of many enemy types, who also seem to be prone of shambling around in large mobs until they notice the player.
* TorturedMonster: All Beasts, given that they're just ordinary humans who were afflicted with a horrific condition that they very much never asked for. Particularly notable are Gascoigne and Ludwig, since you can catch a glimse of their lost humanity. The Afflicted Beggar lashes out at the player and Hunters in general for essentially being murderers of the ill, but whether or not his condition excuses his particularly heinous actions is up for debate.
* TransformationIsAFreeAction: ZigZaggedTrope, as numerous bosses and enemies have different AI routines based on how much damage they've taken, often having them perform some action to initiate that change. In some cases, such as the Snatchers or Logarias, cannot be stopped from buffing but are entirely vulnerable through the process. Others still, such as [[spoiler: Maria]] end their buffing with devastating AOE attacks to punish greedy players, while [[spoiler: Ludwig]] gets an actual cutscene played out.
* TrueFinalBoss: After [[spoiler:consuming at least three Umbilical Cords and defeating Gehrman in the "Refuse" route]], the player is treated with an additional fight against [[spoiler:the Moon Presence, as well as a third possible ending upon defeating it]].
* TwistedEucharist: The Healing Church was created with the intent of using the Old Blood found in the Pthumerian ruins, be it to help the general populace, seek to evolve mankind or gain power. The religion ''revolves'' around consuming and exchanging blood, so communion is brought up ''a lot''.
* {{Unishment}}: It's actually worth getting killed by Kidnappers when they first appear. True, you lose your Echoes, but you get dropped off at the Hypogian Gaol. While most of the city is inaccessible at that point in the game, there's still plenty to gain: a useful Caryl Rune, a fancy new [[ShockAndAwe Tonitrus]], a set of armor with some of the highest defense in the game, and a boss fight against Darkbeast Paarl. Even escaping the Gaol is laughably easy: there's a lantern at the top of some stairs that can be accessed without fighting a single enemy if you take the right path. As for the Blood Echoes you lost, the enemies of the Gaol are high-leveled, yet slow and easy to parry if you get the timing down, meaning you'll get the Echoes back and then some. To make matters better, there are three of them a stone's throw away from the aforementioned lantern, all-in-all making it a fantastic place to farm early-game.
* UniversalAmmunition: Quicksilver Bullets are used for all of your firearms. At first it can be justified in that the bullets are made of liquid metal and can change shape to fit the gun, until you see they also can be used with a flamethrower, a cannon that shoots explosive cannonballs, or magical tools that very much aren't guns.
* TheUnreveal: You're never told how you received the summons from Cainhurst, who gave it to you, or why it was sent to you in the first place. Investigating the castle turns up nothing, and even Queen Annalise doesn't seem like she was expecting you either.
* VaginaDentata: [[spoiler:Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos]]. Her head looks like a massive vagina with writhing tentacle-like teeth. Also, when she hovers, her lower body begins to resemble [[GagPenis something else]]...
* VideoGameCaringPotential:
** If he is made non-hostile, [[spoiler:Retired Hunter Djura]] tells the player that he has been watching over the beasts in the burnt-out district of Old Yharnam, and asks the player to leave them be. If the player agrees, he gives them his badge and teaches them a gesture out of gratitude. [[GuideDangIt However, this process is]] ''[[GuideDangIt extremely]]'' [[GuideDangIt easy to miss, as it requires approaching him from behind and never being seen until you speak to him]]. This is only doable by going through the Graveyard of the Darkbeast - either via Yahar'Gul ''or'' being defeated by a Snatcher and making your way through the high-level Hypogean Gaol - then taking the one-way route into Old Yharnam, instead of the traditional path in from the Cathedral Ward.
** The Doll is given life by being loved and cared about. If you go into a certain optional area, you can obtain an item to give her as a gift. [[spoiler:If you do so, she cries with joy, despite that being ''[[TearsFromAStone physically impossible]]''. The stone itself is an item that gives a persistent RegeneratingHealth effect.]]
** You have the option to play the music box to make Mergo laugh instead of crying.
** In ''The Old Hunters'', you have the option to [[spoiler:talk to Ludwig after the fight if you're dressed in Church garb. He'll ask you if his Church hunters became the honorable spartans he trained them to be. You can choose to tell him that they did become noble warriors defending Yharnam, allowing Ludwig [[LetThemDieHappy to rest with a sigh of relief]] that his efforts and sacrifices weren't in vain. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Telling him]] [[AwfulTruth the truth]] will instead make him lose what little sanity he has left and die miserable and LaughingMad.]]
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
** The player can also choose to simply kill [[spoiler:Djura]] and the beasts he protects, up to and including setting fire to them from the rafters.
** After you've discovered [[spoiler:the imposter Iosefka]] and what she's done, if you stay, you'll trigger a fight. However... if you leave, she won't attack and you can ''continue'' to send more people to her [[spoiler:clinic]].
** The player can also attack and kill several friendly [=NPCs=] that have done them absolutely no wrong, such as the Oedon Chapel Dweller, for the sake of ItemFarming. Even worse, it's possible to attack and kill [[spoiler:the Doll, despite all that she's done for the player,]] and unlike the Chapel Dweller you don't even have the excuse of getting an item out of it. YouBastard. (Luckily, it isn't permanent.)
** [[spoiler:You can put Eileen out of her misery at the end of her quest line before you take on the warrior who nearly killed her. Alternatively, you can simply take up her mantle and allow her to retire in relative peace.]]
** [[spoiler:When Gilbert turns into a Beast, he fears the Torch just like the rest of the Old Yharnam Beast Patients; you can bring out the Torch, torture him with fear, and burn him to death with torch fire.]]
* VideoGameDemake: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USEJ2gRa14w There's a PS1 Demake]] that, appropriate to the comparisons, looks quite a bit like ''VideoGame/NightmareCreatures''.
* VillainForgotToLevelGrind:
** Since the NPC Hunters like Djura, the Bloody Crow, and Yurie are created the same way as the PC Hunter, complete with actual stats, they don't get any noticeably (if any) stronger on subsequent runs of the game.
** The Chalice Dungeons don't scale either, surprisingly enough. It's not surprising to one-hit-kill the bosses of the earlier ones if you're near the end of the game.
* TheVoice: Besides a handful of people that you can send to a safe haven, most of the characters you speak to will remain behind closed windows and locked doors.
* WaitingSkeleton: The entrance to the Forbidden Woods is guarded by an apprentice of Provost Wilhelm, who is waiting for someone who knows the password to let them through. When you finally obtain the password, and the doors open, you find the apprentice's skeletal remains behind them -- apparently, he died while waiting to fulfill Provost Wilhelm's last orders, and you have been ([[MindScrew apparently]]) talking to his ghost.
* WakeUpCallBoss: Father Gascoigne, the first mandatory boss, is one of the game's most infamous difficulty spikes. Until this point you've mostly been fighting slow and relatively weak Huntsmen, but Gascoigne combines the damage output of Scourge Beasts with speed and agility [[MirrorBoss similar to your own]]. Even worse, the fight takes place in a graveyard, meaning it's full of obstacles that can cause you to accidentally corner yourself. His [[SequentialBoss third phase]] transforms him into a hyperaggressive LightningBruiser that can easily kill you in one combo. It's possible to find a music box that will cause him to stand still for a bit, but playing it also forces ''you'' to stand still. The fight forces the player to learn how to act quickly, use terrain to their advantage, and parry.
* WasOnceAMan: Nearly all the monsters in Yharnam were once human, until they started transforming into beasts.
** [[spoiler:The player themselves, in the Childhood's Beginning ending, as they become a new Great One.]]
* WeakButSkilled: The Hunter of Hunters are known for this. Their special covenant rune does jack diddly squat for damage boosts or defense, but it improves their stamina regeneration in a game where stamina is crucial for survival. A Hunter using this rune can attack and dodge more often, and that's where skill matters more.
** The Blade of Mercy is incredibly ineffective against large hordes of enemies because of it was meant to Hunt blood-addled Hunters one on one. However, it is still capable of doing so, albeit very difficultly.
* WeirdMoon: The moon is never obscured by the clouds; in fact, [[spoiler:the moon is always ''in front'' of the clouds]]. By the end of the game, it becomes apparent that [[spoiler:the "moon" (or at least the moon in Yharnam) is merely the physical representation of the thusly named Moon Presence throughout most of Yharnam's dream, up until the end (depending on the player's choice) where it will appear in its "real" form.]]
* WhamEpisode: Byrgenwerth College. This is where you begin to realize that [[spoiler:something more otherworldly and sinister than just a simple plague is at work here]]. And once [[spoiler:Rom the Vacuous Spider is slain, the moon turns red]] and everything goes FromBadToWorse as [[spoiler:the CosmicHorrorStory goes full tilt.]]
* WhamShot: [[spoiler:Rom the Vacuous Spider]]. Before this point, all of the creatures and locations are at least somewhat in the vein of gothic horror: witches, werewolves, zombies, and other such things. But then you drop into [[spoiler:the Moonside Lake]] and see this... '''''[[EldritchAbomination thing]]'''''. From there, the situation only gets worse: once you [[spoiler:beat her, descend into the newly opened [[EldritchLocation Yahar'gul]], and from there see ''dozens'' of [[EldritchAbomination Amygdalas]] crawling over the city like maggots on a rotted corpse.]] ''This'' is when you [[OhCrap realize]] that [[spoiler:what you have been playing in is in fact a CosmicHorrorStory.]]
** Taking the back door into [[spoiler:Iosefka's Clinic]] and then seeing [[spoiler:Celestial Emissaries lingering about, including a dead one strapped to an operating table]], followed by [[spoiler:[[EvilAllAlong Iosefka]]]] telling you to leave at once and possibly attempting to kill you. It hits doubly hard if [[spoiler:you've been sending all the civilians you find there]], [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone as you realize you're partially responsible for what's happened here]].
** Another Wham Shot can occur much earlier (especially once night has fallen) if the player takes a moment to really examine their surroundings. Have you noticed how the moon is always bright and clear, even in the cloudier areas? [[spoiler:That's because the moon is IN FRONT of the clouds]].
* WhereItAllBegan: [[spoiler:Both the final boss and true final boss are fought in the flower field in the Hunter's Dream.]]
* WhipItGood: The Threaded Cane transforms into a serrated whip. Slower attack, but has a longer range and better at damaging groups.
* WightInAWeddingDress: [[spoiler:Yharnam, the Pthumerian Queen]] wears a white wedding dress, complete with veil. It doesn't stay white for very long, though...
* WolfpackBoss: The Shadows of Yharnam are three ringwraith-like creatures who get progressively more difficult for each one of them killed.
** There's another one down in the Chalice Dungeons in the Merciless Watcher trio.
* WorstAid: The primary way you heal is with the Triangle button, in which you quickly jab a giant syringe of Yharnam Blood into your right thigh.
* WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide: In the backstory, the inhabitants of Castle Cainhurst were exterminated by the Executioners, an army of Healing Church fanatics led by Martyr Logarius. What makes it this trope is that the Vilebloods are consistently demonized by the last surviving Executioner as [[AlwaysChaoticEvil evil and corrupt heretics deserving of their fate.]] Who conveniently doesn't seem to realize or care about the '''many''' sins of the Healing Church.
* WouldHurtAChild:
** [[spoiler: Although there is debate amongst others in regard to this situation, The Hunter is nevertheless forced to contend with the Wet Nurse of the child of a Great One (both the Wet Nurse and Child are implied to be connected to one another) in order to end the Hunt. Although if it helps, it's unclear if the child, named Mergo is truly alive or if the source of the Nightmare is something else that ''USED'' to be Mergo]].
** The Healing Church ''egregiously'' experimented on innocent orphans in the Upper Cathedral Ward, turning them into grotesque, slug-like beings in their attempts to gain the power of the Great Ones.
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Some of the most powerful [[spoiler:Great Ones (like Oedon and Kos, or some say Kosm) transcended physical form and merely exist as concepts. In Oedon's case, it's "Blood and Voice".]]
** It's averted in the case of [[spoiler:Kos. You find her corpse washed up on a beach in the ''Old Hunters'' DLC, and she resembles a nudibranch with human arms and a human face.]]
* YouKillItYouBoughtIt:
** [[spoiler: Choosing Refuse at the end]] forces you to fight and kill [[spoiler: Gehrman]], at which point [[spoiler: the Moon Presence]] appears and makes you take [[spoiler: Gehrman's]] place as the [[spoiler: keeper, sitting on his wheelchair waiting for the Hunt to begin again.]]
** The third ending, which requires more work, has you killing [[spoiler:the Moon Presence, with your character being reborn as a Great One and leading the Dream Realm to its next childhood.]]
* YourHeadAsplode: Effectively what the Frenzy status ailment does to you; if the frenzy bar is filled completely, you lose a huge chunk of your health along with a huge burst of blood from your face. Unlike poison, its meter continues to rise a bit even after you're away from what's causing it, and the higher your Insight, the more vulnerable you are. The Nightmare of Mensis has something even nastier in a chamber that drives you mad and damages you just from seeing it thousands of meters away.
* YourMindMakesItReal: [[spoiler:The dreams and nightmares of the Great Ones are "just" that, but as they are dreamt by beings that are physical and meta-physical gods, these areas and their inhabitants are as tangible as anything else.]]
* ZergRush:
** The Celestial Emissary fight consists of several alien-like monsters bum-rushing you, with none of them lasting longer than two or three hits. [[spoiler:Only one of them is the actual boss, and when you've depleted half of its health, it will supersize and become a force of its own.]]
** The go-to strategy of the Hunter Mob enemy and those [[GoddamnBats horrible,]] ''horrible'' dogs.
[[/folder]]

** [[spoiler:Vicar Amelia]] is a massive, snarling beast with features of bears, wolves, and stags, with a large mane of hair on its back, [[spoiler:as an exaggeration of her human self's RapunzelHair]].

* BonusBoss: A good chunk of the game's bosses are entirely optional; the only completely necessary boss fights are Father Gascoigne, Vicar Amelia, Shadows of Yharnam, Rom the Vacuous Spider, The One Reborn, Micolash, and Mergo's Wet Nurse.

* OminousLatinChanting: ''Several'' examples, and "''sanguine''" usually appears somewhere in the lyrics. It's taken [[UpToEleven up to eleven]] in [[spoiler:Yahar'gul when [[PrisonEpisode ending up there early]] by getting killed by a Kidnapper.]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQcKBUcgmA Listen]]. What makes it scarier is that [[spoiler:the closer you get to the One Reborn's boss room, the louder it gets]].

* NeverTrustATrailer: The "Face Your Fears" trailer ends with the Hunter walking through a pitch-black Grand Cathedral and examining Laurence's skull on the altar, before a Cleric Beast appears behind him. In the actual game, that room of the Cathedral is always well-lit and the Cleric Beast doesn't appear there.

* ArmorIsUseless: [[DownplayedTrope Okay well, not really.]] This rather warrants a bit of an explanation. The story departs from the traditional medieval settings of [[VideoGame/DarkSouls its spiritual predecessors]] in favor of a more Gothic setting set during a Victorian Era period, which includes the technological advancements in firearms [[note]] Although to be fair, firearms have existed as far back as the 1200s, with the firearms here in Yharnam being more developed. [[/note]], and, as a result, having heavier armor would make for a far more difficult time in not necessarily protection, but rather avoiding more fast-paced attacks that could involve firearms. Furthermore, according to the description of the Wooden Shield found early in the game, [[ShieldsAreUseless shields apparently aren't as effective against these kinds of beasts]] [[note]] They actually are though, they just simply require a LOT of stamina in order to use them effectively. [[/note]], who are shown to easily overpower humans in terms of strength. As a result, this led to the style of fighting in which Gehrman codified, by eschewing armor altogether in exchange for speed as well as wielding versatile weaponry in order to quickly dispatch beasts before one is overwhelmed. Attire is the equivalent here in terms of Physical Defense, as the earliest proper chest piece gives you 110 Physical Defense, while the most expensive set only gives you 120. Instead, clothes are more easily selected based upon characteristics such as their resistance bonuses or simply their aesthetic appeal.
** This is averted with the [[spoiler:Cainhurst Set; it is a set of silver armor that's described as being "paper-thin," yet it has among the highest physical resistance among all Attire available, showing that not only is armor still present in-universe but it is also still utilized and effective.]]

* MirrorBoss:
** [[ThatOneBoss Father Gascoigne]].
** [[spoiler:[[HandicappedBadass Gehrman]].]]
** [[spoiler:[[LadyOfWar Lady Maria]].]]
** In some ways, [[spoiler:[[EvilCounterpart The Orphan of Kos]]]].

* MixAndMatchWeapon / WeaponOfChoice: The game has a notable focus on "trick weapons" which possess two different forms that can be cycled through on the fly. Also featured are "off-hand weapons" which, while usually firearms, can be torches or shields as well.

* DumpStat: One of the six main categories of builds involves, ironically, for a Soulsbornekiro, dumping Endurance. This is because Stamina is considered more efficient here, and a number of weapons are best when you have high stats in two different stats.
* EarnYourBadEnding[=/=]EarnYourHappyEnding: Played with, as usual for a Creator/FromSoftware game. One possible ending only requires you to select a single dialogue option, and results in [[spoiler:you leaving the Hunter's Dream, either having ensured at least a temporary end to the Hunt or simply abandoning Yharnam to fend for itself]]. Fighting an additional FinalBoss earns you [[spoiler:either eternal servitude or the opportunity to ensure the safety of future Hunters]], and locating at least three secret items and fighting the [[spoiler:TrueFinalBoss gets you transformed into a Great One, which may be the best or worst possible outcome for the future of mankind]]. As per the norm, it's all down to personal interpretation.

** ''Childhood's Beginning'': [[spoiler:The Hunter consumes at least three of the four pieces of EldritchAbomination umbilical cord hidden across Yharnam to "ascend to the level of a Great One" and face the Moon Presence instead. However, after you defeat the Moon Presence, you end up ''turning into an infant abomination'' yourself. You are eventually found by the Doll as a small slug[=/=]squid creature, seemingly to be raised into the next of the Great Ones.]]

** One particular Chalice Dungeon (colloquially known as the [[spoiler:Cum Dungeon due to its filename]] has recently grown in popularity for players, due to a loading glitch that can allow players to gain over''83,000'' blood echoes in a few seconds. It works like this- In a room to the side of the starting room, an NPC Hunter spawns in the path of an axe trap, and can't stagger out of the way because his model and animations are not loaded, but his hitbox is. So he gets repeatedly hit until he dies, and then the game assumes that you did it and gives you the Blood Echoes.

* ThePlague[=/=]ZombieApocalypse: The Scourge of Beasts infecting Yharnam turns those afflicted into mindless monsters, with the later stages of the disease turning the infected into literal beasts. [[spoiler:Although Yharnam isn't the first place this has happened.]]

* SteamPunk[=/=]GothicPunk: The game has a very Gothic-Victorian Era feel likened to the Jack the Ripper era of Victorian London.

* {{Reconstruction}}: In this day and age, the standard GothicHorror motifs ain't what they used to be. Only vampires still retain any of their weight in the eyes of the public. This game makes them all proper scary again. Infectious werewolf bites not doing anything for you? How's about a [[ZombieApocalypse werewolf apocalypse]]? Witches dancing in the light of the full moon laughable? Not when you walk in on the witches and they stop dancing to descend upon you with meat cleavers and red-hot pokers. The tragedy of Victor Frankenstein no longer resonating with you? ''The One Reborn'' is here to remind you how a botched attempt at creating life can turn out. TorchesAndPitchforks are a lot less silly when they're all pointed at ''you'', and there's so much bloodletting and blood-consumption that everyone in town is pretty much ''already'' a vampire. This is also probably why NotUsingTheZedWord is in play; if it doesn't have a familiar label, then old horrors are new again. And if you thought [[spoiler:the CosmicHorrorStory]] was becoming old hat, this game makes that fresh again too; all the [[spoiler:eldritch horrors are an OutsideGenreFoe that just ramps up the horror due to how unexpected and ''wrong'' they are.]]
** In general, if NothingIsScarier doesn't get you and monsters look boring or goofy, the cruel imaginations of [=FromSoft=]'s design teams are here to provide you with detailed, painstakingly-rendered BodyHorror that will probably freak you out just as much as it does to the characters.

* JumpScare: In ''The Old Hunters'' DLC, [[spoiler:on your way to grab the Whirligig Saw, a snail woman from a later DLC level smashes out of the sky right in front of you and spills out of her shell, dead. It can scare the crap out of you, and since it'll probably be the first time you see the snail women, can really unnerve you]].
** In Old Yharnam near the Blood-starved Beast's arena, [[spoiler:a scourge beast will burst out through a closed door when you move near it, opening up a shortcut back to the lamp. As no other door in the game is breakable, this can come as a rather nasty surprise]].

* InUniverseGameClock: Event/plot-induced time advancement format. There are three time stages that permanently affect the world, and some quests, events and secrets are restricted to a specific stage. At the very start of the game it's sunset. After you [[spoiler: defeat Father Gascoigne and enter Cathedral Ward, there's a very subtle change in lighting (not considered a different stage). The "night" state is then triggered by inspecting Laurence's skull after defeating Vicar Amelia. Lastly, the Blood Moon stage is triggered by defeating Rom, the Vacuous Spider and approaching Queen Yharnam]].

* BonusBoss: There are plenty of well-hidden bosses throughout the world that players might overlook. However, there's one supreme example that requires hours upon hours of work to access. If a player makes their way down to the bottom of the Pthumeru Ihyll Chalice (which requires fighting through at least five other Chalice Dungeons), they come face to face with [[spoiler:Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen. She's the same woman that you see after defeating Rom and before fighting Mergo's Wet Nurse]].

** The Old Hunter Bone's description about the "art of Quickening" may seem like just another part of ''Bloodborne'' lore, but when [[spoiler:you refuse to leave the Hunter's Dream, Gehrman will use the technique against you]].

** The Astral Clocktower is perhaps the most prominent building in the Cathedral Ward, but is unreachable in the base game, which is odd in a series where if you can see a place, you can normally go there. You actually have to traverse the DLC to reach it.

* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: The idea of Yharnam as an actual, functional city stretches the imagination — it looks like Victorian London as designed by M.C. Escher or [[BunglingInventor Bloody Stupid Johnston]]. And that's ''before'' you get to the Nightmare areas.

* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: The idea of Yharnam as an actual, functional city stretches the imagination — it looks like Victorian London as designed by M.C. Escher. And that's ''before'' you get to the Nightmare areas.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: One of the most important items in the game is the "One third of Umbilical Cord", the name being a clue to the fact that you must gather at least three of them to unlock a certain ending. In the initial release, this item was named "Third Umbilical Cord", which would imply that it was the third to be found or produced, even though all four cords in the game bore the same name.

** One particular Chalice Dungeon (colloquially known as the [[spoiler:Cum Dungeon due to its filename]] has recently grown in popularity for players, as it's a dungeon where a high-ranking enemy is killed within seconds, gaining players ''83,000'' blood echoes, and can be reset.

** If he is made non-hostile, [[spoiler:Retired Hunter Djura]] tells the player that he has been watching over the beasts in the burnt-out district of Old Yharnam, and asks the player to leave them be. If the player agrees, he gives them his badge and teaches them a gesture out of gratitude. [[GuideDangIt However, this process is]] ''[[GuideDangIt extremely]]'' [[GuideDangIt easy to miss, as it requires approaching him from behind and never being seen until you speak to him]]. This is only doable by going through the Graveyard of the Darkbeast instead of the traditional way, either via Yahar'Gul which requires defeating [[spoiler:Rom in Moonlight Lake]] more than halfway through the game, ''or'' being defeated by a Snatcher and making your way through the high-level Hypogean Gaol, then taking the one-way route into Old Yharnam.

** If he is made non-hostile, [[spoiler:Retired Hunter Djura]] tells the player that he has been watching over the beasts in the burnt-out district of Old Yharnam, and asks the player to leave them be. If the player agrees, he gives them his badge and teaches them a gesture out of gratitude. [[GuideDangIt However, this process is ''extremely'' easy to miss, as it requires approaching him from behind and never being seen until you speak to him]]. This is only doable by either going through the Graveyard of the Darkbeast via Yahar'Gul, which requires defeating [[spoiler:Rom in Moonlight Lake]] more than halfway through the game, ''or'' being defeated by a Snatcher and making your way through the high-level Hypogean Gaol, then taking the one-way route into Old Yharnam.

** [[spoiler:The player can also choose to simply kill Djura and the beasts he protects.]]
** Related to the above, the player can [[spoiler:set the beasts' church on fire from the rafters.]]

** If he is made non-hostile, [[spoiler:Retired Hunter Djura tells the player that he has been watching over the beasts in the burnt-out district of Old Yharnam, and asks the player to leave them be]]. If the player agrees, he gives them his badge and teaches them a gesture out of gratitude. [[GuideDangIt However, this process is somewhat of a hidden one...]]

** Since the NPC Hunters like Djura, the Bloody Crow, and Yurie are created the same way as the character complete with actual stats, they don't get any noticeably (if any) stronger on subsequent runs of the game.