Anyway, time to cover the game itself, right? In short, this was my favorite game of the ones that I played. Apparently I'm not alone in that line of thinking as the booth had already been decorated with awards from various media outlets indicating it was their choice as well. The most important contributing factor to my decision was that the game seemed to pull me into its world so easily. I put on the Sony headphones, picked up the controller, and was tasked with choosing between two sets of weapons, each including one melee and one firearm. I chose the sawblade and blunderbuss combination, which seems to be the set featured in most of the gameplay footage circling around for this. After about a minute of loading (don't read into that, these show demos commonly have long load periods) the entire PAX floor melted away along with any noise or chatter and I was fully immersed into the game's world. My character stood outside of a large iron gate with a landscape of dead trees and beat up buildings, with a giant moon hanging low in the night sky. The whole place looked like Halloween personified.
Having played through the Souls games, I really felt right at home in Bloodborne. All the controls were pretty much the same, the character seemed to have a familiar weight and speed, and the attacks all felt like they had the right amount of heft to them. I even found familiar items in my inventory, now known by different names. For example, the molotov cocktail in Bloodborne functions exactly like the "bomb" in Dark Souls 2. I was pleased to see I had a few of those loaded and ready to go.
Working through the town felt like a great outdoor haunted house. Enemies were jumping out from places unseen, with weapons swinging. A couple of times I could see them beforehand, but more often than not, I was treading very carefully and still being taken a bit by surprise. I was happy to see what was around the next corner or down the next street, but not so terrified that I found it difficult to keep advancing. This might sound odd to some people, but it actually reminded me a bit of Nightmare Creatures from back in the days of PlayStation One and Nintendo 64. Don't worry though, I only mean that in the best way!
After a few enemy encounters, I was feeling pretty comfortable and started to get a little more fast and loose with my exploration, knowing that I was playing a demo with a 15 minute time limit. I had hoped to see as much as possible, but I had to get comfortable first so I didn't die right away and get kicked off the demo. I didn't know if that would happen, but I wasn't going to risk it. It wasn't long after my new carefree approach that I got in over my head. I saw a patrol of about four enemies working its way down a street below me. I tossed a molotov down there and took out two of them, then proceeded to make my way toward the other two. As I engaged them, a large number of enemies around the corner were alerted and began to run to the aid of their allies. I now had something like seven or eight enemies targeting me, which is a few more than I ever had coming after me in any of the Souls games. A couple of them had long range rifles, a couple had torches, and the rest had pitchforks and other assorted melee weapons. I took out all but one hunter with his rifle and as I approached him, two more enemies closed in from an area behind him. It seemed like they could have easily been alerted earlier had I not chosen to fight the majority of this mob battle on the other end of the street. The sheer number of enemies in close proximity was definitely something I had not experienced in the Souls games. Perhaps with smaller enemies, but this mob was made up entirely of what I'd consider to be enemies you have to take seriously because one wrong move can give just one of them the opportunity to do a lot of damage to you.
The two new enemies closed in on me, forcing me to back down the street, which allowed the hunter with the rifle to take shots at me and ultimately pick me off as I tried to get to an area where I could maneuver a bit more and avoid attacks. This whole scene was intense and the kind of moment where you forget you are playing a game and the rest of the world doesn't exist. I was totally engrossed until I was taken out by that hunter.
Now that my turn was over, I exited the demo booth and realized I was back at PAX again. I actually hung around for a bit and watched another player who had apparently taken a different path than me, which led them to a boss battle. The boss was a huge creature that looked like some kind of decomposed werewolf. I was pretty blown away by the striking visuals as I noticed the boss had all kinds of long fur blowing in the wind and responding to his movements. Even up close, shorter fur was covering its limbs and driving home that the amount of detail put into this model was extensive. The game already looked great and played very well, but seeing this boss was the one thing that really stood out and solidified the idea that I was indeed looking at a true next gen successor to the Souls games. I can't wait to play more.