Not entirely sure if this qualifies as new news, but there are some specific tidbits about controls, mechanics, and design philosophy that I didn't see before.
Full article is here.
The idea of "truly perilous combat" was reiterate again and again during the presentation. Whereas the Souls series is known for its measured combat system – many players, myself included, spent a great deal of time behind a shield, sussing out the weaknesses of new opponents. Bloodborne definitely still has that aspect to its combat – more on that below – but there's a different flavour to the overall style. Miyazaki and his team want to draw players into something they're terming "mortal combat" and a "rally of deadly blows". Shields encourage tentative combat in some, and that safety has been removed.
Another way in which the player is being encouraged to be more daring is the ‘Regain System’. When you receive damage from your opponents, you have a limited period of time in which to get some of that health back by landing your own attacks. The window is brief and rewards the brave. When you’re low on health, you can choose to attack, and hope to win back some health in the process, or in a more traditional fashion, choose to retreat and use a health item.
It’s an interesting system, and one of the intentions is to make the game feel less punishing, even though the producers reiterated that the overall challenge of the Souls games will remain firmly in places.
“Miyazaki looks at the health gauge not as health. It’s your power of will to go on. And as that goes down you’re plunging into despair but in combat as you get hit. If you think about if you’re in that situation in real life, straight after it happens you can still get your hope back by landing your own attacks. But if you leave it for too long, you’re plunge into more and more despair. When your health reaches zero, that’s complete despair, but until that happens you’re still alive, and you can still go on and get your hope back. And it’s that hope and despair and power of will combined. He just doesn’t see a health gauge and that’s how it’s implemented in Bloodborne.”
There’s a red gauge denoting health in the top left-hand corner of the screen, with a green bar directly below measuring your stamina. Business as usual. Both are joined on the left hand side by a blood stain containing a number (if you’ve played Dark Souls, it looks roughly equivalent the number of hard humanity). This is now your number of health items, which is permanently equipped and separated from other consumables. The assumption is that you’re always going to be in dire need of health so it’s always mapped to the triangle button.
But there’s a secondary motivation behind this change and it’s to encourage players to explore and experiment with other items, which are now displayed directly below the stamina bar. One example shown was throwing oil onto enemies followed by a flaming torch – the oil increases the enemies flammability and the overall damage inflicted.
Transformable weapons potentially support up to three move sets, adding even greater depth and sophistication. They can also be used in different ways, such as transforming one mid-combo can how an interesting side-effect – it might stagger an enemy or knock an important item out of their hand. There’s also the ability to charge up certain weapons for more powerful attacks. The amount of ‘regain’ will also vary between weapons. So there's lot of need concepts and combinations to consider and experiment with.
And while attacking options might be expanding, Yamagiwa reiterated that Bloodborne won't be an “exaggerated hack and slash game". Practice and experience are indispensable. As always, you need to learn situation and master your weapons.
Full article is here.