Now that Dark Souls is completed as a franchise (for the time being at least), From Software is moving on to other projects. Given how they evolved Dark Souls over 3 games, we got to wondering how Bloodborne would evolve if they released sequels for it, especially since it’s so different from Dark Souls. What better a resource to thought experiment with than our own Fextralife community full of rabid Soulsborne enthusiasts! What follows is a breakdown of the features we would like to see in a Bloodborne sequel, with an eye towards what improvements we would like to see on certain features.

Weapons & Equipment
Weapons are obviously a huge component of Bloodborne and the Souls series games and players have no shortage of opinions on what their ideal form should be. Bloodborne was a departure in that it featured a significantly less amount of weapons than Dark Souls games typically feature, but these weapons were trick weapons which transformed, effectively doubling their amount. Combined with the firearms, there certainly were options for player builds, but the general sentiment leans towards including more weapons both melee and ranged, without skimping on their quality. The Old Hunters DLC attempted to alleviate the perceived shortage and it’s probably safe to hope that the base sequel will feature a few more tools for the toolbox. Beyond number, a meaningful take on the variants of regular, uncanny and lost would be welcome as opposed to just differing gem slots. Going beyond that, evolving the transformations seems like a good fit here, and From could go foundational and have the transformations result in more dramatic changes, or even go crazy and add more than 1 transformation per weapon.
There were certain favorites that we’d love to see return. Some of the weapons included in the first game were strongly attached to by players and although freshness is good, some old standbys are always welcome. Logarius’ Wheel anyone?

Regardless of new tweaks, split damages through arcane and elemental gems were not intuitive for players and were mostly frustrating. And speaking of gems, farming and grinding for just the right one was an exercise in tedium even by From Software’s standards. A removal of the obtuse and almost thankless nature of diving to get exactly what you need what be welcome. We don’t need to be swimming in them, but a little better payoff would be great.
Additionally Hunter Tools were great in concept but limited in usefulness, especially for those players who wanted a focused arcane build. Granted the world of Bloodborne is a low magic setting but these were enticing toys to play with. Tying them to quicksilver bullets, and making several of them costly really hampered our ability to make dedicated builds around them. It would be great to have a new mechanic apart from using bullets, or to preserve lore, some type of rune or stat scaling that minimized their costs.

Better PvP, With a Dedicated Arena
The Chime Maiden mechanic was an uneven implementation that pinned environmental PvP on the existence of a single NPC. The concept was interesting in theory, but in practice hurt the game’s online longevity by keeping players apart. It may be better to have them spawn instead in multiple locations and have them appear under more circumstances. In one possible method, perhaps a player who invades often and kills many hosts could have bell maidens start appearing in their own world even without ringing a sinister bell. Alternatively perhaps Hunters of Hunters could appear in a blood-addled player’s world without a bell maiden. Tweaks like these could make the online play more dynamic and also clump PvP players together, decreasing the barriers for interaction and giving everyone more of what they want. This was would also be an opportunity to further expand and improve the oaths and have them operate even more like factions for online interaction.
Another suggestion to improve the PvP experience would be a specific arena for dueling similar to Dark Souls 3. This is always going to be the easiest way to increase the game’s online competitive viability by giving players a dedicated venue to launch into. From Software has now demonstrated they grasp the concept of matchmaking options and these mechanics could be easily implemented, either through a separate launch in like in Dark Souls 3, a world location like in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 or even a chalice dungeon.

Furthermore, a player respec option like that found in the Dark Souls series would give PvP enthusiasts options for redoing builds with minimal grind and would give PvE players another option especially when facing a particularly troublesome section or boss. Being able to reallocate those points will go a long way towards keeping players motivated and engaged without cheapening the experience.
Improved Chalice Dungeons
Speaking of chalice dungeons, these (sometimes) procedural farming dives were one of the more polarizing elements from the first game. Some found them a treat in gem farming, others found them a tedious and repetitive excursion with little to no payoff.
Overall they could use an improvement to both their structure and mechanics to bring the idea to its fullest potential. Many of the story related dungeons were just a means to an end, because their primary rewards were just ways to unlock others. Having to clear a series of dungeons to get to the harder areas is one thing, but having them reward little for clearing each along the way really extracted a lot of their potential fun. When using the Short Ritual Root Chalice, better matchmaking options would be much better, allowing us to search through all the different parameters such as specific locations or rites. As far as rites go, increasing the variety of these offerings and other random dungeon effects would go a long way to making the dungeons more enjoyable and stay fresh longer.

As far as design, the samey nature of the dungeons made them boring over time for players, with the different dungeon settings all very similar to each other. Within these settings, the room layouts were very repetitive and ultimately predictable. Varying up both the dungeon themes for starker differentiation and adding more room layouts would give players more of the “game within a game” experience we hoped it would be. This can be expanded upon by tying drops to these locations and even to the types of enemy drops and where the enemy appears, similar to how the base game functions. This would give the dungeons more cohesion, make more sense (put a boss where they fit thematically for crying out loud) and give farmers more targeted direction on where they need to be hunting. When putting together a build, knowing which dungeons are going to deliver which range of gems will allow players of different specializations focus on a specific dungeons. Every dungeon could drop radials, and beyond each could be tied to its own specific shape. So when someone building for example an Arcane build comes along they know right away where to head to find radial and triangle gems.
The lore around these dungeons could use a boost. Right now, there really isn’t a good reason to go in there, other than because it’s there or because you’re farming. The enemies don’t match each other, and overall there really isn’t a logical progression at work here so putting specific bosses in there outside of the main game felt odd, especially if you were expected to trudge through a bunch of repetitive content just to encounter them. For such a big portion of the game’s available content, there really needs to be an impetus to spend any time there at all. Perhaps a shadow realm recreation of base game locations with a lore reason, or some full fledged level design like exploring the catacombs would add freshness.

World
The locations of the story were a hit with players but they didn’t come without their issues in how they were traversed. The most glaring departure from Dark Souls was the inability to warp to other zones. Instead, to enter other zones, you were forced to return to the Hunter’s Dream and then choose a different tombstone to travel to, similar to how the Nexus in Demon’s Souls functioned. This added an extra step that wasn’t necessary and it did not feel as tidy as it did in Demon’s Souls, whose archstones were leaner in amount of locations.
Once in the world, the locations all featured some of the conventions we were used to like unlockable shortcuts and hidden areas, but what they lacked was some verticality. Areas like Sen’s Fortress were so memorable because they let players play in 3D space, and had to pay attention to above and below. The insight system was also a new addition and while it revealed new things to players and added some new shop interactivity and resistance, it’s something that could really be built on, even to a point of increased distortion of the game world. If insight did much more dramatic things, similar to the world and character tendency mechanics in Demon’s Souls such as spawning new enemies, impacting drops or opening new areas it could really give a reason to play around with raising or lowering it. While we’re talking about alterations, these conditions could possibly even give rise to changes to the players themselves, such as changing them into beasts or kin depending on what criteria they meet.

NPC questlines have always been a fan favorite and if Dark Souls 3 is any indication, this is something we can hope to see expanded upon in Bloodborne 2. The few that were in the first game were great, but there was definitely room for more! These questlines really serve to tell the game’s narrative and create attachments to these characters and the stories they inhabit. Having the sequel chock full of interactions will really give a reason to spend time getting to know them and their motivations. And, when it comes to NPCs, no From Software game is complete without Patches. It should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: Bring Patches back.
The lore and story in Bloodborne were stellar and unfolded exactly how a standard Soulsborne series game would, cryptic and full of half clues. At this point, we are quite accustomed to this formula and wouldn’t expect it any other way. Bloodborne had just the right amount of exposition and hidden info to keep lore hounds hunting without feeling like they were running into dead ends.

Overall we can see that Bloodborne didn’t do much of anything bad at all. It did many things great, and at worst a handful of its features felt unfinished more than just outright poor. We’ve collected a few of those incomplete features here, and believe with just a few more tweaks and some extra time spent developing them, these misses could easily become strengths. For a game we already scored a 9.5, shoring up these few areas while retaining everything that was good about the first could put the sequel in some rarefied air indeed. What are your thoughts? Hit the comments and let us know what you want to see in Bloodborne 2!
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34 responses to “Bloodborne 2: What We Want to See”
They should have crossbow/bow and arrow type weapons, and a mana system like in Dark Souls for weapons like the augur and a call beyond. Also they gotta beef the Rosmarinus way up next game cus I’m a pretty high arcane character but goddamn I wasted so many echoes for a useless but cool sounding weapon XD
I don’t expect this to ever happen but… a Dark Souls mode where you are given a generic DS charqcter with alloted Estus and basic equipment to complete the whole game. Maybe with a certain Soul Level that can’t be modified. Kind of like they do in some Castlevanias (Julius/Richter/Maria Mode). I thought playing DS3 with a generic “good hunter” due to the engine similarities would have been a great Easter egg, continuity and lore be damned.
No more blood vial farming.
Personally, I just want to be able to respec, and I would like Chalices to be more interesting in design and for them NOT to lock interesting bosses away behind so much mediocre level design. They are so boring. Also, I just find the “Cursed” and “Defiled Bosses” like Amygdala nonsense not fun. I LIKE a challenging fight, but it’s so tedious! Waiting behind Amy to wack them in the head and not screwing up is just boring even if it is eminently reasonable. I’ve sat outside some bosses for hours of play just to get it right, but somehow I feel trolled in the lower depth chalices…
I really don’t mind committing to a tough fight like Gael or Orphan of Kos or Nameless King, because it is not only tough, but it is interesting… The Cursed/Defiled boss fights are rehashes/reskins that don’t justify the interest and effort even if the arenas are mildly different.
Integrating them more clearly into the main game would be helpful – I relied on Future Press’s recommendations for levels, and let myself go deep into the chalices, only to get bored to death at Defiled Amy and went and just wrecked the rest of the game because the chalices break the flow…
Also, for the purposes of PVP, one shot kills with viscerals from gun spam should be done away with… if that means no guns for PVP, that’s fine by me.
But I will just settle for being able to respec and not having to return to the Hunter’s Dream every time I am having to grind vials.
Over the years playing Bloodbourne I had a couple ideas that I would like to see implemented.
1. A real ranged combat mechanic – aiming and shooting with fire weapons. It does not needs to be fancy FPS mechanics. Think about Zelda Breath of the Wild bow or Let it Die ranged weaponry.
2. Make consumable items more powerful and meaningful but create a limit on how many items/hunter’s tools you can bring to the hunt. I like the idea that a hunter should adapt to it’s prey and carefully plan ahead what kind of tools to carry.
3. Chalice dungeons should be a rogue-like experience. Once you enter one, leaving or dying unmakes the dungeon, so you have one shot to finish it – and you must do it with the items you brought.
4. Chalice dungeons rewards many unique items, like unique runes, runes with additional random bonuses and improved/new hunter tools. Also chalice dungeon specific items would be the richest lore-wise: people would actually dive in those dungeons to uncover lore and understand wtf is going on (ofc, to no avail).
5. Day/Night cycles. Unlike BB, BB2 would pass not during a single fateful night, but in the nights before the blood moon rise. The main difference between day and night is that invasions can only happen at night and when day comes all invaders are dispelled to their world. Of course there would be items to control time: one to let you set when your hunt starts, one to make nights eternal (so you can always be invaded) and one to make nights shorter at the cost of something.
6. You can start you own workshop (a guild system). Hunters from the same workshop would protect and help each other. Also covenants would be tied to the workshop – not the hunter. Covenant quests would be massive and require collective effort from all hunters from the workshop.
Over the years playing Bloodbourne I had a couple ideas that I would like to see implemented.
1. A real ranged combat mechanic – aiming and shooting with fire weapons. It does not needs to be fancy FPS mechanics. Think about Zelda Breath of the Wild bow or Let it Die ranged weaponry.
2. Make consumable items more powerful and meaningful but create a limit on how many items/hunter’s tools you can bring to the hunt. I like the idea that a hunter should adapt to it’s prey and carefully plan ahead what kind of tools to carry.
3. Chalice dungeons should be a rogue-like experience. Once you enter one, leaving or dying unmakes the dungeon, so you have one shot to finish it – and you must do it with the items you brought.
4. Chalice dungeons rewards many unique items, like unique runes, runes with additional random bonuses and improved/new hunter tools. Also chalice dungeon specific items would be the richest lore-wise: people would actually dive in those dungeons to uncover lore and understand wtf is going on (ofc, to no avail).
5. Day/Night cycles. Unlike BB, BB2 would pass not during a single fateful night, but in the nights before the blood moon rise. The main difference between day and night is that invasions can only happen at night and when day comes all invaders are dispelled to their world. Of course there would be items to control time: one to let you set when your hunt starts, one to make nights eternal (so you can always be invaded) and one to make nights shorter at the cost of something.
6. You can start you own workshop (a guild system). Hunters from the same workshop would protect and help each other. Also covenants would be tied to the workshop – not the hunter. Covenant quests would be massive and require collective effort from all hunters from the workshop.
Oh, look, a topic I didn’t see before!
From the ideas I have seen tossed around, the allocation of points based on backgrounds seems a great way of customising characters, particularly when knowing the game in depth so you can tailor them toward specific bits of weaponry without having to wait or sacrificing levels.
The trait system adds a layer of decision making to character creation that feels like it belongs more to a game like Fallout: character creation in the Soulsborne series has always been very straightforward, if obtuse in explanations for newcomers. The trait system is a step I would prefer not to include (knowing From they wouldn’t even bother explaining what they did anyway.)
Since hunter tools are linked to different factions, why not having beast and kin tools, based on high or low Insight (or any other relevant parameter)? After all, Beast Roar and A Call Beyond feel extremely opposite from a lore point of view. Add more tools related to beastly blood rather than cosmic origin and you could have different “schools of magic” of sorts.
About weapon leveling, I like the single upgrade resource ladder for them all. Demon’s Souls needed sorely every tutorial you could find to explain how it worked, and it has gotten only more streamlined since then. Maybe a bit aseptic too, but I’ll take that over Pure Bladestone, Marrowstone or what not :-p
Infusions that can be swapped (for a price) to be flexible with a character that decides to mix up their stats (i.e with an equivalent for Soul Vessels) would be welcome too. And rather than tail weapons, why not having creature weapons achieved under certain conditions? Want your Amygdalan Arm? How about obtaining it by ripping off one of them via visceral attack?
Okay…
1. Let me roll out of gestures like Dark Souls 2 and 3.
2. Chalice Dungeons. Yes, I like them. Yes, I want more reason to do them outside of getting gems for pvp.
3. Covenants. We need this to be deeper. Higher reward max outs, more uses for covenant items earned, ect. There’s little reason to continue any of them past the first handful of successes and Rune benefits.
4. Don’t force NG+ unless I initiate it myself, kinda used to it since Dark Souls 2 and 3.
5. Sinister Bell ladies should respawn if certain conditions are met. Dunno if I like the idea of eliminating an enemy hunter chance after taking out one enemy. Maybe more of these women spawn depending on the amount of beckoned players, or maybe more insight related triggers, dunno.
That’s it, just don’t remove what worked in the original game which was practically everything else.
I think the big hole in the game is the threat of becoming a beast oneself, “someday you’ll be one, too…” Probably related to insight, but have no idea how it should work. Maybe in short spells at first, with a hairline tradeoff between increased power and your character going uncontrollably berserk. Would be a fun risk in coop
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Man, now I wish for a Bloodborne/The Witcher crossover…
This idea is completely inspired by Diablo 3 bounties:
I’d like to see some actual hunting. There could be a functioning Hunter’s Workshop (albeit far from it’s glory days, as is the case with everything in FromSoft’s worlds), and you could accept “requests” from neighboring villages to hunt beasts (or Great Ones) that have appeared. Maybe even have some bounties for villages that didn’t put a request, but that the church (or whichever Big Bad Organization puppetmaster exists in the game) needs “taken cared of”, for reasons.
Just one gem slot for weapons like DS3 infusions. And include a full set of runes; a specialised blood defence rune would have been handy in BB1 lime all the others!
totally some new and old weapons, especially the memorable ones including; the whirlygig saw, the hunter ax, cane, ext.. but it would be nice to see some new ones, maybe even let a few fans show their weapon artwork, and the imagination would never end.
Keep the Regain system. It was fun.
I think they should keep to the simplicity of weapons, stats and upgrades etc…this allows to focus on gameplay and weapons which I like.
I think they did not have enough time to really flesh out the chalice dungeons and this should be the focus of the sequel if sequel there ever is.
and if not, I am pretty sure they will reuse the concept and adapt it to the next game. At least I hope they do.
that’s a good point, insight should definitely be connected to the hunter tools in some way.
complex upgrade material requirements is more of a time sink than a meaningful addition to a game in my experience.
Kinship leading to improved alien powers? Longer tentacles? Better cosmic arcane damage?
you mean like Armored Core ”complicated?” Anyone worried about equipment burden should check out the ballast system
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I’m honestly surprised Insight didn’t have some effect on kinmode, or even just Arcane. Several of the item descriptions went through so much trouble to thematically link Insight and Arcane, only for there to be no actual gameplay link at all. Especially when Beasthood got gameplay links to go along with its thematic links.
Like, I dunno, maybe having high Insight gives you more kinship, while low Insight gives you more beasthood. Not that I have any idea what kinship would even do.
I like complicated
I did enjoy the concept of chalice dungeons, but they didn’t really have enough going for them past the story ones. And even in the story ones, the best solution is “run through the level, pull lever, kill boss”, instead of exploring fully and finding good stuff.
I think Dark Souls 3 did upgrades best. 1 was really complicated, and required way too much running around, and 2 was much the same, but with a little less running around.
I’m also intrigued by the extra role playing ideas pitched earlier, they feel right for the current character creation.
I want more trick weapons, more hunter tools, and more crazy stuff happening as you gain insight.
The insight mechanism is really great, but there wasn’t any major stuff at really high insight, other than gaining frenzy super quick.
I want the chalice dungeons fixed. They were a great idea but they didn’t get where they needed to go.
I would also like to see more upgrade complexity – I liked the Demon’s and Dark Souls systems.
I explained it weird as I admitted. Seeing it would be straightforward
I was saying it would be better to have something that doesn’t have a whole bunch of terms attached to it that they have to learn up front. Having base statistics that you adjust then add bonuses looks a lot neater and comprehensive to a new player than the way you described it. Hence TSMP’s confusion.
Yeah, but on the back end that actually has more rules and could potentially add a step. Also the exponential cost increases would be more akin to handing out blood echoes rather than levels.
It’s not a bad system by any means, and could certainly accomplish much the same thing. I’d daresay I’d even be happy with that.
But, obviously biased here, I like my hybrid idea a little better
A better way to communicate the same idea to the play is to have a certain flat starting stat number like all 5s then have a class add +X and -X bonuses to certain stats then be able to add certain points to each stat to certain starting caps.
In D&D 3.X this looks like
Str: 10
Dex: 10
Con: 10
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 10
Then you have 25 points to distribute and you can raise and lower each stat. Lowering add points. You can only lower to 7 and 18 is the maximum. The higher you raise a stat the more it costs. 11 only costs 1, and twelve 2, but 18 costs something like 17 points. Lowering a stat to 9 nets one point and 8 2, but 7 is 4 additional points.
After arranging the stats you then add your race bonuses. Elves for example get +2 Dex +2 int and -2 con making their max Dex and Int 20 instead of 18 with 9 as the minimum and their Constitution has a Max of 16 and minimum of 5.
Same concept, but I looks better when present this way.
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