With the PS5 launching this fall, FromSoftware is preparing its latest project Elden Ring for release at some point in the future. As part of a surprising and exciting collaboration with Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin, Elden Ring will be a new IP for next generation consoles. Obviously a new IP from the Dark Souls creators is exciting, but it’s going to make the wait for a Bloodborne sequel even harder.
The Victorian-inspired beast hunting RPG saw great success on the PS4, gaining fans from both inside and outside the Souls series for its iconic atmosphere and gameplay design. Bloodborne in a lot of ways transcended the Souls games, but also borrowed from the same lineage that made Dark Souls games so popular in the first place. Since the first game, there’s been several great Soulsborne games like Sekiro released in the wake of Bloodborne’s success. Assuming there’s a Bloodborne 2 on the way, there’s an element from Sekiro’s combat system that should make a return in Bloodborne.
Sekiro’s Strategic Aggression
In a lot of ways Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice really isn’t a traditional soulsborne game. There’s a static main character with no class or appearance customization, a linear plot with character moments and interactions, and environmental storytelling and subtlety isn’t the main expression of story. The game was developed solely as a single-player, narrative-driven experience inspired by and designed to be a spiritual successor to the Tenchu games. Sekiro made a lot of significant changes that made it very different from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, especially in the posture-based combat system that emphasized aggression and movement.
Combat in Sekiro is centered on dexterity and strategically aggressive offense. Rather than constraining players to the stamina system like in previous Dark Souls games, the player and enemies each have a posture status. Posture reflects combatants’ balance and stamina, with each successful strike not only inflicting damage but raising the posture meter as well. Breaking posture opens opponents to deathblows, similar to backstabs or critical hits in Dark Souls and Bloodborne. While there are plenty of enemies who can be defeated simply by whittling down their health, most enemies are defeated by filling their posture meter until they lose balance for a deathblow.
From Deathblows To Visceral Attacks
Playing Sekiro requires a different understanding of mechanics when directly compared to Bloodborne. There are similarities at the core of the gameplay, but the Wolf moves and fights in a different style from Bloodborne’s Hunters. That being said, there are elements of Sekiro’s combat systems that would fit well into Bloodborne’s combat to differentiate it further from its Dark Souls origins. Many Bloodborne enemies are defeated by exploiting critical hits and weaknesses, so it would make sense to have an extension of the posture system in the next Bloodborne game.
Granted deathblows would likely be a little unbalanced in Bloodborne if every critical hit lead to one, but incorporating a posture system could make combat more interesting. Rather than constantly hitting tough enemies or bosses in the same weakness with the same critical hit every time, adding in the posture system would add some complexity to each encounter. Reducing how often critical hits are available to the player, but using a version of the posture system to reward players for optimizing damage output would be perfect. Critical hits would be rare, but upping the damage reward for a posture break and visceral attack would be perfect for competitive depth. Balancing the posture meter with stamina would be a difficult task, but it would account for player vulnerability in a way that makes a lot of sense for Bloodborne.
Implementing Posture in Bloodborne
Firearms in Bloodborne essentially already do the same thing, but it’s a very simplistic design. Basically instead of a shield from Dark Souls, guns allow players to exclusively parry, instead of using a shield to both parry and defend. To counter that limitation, all Bloodborne hunters have high mobility to dodge, as well as limiting the amount of ammunition players can carry. But in the end that would either turn into this consistent cycle of firing the gun at one specific attack, do a visceral attack, then rinse and repeat. Then if the Hunter runs out of ammo, well, players just have to play hit-and-run for the rest of the fight under the fallacy that they didn’t optimize damage.
Theoretically a posture system could be implemented with some balance changes to make critical hits more rewarding but harder to achieve. Players could have reduced ammunition, but would be encouraged to save bullets for the high posture damage range to pursue a posture break. Then players could induce a visceral attack just like in the original Bloodborne, where they’d be much harder to achieve but far more rewarding to land. Staggering enemies could perhaps still be possible without a posture break, but visceral attacks could do less damage compared to a posture-broken stagger instead. There’s a few possibilities, but there’s certainly room for more competitive depth in Bloodborne’s combat system as it currently exists, and Sekiro’s innovative combat systems could serve as an inspiration.
As FromSoftware’s next project approaches, it will be interesting to see how Elden Ring adapts the formula of Soulsborne combat in its own way. But assuming a Bloodborne sequel is a possibility, there’s plenty of material the game can draw from to enhance the combat mechanics to add more depth and strategy to fighting beasts.
Bloodborne is available now on PS4.
