Editing Dark Souls (section)

===Bloodborne===
The game that dared to answer the question who would win in a straight up fight between Vampires and Werevolves with "Cthulu". Who knew? While it was made by From Software as a spinoff to the Souls series, fans are still divided on whether or not it is officially a Souls game (but it deserves an honorable mention, especially since it pretty much changed the name of the genre from souls-like to souls''bourne''). Bloodborne changes the tone from the previous Souls games' Berserk-inspired medieval setting to a dark, gothic world which draws heavy influences from [[H.P. Lovecraft]] and Bram Stoker. The biggest differences in gameplay is the inclusion of guns to replace shields from Dark Souls, both as a (mostly shitty) ranged weapon and as a parry tool. Yes, you read that right: the Hunters in Yharnam, through painstaking research and unflinching dedication, have discovered that shooting somebody in the face is liable to break their concentration. This is what the cutting edge of national security looks like in Yharnam. Aside from that, there are two shields in the game: a shitty wooden shield found in the base game in an area where a giant 8 foot tall pale giant with an axe will make you mince meat, and a glass shield found in the DLC that grants RES, and is found right before Living Failures, which have a devastating arcane attack, so that shield is actually useful (or not really, as you can cheese the attack by hiding behind the tree in the arena ).

The player takes on the role of a foreigner who's come to Yharnam seeking its special healing blood, said to cure all wounds. One blood transfusion later, and you're plunged into a waking nightmare where horrific beasts roam the streets and hunters... er, hunt them. Upon your inevitable demise (or upon activating a mysterious lantern, if you're smart or talented enough to outrun or defeat the various horrors of Yharnam bare-handed), you are transported to the Hunter's Dream, a hub world for every hunter that partakes in the Hunt. The Dream's inhabitants consist of a waifu-tier Doll that helps level up the player, an old man in a wheelchair named Gehrman, and the freakish but reliable Messengers, who sell items and deliver messages. 

In contrast to Dark Souls' more cautious playstyle, Bloodborne encourages [[RIP AND TEAR|aggressive, proactive action. You are frequently outnumbered, enemies are less susceptible to being split off individually than previous Souls games, and you can regain lost health by damaging enemies within a small time frame. This encourages you to go on the offensive as much as possible, as well as putting enemies down as quickly as possible.]] Many characters and factions also differ in their nature from Dark Souls as well. Whereas many characters in Dark Souls, even the villainous ones, are more or less victims or circumstance, Bloodborne has no shortage of absolutely horrible people. The main faction that drove most of the events in the story (as explained in the spoiler section), the Healing Church, has to be one of the most evil factions ever devised. Whereas Dark Souls characters exist in varying shades of grey, nearly everyone in Bloodborne is evil in some way or form, including the player character. 

Whilst initially a fairly conventional gothic horror setting, the game gradually morphs into a Lovecraftian cosmic nightmare. One of the in-game currencies - insight - is gained upon interacting with various characters, seeing horrific monsters, and consuming eldritch knowledge from the trepanned skulls of madmen. As your insight increases, you start noticing things that weren't visible before, like lanterns being covered with eyes or huge multi-limbed creatures perching on church spires (and yeah, they were always there). It also means the local shoggoth can blow your head off more easily. In a pretty big twist to the usual Lovecraft formula, the religion worshiping the Great Old One analogues are actually the overwhelming majority in Yharnam, not a hidden cult plotting in the shadows (although there are a few of those as well). 
It garnered largely positive reviews, both from Souls fans and new players alike.

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Here's the backstory in detail.
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Hundreds of years ago, a civilization called the Pthumerians found the [[Cthulhu Mythos|Great Ones]], godlike cosmic beings who they worshipped as gods. Their late queen Yharnam had a particularly strong connection to them, but things started to go awry when she got pregnant with the Great One Mergo and the Pthumerians sealed themselves into the ruins of their civilization. 

Centuries later, a group of scholars found said ruins under the Village of Yharnam and traces of a substance called the Old Blood (basically a mix of bodily fluids produced by the Great Ones). To study the ruins, a guy called Master Willem founded the academy of Bygrenwerth to research and try to understand the cosmic lore the Pthumerians left behind, but he remained highly suspicious of the Old Blood and advised against its use, preferring to gain insight (literally, he grew eyeballs inside of his own brain!) instead of actively experimenting with the stuff the Old Ones left behind. 

His pupil Laurence, however, couldn't care less about Willem's fears and used the Old Blood to develop Blood Ministrations with the help of The Choir (a sect within Byrgenwerth that worshipped the Old One Ebrietas that lived in the ruins); essentially meaning dissolving some of the Old Blood in regular human blood or something similar and injecting the stuff directly into your veins. This had the immediate effect of curing any disease whatsoever, opened access to magic and arcane secrets and made the Choir, by this point in time known as the Healing Church, famous and brought them and the town of Yharnam fame and fortune. 

Laurence and the Healing Church did this not out of altruism however. They hoped that the widespread use of the Old Blood would eventually elevate mankind into a higher state of being and bring them closer to the Old Ones. As it turns out, Willem was right and the abuse of the Old Blood turned out to be extremely dangerous; every time an Old One tries to procreate in a cosmic event, users of the Old Blood would turn into werewolf-like beasts. To keep the connection between Old Blood usage and the beastly affliction a secret, the Church found an answer in the proposal of the bounty hunters Gehrman and Ludwig; simply [[BLAM|murder everyone who turns into a beast]]. 

After a series of events the majority of the population of Yharnam was transformed into beasts and the hunters themselves also succumbed to the curse. It was then that Gehrman, in a desperate attempt to still do his job, was picked up by an Old One called the Moon Presence and transported to the Hunters Dream, a pocket dimension of sorts where he would send new Hunters to stop the birth of new Old Ones. 

Enter the third faction of the Healing Church, the School of Mensis. The School of Mensis under the guidance of Laurence's protege Micolash, tried to create methods of communicating the Old Ones with dreams. To this end, they abducted a lot of people and did horrifying experiments on them that put the Nazis to shame, resulting in the creation of a being called the Celestial Emissary. Encouraged further by this success, they found one third of Queen Yharnam's umbilical chord and used it to resurrect the infant Old One Mergo and have an audience with him. However this failed spectacularly and they were all killed. Only Micolash survived and was trapped in a nightmare of his own creation, not that he minds.

Got all that? Good. Now, onto the main story:

The player arrives in Yharnam with an undefined disease that needs Blood Ministration to be cured; this however causes them to get trapped in Yharnam after they pass out and get transported to the Hunters Dream, where Gehrman gives them gear and tells the player to go out and hunt the beasts. Eventually, this escalates into a fully fledged attempt at stopping the Old One Mergo from emerging, which would likely transform almost all humans that are still left into beasts. 

The game has three possible endings: After you kill Mergo, you get back to the Hunters Dream, where Gehrman offers to kill you in the dream. You will wake up, forget everything and go about your day, being none the wiser about the cosmic knowledge you have gained (Yharnam Sunrise). If you refuse his offer, he will attack you. When you defeat him, his elusive master, the Moon Presence, descends from the sky and binds you to it; you effectively replace Gehrman as overseer of the Hunt, bound to forever send new Hunters against the new Old Ones (Honoring Wishes). 

The secret ending is unlocked if you manage to find the three thirds of the Umbilical Cords scattered around Yharnam and, erm.... ''consume'' them (yuck), then kill Gehrman as in the Honoring Wishes ending. The Moon Presence will try to embrace you, but you resist and kill it as well. As the dust settles, it's revealed that you achieved what Willem and Laurence didn't: You've become an infant Old One, and it's implied the Doll intends to raise you to adulthood (Childhood's Beginning). 

The DLC "The Old Hunters" details the events surrounding the experiments the Church and the School of Mensis conducted as part of their efforts to create something to communicate with Ebrietas, the aftermath of the death of the Old One Kosm, who was worshipped by a fishing hamlet "Shadow over Innsmouth"-style which lead to the Church genociding through the entire village in search of insight. You start out in a strange tower filled with Hunters going mad. As it turns out, every Hunter who is overcome by their bloodlust will end up here in the Hunter's Nightmare, agonizing in an eternal hell of insanity and murder. 

That includes you, so best try and fix this right? 

You go through the tower and fight all manner of lost legends, including Ludwig The Accursed, one of the legendary hunters, now reduced to a foul giant horse centaur monster thing with eyes in his mouth. Halfway through the fight, he sees the Legendary Moonlight Sword, a constant element of Dark Souls and even old From Software game Kings Field. He regains some sanity and fights like an actual person, if said person was a giant centaur horse thing. After you kill him, you have a chance to talk to his decapitated head. He asks if the Healing Church were actually good people. You can either lie to him and he dies peacefully, or tell him the truth and drive him mad with grief as he dies. Or you can just kill him. Either way, you have a Moonlight Sword now. Yay!

You also eventually find Lady Maria, the basis for your level up doll waifu. She safeguards the dream entrance to the Fishing Hamlet, and one of the first, if not the foulest, travesties Byrgenwerth was responsible for.

This leads to the Fishing Hamlet. The Healing Church experimented on the townspeople here, turning them all into aquatic sea monsters. Maria was part of this, and it was her greatest shame, leading her to throw away her old weapons and cast away her title as a hunter, safeguarding the secret of the Hamlet and the only way of lifting the curse.

Eventually, you finally make your way to an endless beach, and the source of the curse: Those Byrgenwerth researchers, being utter madlads, actually managed to find Kos. And they also managed to murder her. This, along with the horrors they visited upon the Fishing Hamlet, led to the Hunter's Nightmare. You are then treated to the lovely sight of the birth of a new Great One, the Orphan of Kos. Just like Guts, he was born out of his dead mother. He is NOT Happy. He just stands there, staring in sorrow at the endless sea. If you approach unprepared, prepare to get beaten to death by a seconds-old baby wielding his severed placenta. 

After you kill THAT, you notice that, somehow, it isn't over yet. The "True" Final Boss: The Sweet Child of Kos, rising from its dead mother's corpse. Fortunately for you, it's just a shadow, staring at you, and all it takes is one hit to kill it. The Nightmare is Slain. And not just this one. The Hunter's Nightmare is finished.

You go back to the Hunter's Dream and the Doll tells you that, for the first time in eternity, Gehrman has had a peaceful sleep. Fine work... At least until you have to kick his ass and end him, but hey, small victories.

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