Volume: Robin Hood meets Metal Gear Solid in this clever minimalist stealth puzzler, which will soon be getting an outing on PlayStation VR. Honorable mentions – the games that just missed outĬibele: Nina Freeman’s autobiographical tale has interesting things to say about love and relationships in the era of online gaming. Bloodborne’s world is built upon blood, literally and metaphorically, and every part of the design flows from this.
But it’s 2015’s most important AAA release for showing how to better-integrate the many, many component parts of a videogame into a coherent package. Lovecraft and intense precision combat are not for everyone, and Bloodborne is a tough challenge to boot. The hulking werewolves and brain-sucking abominations will rip you apart in a second regardless, but it’s the exquisite boss fights that elevate this combat system to all-time-great status. This rich mythos combines with an action-oriented twist on third-person combat, which is built around permanent aggression from the player and the use of trick weapons - a curved sword that becomes a scythe, say. But Yharnam is only the gate to an Eldritch nightmare, and the shattered remnants of societies obsessed with the uncaring ‘Great Ones.’ The streets of Yharnam are overrun by beasts and culled by hunters like you - who survive through regular blood ministration. Photograph: Sonyīloodborne’s director Hidetaka Miyazaki doesn’t create game worlds, he creates game systems and weaves a world and its history around them.