Spilling Bloodborne: An Audience With Masaaki Yamagiwa

During a recent press trip we visited From Software in Tokyo, and not only did we get our hands on Bloodborne (which you can read about here), but we also got to sit down and talk with some of the team behind the gothic RPG. One of these interviews was with producer Masaaki Yamagiwa, who had plenty to tell us about the PS4-exlcusive.

GR: How has it been to work with the PS4, as opposed to the older systems that you have worked with before?

MY: This the first PlayStation 4 title that I am involved with. I'm on the production side, not the development side. The people on the development side will probably tell you about the power of the PS4 or the processing power of it. And even I can see how that has influenced the game, but from my perspective I'm more interested in the features. The share functionality and that sort of stuff. What sort of player experiences we can create with that. That was a really big excitement for me.

One of the things that was really exciting to me was that we were working on this project as the PS4 was still under development. We were able to talk about what sort of features we would want. Like how we would want the controller to be. It was really exciting to actually be involved in the conversation that led to the PS4.

If you go outside of your own games, which games would you say have been an inspiration for Bloodborne?

So especially with Bloodborne one of the things we were aiming for was to avoid telling the player too much. As far as the story is concerned; leave the player room to come up with their own interpretations. We wanted to create a game where you have a challenge, and you have a difficulty, you overcome them and feel a sense of achievement when you do.

Obviously we are taking aspects from lots of different games in that, but I think we are going back to the more traditional, even primitive, game experience. The games that we played when we were kids. I think Bloodborne returns to that state.

When we were kids and a new game came out, we would all get it and play it. Then we would go to school, and everyone would talk about it. We would share information about the game. I think that culture is being brought back. I think Bloodborne is going to have that culture.

I spoke to your lead character designer during the tour, and he told me that the game would have a lot of character customisation. Could you please elaborate on that?

Regarding character creation specifically; the character creation engine is quite detailed, and you will be able to customise the character to a great extent. Something that is unique to this game, compared to other games, is because of the time setting you can add things like glasses and other things like that.

Another thing is that players choose their past as part of their starting stats. Some of the pasts are quite interesting, like ‘this person should never have been born'. So when we added that we thought it would be interesting for the players. But I have also read articles that say that that might be the beginning of role-playing aspects, where players sort of invent a personality, and really invent unique characters. We see these pasts as kind of a backbone.

And of course different costumes are available, and you can use different weapons. So players can really create the character they want.

You say different pasts here. In Dark Souls our character was literally an empty shell. Will there be more of a narrative now?

Regardless of the past you choose, the beginning of the game follows your character coming to the city of Yharnam in search of the Pale Blood. And in the process of searching for that you are told by a rather suspicious looking old man that you need to have a blood transfusion. And you do, and that causes your memory to become clouded, and you are not sure who you are. But you have this past that you have selected, and that is what defines your statistics. But the actual start of the game, the start of the narrative, does not change.

When it comes to the end-game you have the Chalice Dungeons. What will be the motivation for the player to replay these? Is there any gear? Is there any role-playing elements in there? Is there a gear system, or a ladder maybe?

Regarding the Chalice Dungeons; one thing, very simple, is that there are items in the dungeons that you cannot get from any of the normal areas of the game. And also the Chalice Dungeon is something you can share with other people, with your friends or with the world. So there is always a reason to go into the Chalice Dungeons.

Back when we made Demon's Souls we actually got a lot of comments from players that wished they could forget the maps they had played, so they could play them anew. Because that experience of going into a new area, discovering its secrets, learning where the enemies were, that was part of the fun. So we were thinking about what we could do to allow the players to continually get the experience of entering areas that feel new to them. The Chalice dungeon is one way to always get new areas to explore that they don't know, and that they are going to have to learn.

The game uses a lot of horror aesthetics. How does that translate into the way the game plays?

One of our goals with this game... obviously this game is about overcoming difficulties and experiencing satisfaction, and getting a sense of achievement when you do. We wanted to increase that sense of achievement. We wanted them to feel even stronger. But we didn't want to do that with just making the game harder. We didn't want to make the game any harder than say Demon's Souls.

So we needed to find some other way of doing that, and we figured that the best way to do that was to reach the players emotionally. Give the players a more and more emotional experience. And how to do that? We decided to create this sort of fearsome world. Enemies that are overwhelming and terrifying. So that players, when they encountered these enemies, bosses for example, would think "there is no way I could win, I cannot possibly beat this". But somehow they are able to face their fears. They are able to stand up and fight aggressively against these creatures, and win. And because they are in this horror-themed terrifying world, they are emotionally connected. And when they win, their sense of emotional relief and achievement is all the stronger. Because they're emotionally involved.

You can read more about The Chalice Dungeons in our preview from late last year, and you can read more about this most recent hands-on by heading here. Bloodborne is heading to PlayStation 4 on March 25.