Making Bloodborne

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page revision: 39, last edited: 02 July 2017

Table of Contents

Making Bloodborne

Transcript Part One

Transcript Part Two

Screencaps

Making Bloodborne [Source 1 \| Source 2]

As part of month-long coverage of Bloodborne for IGN First, IGN presented Making Bloodborne: Part 1 - Souls Evolved. IGN was able to visit the offices of both From Software, as well as Sony Japan Studio. Through hours of interviews, and some amazing footage from around the offices and Tokyo itself, IGN was able to put together an intriguing look at the developers took the basic framework of the Souls series, and built upon it on the PlayStation 4 for Bloodborne.

Video: [DL | Archived] Making Bloodborne: Part 1 - Souls Evolved by IGN, published on Feb 6, 2015

Video: [DL | Archived] Making Bloodborne: Part 2 - A PS4 Exclusive by IGN, published on Feb 23, 2015

Transcript Part One [Made for /r/bloodbornethegame]

1. Masaaki Yamagiwa, Producer, Japan Studio:
When we started this new project, the idea and core philosophy started by reflecting on the success we had with Demon's Souls. We thought it really delivered a totally new kind of experience to players. By revisiting this collaboration, and creating something for this new piece of hardware, our goal was to deliver another brand new kind of experience to the players.

2. Yasunori Ogura, PR, From Software:
I think Demon's Souls is a representative title in many ways from our point of view. Again, we shifted the dynamics of the game design. It's not like we calculated our global success, but it came as result of focusing on a game with a sense of accomplishment. And I think that resonated well with players worldwide.

3. Ryo Fujimaki, Lead Graphic Artist, From Software:
Bloodborne was produced with the idea that the world, the characters, and the player will become a single entity, allowing the player to create a world of their own to enjoy. Under this theme, the player progresses through a variety of different situations. Some beautiful and extravagant, while others are dark and depressing.

4. Masaaki Yamagiwa, Producer, Japan Studio:
The game is set in a massive and cursed city called Yharnam, which is inspired by 19th century gothic horror traditions. This city had originally been home to an illness called the Scourge of the Beast, and when the hero comes to Yharnam, that plague has really started to spread through the city like a pandemic. So the player becomes a hunter, hunting these beasts, and the story begins from there.

5. Tetsu Takahashi, 2D Designer, From Software:
In Bloodborne, I tried to depict the fear or panic people feel when faced with the unknown or something they don't understand. In this period without advanced medicine, plagues and disasters would fall into those categories. Also, I tried to depict the darkness that is born from a damaged psyche.

6. Ryo Fujimaki, Lead Graphic Artist, From Software:
Characters in Bloodborne are greatly influenced by the concepts of the Victorian era. The culture and detailed designs of the Victorian era are reflected in the characters, along with a little dash of our own inspiration.

7. Tetsu Takahashi, 2D Designer, From Software:
There are the professional hunters who hunt the beasts in Yharnam. They're members of organizations like guilds or the church and they hunt these beasts according to their particular organization's principles. While creating these designs, I thought about how to bring these hunters to life in different ways, through their unique expertise and personal preferences.

8. Ryo Fujimaki, Lead Graphic Artist, From Software:
With the PS4's performance, we were able to render precise designs, use new forms of lighting,and add post effects much more freely.

9. Jun Ito, Programmer, From Software:
I don't think the basic process for creating a game has changed much, but the memory storage and the number of CPU cores had much bigger increases during the transition from PS3 to PS4 versus the transition from PS2 to PS3. The PS4 is a wonderful device that is very easy to create with.

10. Tetsu Takahashi, 2D Designer, From Software:
PS4 allows us to create very detailed graphics which were impossible with the previous hardware. However, it also means that there's a greater expectation for highly detailed designs.

11. Jun Ito, Programmer, From Software:
We spent a lot of CPU power on simulating fabric, so all our time and effort as programmers will be rewarded if players feel the world has a softness to it. Up until now we've worked in worlds, that feature a lot of armor, but this time we've created a world full of fabric allowing for ease of movement.

12. Masaaki Yamagiwa, Producer, Japan Studio:
One of the underlying core concepts for the game is the intense life-or-death combat, so part of that was making the combat more aggressive and offensive for the player. In coming up with a new combat style compared to Demon's Souls, on thing we really wanted to do was intensify the close-range attacks, and also make the encounters a lot faster paced.

13. Ryo Fujimaki, Lead Graphic Artist, From Software:
We focused on the various reactions each character makes, so they can react to the player's actions. To do so, we have to tweaked the game to ensure the player feels well challenged. Most of our focus during development has been on gameplay-related elements, including things like a deep sense of immersion, a great sense of achievement and deadly combat.

14. Masaaki Yamagiwa, Producer, Japan Studio:
We wanted these encounters and battles to be so intense that if you just stand and wait, you'll get overwhelmed and killed right away. We wanted to encourage players to not hide and wait, but instead to be more aggressive and proactive in battle. That's why we decided to equip player with a melee weapon and firearm, and not a shield. To add to all that, and encourage players to be more aggressive we have introduced the new Regain system, where players can regain some of their lost health if they successfully counter-attack within a certain window of time. There are shields in the game. However if you're always standing back and guarding, you'll die very quickly. So you have to incorporate it into your strategy of how you play and fight.

15. Yasunori Ogura, PR, From Software:
I think for anybody who is involved in game creation or in the creative field, their ultimate goal is to make something memorable or that lingers in the player's memory. How you get there is probably the difference. From our point of view, a lot of people use the word "difficulty" to describe elements of what we do in our games. Sense of accomplishment. Overcoming your fears. A lot of keywords that tie back into Bloodborne are certainly driving factors at From Software.

16. Masaaki Yamagiwa, Producer, Japan Studio:
What I really hope players take away from this game is, when we sat down with the team at From Software, one of our biggest goals was to make a game that not only Demon's Souls fans could enjoy, of course, but that new players could get into as well. I think it's going to be a really fun experience for players, so if we can get even one new person to try it out, whether they're more of an action game fan, or an action RPG fan, I think they'll really like it. I'm grateful for the chance to talk about the game and get people excited about the launch. Thank you very much.

Transcript Part Two [Made for /r/bloodbornethegame]

1. Shuhei Yoshida, President, SCE Worldwide Studios:
We have a history in Japan Studio to try new ideas, Japanese "devs" in general are trying to find their own niche so that they can still be relevant to the larger audience than just their home market and the culture that Japan Studio has I believe is good fit in these new situations.

2. Masami Yamato, Head of external development, Japan Studio:
The Internal Development group has creators including Fumito Ueda and Keiichiro Toyama in it, and they take plenty of time to develop truly unique and special games. I think they are the pillar of first party development, the bones of Japan Studio. The external Development group functions as the muscle, suggesting the board possibilities of new game experience in a faster cycle. We started this project because we had been hoping to create a new game with Miyazaki-san and From Software since the success of Demon's Souls in Japan and other regions.

3. Shuhei Yoshida, President, SCE Worldwide Studios:
Game came out in Japan with pretty low key they are not too much in a marketing of thinking, people actually I clearly remember it was consumers in Japan who bought just the game and found out how great and how deep the game is, despite the insure in very difficulty.

4. Yasunori Ogura, PR, From Software:
This is From Software's 26th year in the game industry. Starting off with the PS1 generation. The kind of sense of accomplishment that is at the core of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls is actually something that we strived for in one of our first games, King's Field. So from the very beginning we've tried to make games that retain that core tenet of providing a sense of accomplishment. After the PS2 came around, we started working on a variety of games. But we decided we wanted to go back to those roots, and that how we came up with Demon's Souls. This core tenet is something that I think we'll continue to carry throughout future From Software games.

5. Masami Yamato, Head of external development, Japan Studio:
Usually, developers come up to us with their ideas to start a new project. Bloodborne was a bit of a special case. As we had a strong desire to work with Miyazaki-san, we brought the idea to From Software.

6. Shuhei Yoshida, President, SCE Worldwide Studios:
There are lots of ideas thrown and discussed between Japan Studio and From Software but when it came to me it was already pitch hard, very dark, kinda dark setup and more moody and beautiful. And what Miyazaki-san talked about, he doesn't necessarily want to make the game harder or more difficult from the difficulty standpoint in rather he would like to players feel that at any time they might die. He wanted to make the battle, combat more active so that players go more aggressive, and risk and reward dynamic view are changed much higher.

7. Yasunori Ogura, PR, From Software:
In collaboration with PlayStation to create Bloodborne, from the fan's perspective, I think it probably resembles the development of Demon's Souls. With Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and this time around with Bloodborne, each game has its own taste, or style, while being similar in various ways.

8. Masami Yamato, Head of external development, Japan Studio:
Japan is a very different market and not all games that are successful here do as well globally. To make an analogy, you can go to Kyoto and watch a sunset in that beautiful setting, and you can go to the US west coast and watch the sunset sink into the horizon. Both of them possess their own unique beauty that can touch people's hearts. I think that among game creators as well, there are lots of very talented people, regardless of birthplace, nationality or race, who have the vision to create games that touch people's hearts around the world. And Miyazaki-san is undoubtedly one of those people. He creates games which resonate with people regardless of the fact that they were made in Japan or that there are cultural differences between Japan and other countries. That's why Miyazaki-san's titles are well received all over the world.

9. Yasunori Ogura, PR, From Software:
From Software is often thought of as a “different” kind of developer. We don't really think of ourselves as being that different. We just want to make games that are fun and that fans can enjoy playing. That's why we do what we do. I think that vision is very strong. We're very grateful to have partners that enable us to continue to maintain that focus.

10. Shuhei Yoshida, President, SCE Worldwide Studios:
Game used to be challenging, game used to really challenge your skills, effort and "creativities" back in the days. And overtime more games have become kinder, more easier in giving hand-holding to consumers and that's all great with broaden audience of new players and casual players. But at the same time there are always the consumers who remember the time we spent a lot of time to understand and solve challenging games, overalls times and Bloodborne and the Souls games are really bringing back those memories of you as a game players, I myself spent hours and hours playing Miyzaki-san's game and I don't regret any moment, not a bit so enjoy.