It’s also a game about death. It’s about vile monsters smashing, slicing, clawing, and chewing you to bits. It’s about horror, frustration, salty language, and broken controllers.
What keeps you playing Bloodborne, the incredibly challenging PS4-only role-playing game crafted by demented developer From Software, is a spark. It’s hard to see, a flicker in the darkness often obscured by the rage of yet another failed attempt to kill a thing you are clearly in no shape to kill. But it’s there, a glimmering beacon, a calm voice telling you that despite a learning curve shaped like a wall and hours spent futilely jabbing at creatures so hellish that you vaguely worry about the mental health of the people who created them, you are going to be OK.
You are going to win. And it’s going to feel great.
Fans of From Software’s infamous Souls series, which has rightfully earned a reputation as being among the most difficult of its generation, know the value of hope in the face of despair all too well. It’s the secret sauce that’s powered an impenetrably obtuse video game franchise to the heights of critical and commercial acclaim. It’s also what makesBloodborne one of the best PS4 games yet.
Anyone expecting that Bloodborne would be something of a departure from Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, perhaps a bit more inviting and less grinding in its difficulty, should prepare for the first of many disappointments. From its stressful gameplay loop to its online mechanics to the bright red “YOU DIED” message that mocks you roughly every 10 minutes, Bloodborne is Dark Souls 3 in all but name.
This time, you play a hunter wandering the once-pleasant city of Yharnam, now a gothic nightmare in the grip of an epidemic that’s transformed its citizens into horrific creatures. Your task: kill the beasts and restore order. Crammed with confounding religious overtones and steeped in gore, the story isn’t the star here. But a cohesive narrative isn’t the point of these games, and it’s all just absurd enough to keep you marching straight into Bloodborne’s fiery video-game baptism.
At its core, Bloodborne plays like any of the past Souls games. You fight your way through monsters in an effort to locate an elusive progress-saving bonfire, though now it’s a progress-saving lamp. Instead of acquiring “souls” by killing creatures, you acquire “blood echoes,” and when you die, you still have to race back to your corpse to retrieve them. Get killed on the way there and you lose your earnings forever. TheGroundhog Day, love-it-or-hate-it Souls gameplay flow — fight, die, run back to your cash, forge ahead, die again, start the process anew — is alive and well in Bloodborne.
But Bloodborne carves out its own identity. For example, monsters can now pick up your lost loot, requiring the additional step of killing whatever last killed you to get your cash back. Activating a lamp takes you back to a hub called the Hunter’s Dream, a safe haven where you can buy and sell gear, repair and retrofit weapons, and boost your stats.
Yahoo Games
Bloodborne - Launch Trailer
The diabolically difficult PS4 role-playing game from the demented minds behind Dark Souls is finally here. Check out some of the gruesome beasts you'll have to deal with in the game's launch trailer.
The biggest change, however, is found out in the field. Bloodborne is a faster, more aggressive game than Dark Souls II. Hiding behind a shield as a 20-foot-tall ogre tries to turn you into mush with a club the size of a Buick isn’t an option because you really don’t have any shields (I found one; it was useless). Magic is largely nonexistent, so you can’t stand back and lob fireballs.
No, Bloodborne requires you to get up close and personal, dodging, back-stepping, staying just out of range of that Buick club as you dart in and out with your sword/axe/cleaver/hammer. It’s a stiff challenge, requiring tight focus and a steady eye on your stamina meter, but it’s also speedier and intrinsically more pleasing than standing back and firing arrows.
From Software also made a few concessions to keep you in the fight. You regain some health by immediately attacking the enemy who last injured you. You can also equip a gun as a secondary weapon, but don’t expect to rip through Bloodborne with a bazooka. The guns serve mainly to stun tougher foes, opening them up for a big “Visceral Attack” that doles out huge damage. Good luck pulling it off regularly, though, because the only way to nail the timing is to figure it out on your own.
Part of the problem — and this is obviously by design, so maybe it’s not a problem so much as a fact — is that Bloodborne doesn’t believe in handholding tutorials. It walks you very quickly through its mechanics and doesn’t care to re-explain itself. How does the “Frenzy” work? Where do I go to I equip these runes? What’s the secret to stunning foes with guns? It’s up to you to sort it all out.
While it’s unclear in its systems, Bloodborne is sharply focused in its macabre sensibilities. The werewolves, zombies, giants, and giant werewolf zombies are meticulously built and thoroughly creepy, to a one. The game keeps upping the awful ante; after a few dozen hours, you’ll duel snake-headed monstrosities, acid-spitting octo-things, and a numbers of creatures so gross and insane that despite decades spent ogling Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manuals, I couldn’t describe them on a bet.
Invariably, Bloodborne’s many roads lead to epic boss fights. You’ll need to beat the bosses to open up new paths and acquire new abilities — and true to form, the towering white wolf demon and electrically charged bear-skeleton thing are as wildly difficult as they look. But this is where Bloodborne really sinks its teeth into you.
If the multitude of regular monsters are weekly tests, Bloodborne’s bosses are its final exams, and you need to study if you want to pass. The first time you fight a boss, you’re going to die. But you’ll learn a thing or two, and eventually you’ll learn enough to know that despite the limited window to hit the beast in the foot, you can hit it in the foot. You just have to go do it.
That’s the hope talking, and when it all comes together, it’s intoxicating. After a couple of hours spent banging my head against the game’s first tree-limbed behemoth of a boss, I dodged, leaped, parried, and stabbed it just enough times to kill it before it killed me. I took a victory lap around the house, arms raised. True, beyond Bloodborne’s hills lie only bigger hills, but when you’ve climbed one hill, you know you can climb more. Youwant to climb more.
Most of Bloodborne is spent this way: scouring its vast environments for hidden treasures and secret paths, stumbling upon something terrible, getting killed by it, and jogging back for a little revenge. It’s repetitive, to be sure, and often the best way forward is to spend time farming the weaker bad guys for cash. You’ll doubtlessly fling a controller across the room when you do something stupid and lose 45,000 blood echoes. But you’re not mad at the game so much as at yourself. You should have been patient. You should have spent that cash when you had the chance. You should have been smarter. Fools rush into Bloodborne, and death rushes back out.
Fools also forget that Bloodborne has a multiplayer component. You can leave messages for fellow hunters (another holdover from the Soulsgames), and you can also invite players into your game to help take down bosses. It’s still a little wonky — you need to ring a bell, which costs yet another poorly explained currency called “Insight,” and then wait for someone to (maybe) come join you – but it does work, and it can be immensely useful when you’re out of ideas. If you also run out of things to kill (you), Bloodborne offers cool procedurally generated dungeons, which can also be played cooperatively. And for gamers looking to show off their skills, the game lets players invade each other’s worlds and go mano a mano.
It’s a big package, and Bloodborne occasionally buckles under its weight. The game looks great, all dark and gloomy and bloody and nasty, but the severe load times when you’re respawning only serve to drive your failure home a few inches more. Occasional frame-rate issues can hamper fights against larger groups, a tall-enough order even when it’s running smoothly.
Suffice it to say, Bloodborne isn’t for everyone. It’s unforgiving, repetitive, and bad for your blood pressure. But it’s also mysterious, powerful, and good for your soul — the best PS4 exclusive yet. What more could you have hoped for?
What’s hot: Huge, creepy world; fast, satisfying combat; impressive monsters; smart changes to Souls formula; amazing feeling of accomplishment.
What’s not: Debilitating feeling of despair; unclear systems and mechanics; PTSD treatment costs extra.
There's a new king of console gaming, with Sony retaking the crown from rival Nintendo after eight years.
Sony sold 18.7 million games machines in the fiscal year ended on March 31, while Nintendo sold a more modest 16.3 million units. Japanese news site Nikkei was the first two stack the two figures against each other, but the numbers had already been separately disclosed by Sony and Nintendo.
The change in position marks the first time that Sony has held the top spot since the blockbuster success of the Wii catapulted the House of Mario into the pole position in 2006. It also reflects the changing fortunes for both companies in the gaming business, with the next-generation PlayStation 4 receiving a warm greeting from consumers, while sales of the Wii U system continue to disappoint.
Both companies are expected to unveil a slew of games at the E3 video game trade show, which kicks off today.
More telling than the total figures is the mix of sales. Nintendo's console sales are primarily driven by its still-successful handheld business, with the 3DS making up a vast majority -- 12.4 million -- of the total sales. Conversely, Sony sold 14.6 million PS2, PS3, and PS4 consoles (the PS4 launched in November, and only contributed to sales for a little more than four months).
Microsoft isn't on the same fiscal calendar, so it's more difficult to compare video game console sales with Sony and Nintendo. It also lacks a handheld gaming system, relying solely on sales of the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Like the PS4, the Xbox One launched at the end of last year, and still hasn't reached Japan yet.
Sony can boast that it has built the most popular games console of all time with the PlayStation 2, which has sold over 155 million units. The follow-up PlayStation 3 fared less well, however, with Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360 providing able competition, squashing Sony's lead.Although the warm reception that greeted the PS4 will have buoyed Sony's console hopes (and the PlayStation 4 isestimated to have outsold Microsoft's Xbox One again in April), both Sony and Nintendo are facing tough times. Earlier this year Nintendo reported disappointing revenue, while Sonyexpects to lose $489m this year as its financial woes continue.
The race for console king may mean significantly less in a few years with all three companies confronting the growing trend of smartphone gaming. The rise of casual gaming apps could potentially divert money and attention away from the console gaming world. Sony's aforementioned PlayStation Now service could prove effective in this regard, as it'll let gamers play titles from Sony's library of games on phones and tablets.
Nintendo has been consistent in maintaining that its first-party games, such as its Mario Kart franchise, would remain on its own gaming systems, largely ignoring the mobile threat. Microsoft, meanwhile, has a lot invested in its Windows Phone mobile platform, and has attempted to integrate features such as its Xbox profile into smartphones.
The E3 conference may shed some light on how these companies will address this competitive threat from mobile even as they continue to jockey for the lead in the console race.
The PlayStation 4's sales have topped the Xbox One's, but with a new price drop, Microsoft hopes that will change.Sarah Tew/CNET
With the release of Titanfall, Microsoft's console-exclusive first-person sci-fi shooter, the Xbox One got a nice sales bump this spring, but it hasn't been able to overtake the PS4, which has outsold the Xbox One at a rate of around 4 to 3.
Not surprisingly, that ratio's not so different from the price delta between the two game consoles, with the Xbox going out of the gate at $500 (Kinect peripheral included) while the PS4 selling for $400, sanscamera accessory. Oh, and to use most of the Xbox One's extra features, you had to sink another $60 on a yearly Xbox Live Gold subscription, so the real total was more like $560 compared to $400.
What's the difference between the $400 Xbox One and the $499 Xbox One?
From a hardware standpoint, the only difference is that you don't get the Kinect, the high-resolution camera peripheral that brings added features to the console. By the end of the year, you'll be able to purchase the Kinect separately, but Microsoft has yet to specify the price.
The $400 Xbox One does not include the Kinect peripheral.Sarah Tew/CNET
What do I lose without the Kinect?
You'll lose the ability to play games that require the Kinect -- but that's such a short list of titles, we doubt anyone will care. However, the lack of a Kinect comes into play in a big way with the console's TV and media-control features. Because the Kinect doubles as a microphone and an IR blaster, you'll lose the ability for any voice control and any motion-control input. You'll also lose the ability to change channels on your cable box and adjust the volume on your TV. You should also expect the $25 Xbox One Media Remote to lose some functionality (again, like TV volume control). Looking forward to theenhanced DVR controls that Microsoft has been touting for later this year? Too bad -- none of them will work without the Kinect. The same goes for log-in via face recognition or any other Kinect-dependent nicety.
Do I still have to buy Xbox Live Gold to access most of the console's extra features?
To do any multiplayer gaming, you still have to buy Xbox Live Gold (just as you have to purchase PlayStation Plus to do any multiplayer gaming on the PS4). But on Xbox One and Xbox 360, you'll no longer need a Live Gold subscription to access streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and HBO Go. A Live Gold subscription will also not be needed for some premium services on the Xbox One, such as OneGuide, Internet Explorer, and Skype. That's a big change.
What is still exclusive to Live Gold subscribers?
There will still be some services that are exclusive to Live Gold subscribers, including the "Games with Gold" program, cloud game saves, and Game DVR. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Games with Gold, Live Gold subscribers will receive an additional free Xbox 360 game in June. Additionally, Microsoft announced that both "Games with Gold" and "Deals with Gold" will come to the Xbox One in June.
What is Games with Gold, and how does it work?
When you subscribe to Sony's PlayStation Plus service, you can add certain games to your digital locker for free (as long as you're a subscriber, they remain in your locker, available to download when you want to play them). Each month, Sony serves up free games for the PS3, PS4, and PlayStation Vita, some of them former AAA titles.
Microsoft's Games with Gold works in much the same way. In its current Xbox 360 incarnation, you're allowed to keep the game "no matter what." Microsoft is currently serving up two free games a month (until the end of the year), one on the 1st of each month and one on the 16th. The program is coming to the Xbox One in June.
Microsoft has had to counter the rise of Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription service.Sony
What is Deals with Gold, and how does it work?
PlayStation Plus subscribers can buy certain game titles at a discount -- usually a small one -- each month. These games you get to hold onto even if you stop subscribing to PlayStation Plus.
Microsoft's Deals with Gold works in the same way. It's currently available for the Xbox 360 and will also hit the Xbox One in June. Some game discounts are exclusive to Gold subscribers, while others are also open to Xbox Live Silver subscribers (the free tier). For a look at the latest deals and other Xbox One news, you can always head to the Major Nelson blog, run by Larry Hryb, Director of Programming for Xbox Live (his gamertag is "Major Nelson").
How does this all affect current Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners?
If you're a Xbox Live Gold subscriber now, you'll get access to both Games with Gold and Deals with Gold on June 9, just as any new subscriber would. Also, if you're not a Gold subscriber, you'll suddenly have access to all those apps -- Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and so on -- that were behind the Gold wall before. (Of course, any separate subscription fees for each service will still apply.)
Microsoft
What about the PS4 -- does it make a price drop likely for that too?
It's unclear what Sony will do, if anything. But if PS4 sales slow, expect Sony to find a way to make the PS4 look more appealing for the money. But we'd expect a game bundle more than a price drop at this point.
OK, so which of these Xbox Ones should I buy?
Some people love the fact that they can fully control their TV with their Xbox One, whether it's using the Xbox One controller or the voice- and motion-controls via the Kinect peripheral, (it not only has a built-in microphone but a built-in IR blaster for controlling your cable or satellite box). If you're in this camp, stick with the $499 version.
On the other hand, if you're just about the games and apps, and you don't want or need the Xbox One to be the lord of your home-entertainment system, go for the $400 version. You can always buy the Kinect later.
Sony has apparently been keeping mum on one of the most mysterious features of the next-generation PlayStation 4 since launch in November: the controller's light bar, which couldn't be turned off or dimmed while the console was on.
Almost every single PlayStation 4 review dinged the next-generation console for this feature, as the several inch light bar would glow red, blue, green or any other color during gameplay. But now we know why it was added.
According to an interview with TechRadar, Jed Ashforth, senior designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said the light bar is essential for tracking the controller's movement for virtual reality. It means upcoming Project Morpheus virtual reality headset had been baked in to the PlayStation 4 the whole time.
Ashford said everyone at Sony had to keep quiet about the light's main purpose.
"The tracking light … it was our department that said we need that on," said Ashforth. "It was for tracking for VR.
"And when all these things were coming out six months ago and everyone was going 'it's reflecting in my TV,' we were going 'oh no' because we couldn't tell anyone what it was for."
Sony hasn't revealed more about the Morpheus prototype headsets since the reveal at the Game Developers Conference in March, but we can expect to learn more next month at E3.
"The PS4 journey has just begun, and although we are still facing difficulties keeping up with the strong demand worldwide, we remain steadfast in our commitment to meet the needs of our customers, and surpassing the wildest expectations of gamers, by delivering new user experiences that inspire and engage," Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, said in a press release.
Sony also announced that PS4 software has reached 20.5 million copies sold worldwide, both through retail and its PlayStation Store, as of April 13.
The PS4 is currently available in 72 countries, with one of the larger additions being Japan, where Sony began selling its console on February 22. By March 4, 370,000 units had been sold in the country -- and likely contributed greatly this month to the next million unit milestone -- even as the PS4 enters its fifth month on the market in the US.
Sony stock remained relatively steady Wednesday at roughly $18.78 per share, up 23 cents, or 1.23 percent, for the day.
Sony's decision to release sales figures comes at an interesting time for the neck and neck state of next-gen console purchases. The PS4 only barely edged out Microsoft's Xbox One in February, with 258,000 Xbox One units sold that month. That pushed Microsoft ahead of Sony in hardware sales on a dollar basis due to the Xbox One's higher price tag.
And those figures didn't include the critically acclaimed game Titanfall, which was bundled with the Xbox One in the US in March in a startlingly low-cost $499 package that essentially netted buyers a free copy of the title. Microsoft and select regional retailers have both used Titanfall to aggressively push unit sales of the console, especially in markets like the UK.
While the PS4 is available in 72 markets, Microsoft is still playing catch up when it comes to availability. The Xbox One is expected to debut in 26 more countries in September of this year, including large swaths of Europe and key markets in the Middle East and Asia including Israel, the UAE, Japan and Korea. A full list can be found here.
Ultimately, how all this cost-cutting affects March sales of the Xbox One -- and whether that means Microsoft will once again outsell Sony in the console market -- will be illuminated by tomorrow's March NPD Group report. Microsoft has yet to disclose lifetime sales of the Xbox One since announcing in January that the console sold 3.9 million units in 2013.
While the entire gaming community is waiting for a formal announcement from developers, the actual people who are working on the Minecraft PS4 edition had some important announcement to make.
They admitted on Twitter that there are thousands of gamers who want to know whether the title update 14 as well as the next gen game version is shaping up fast. The team confirmed that it is indeed going good and they are busy working to get it out on the right time. Even though they are planning to roll out an update for PS3 platform and also bring the next gen game out, Sony may or may not allow them to do so. It is unclear at the moment whether the company will approve the certification testing process for the new game as well as the TU14 at the same time. They may choose to postpone it to a later date and release the new title first for eager fans to play it on their newly purchased console.
TU14 Is on PS4
As of now, the developers didn’t have a formal announcement to make mainly because they are purely focused on getting the games out in time. The company will decide the proposed released dates but 4J Studios confirmed that they are indeed working to bring it out at the earliest. Answering the questions posted by gamers, the team said that they couldn’t make any announcements final mainly because until the game is ready for release and submission for certificate processing, no official word can be given. The Minecraft PS4 edition will launch directly with the title update 14 along with all the features that are available on PC already. The update titled 1.3.1 brought new changes including anvil interface, trading with NPC villagers, desert temples and much more. Next gen console owners will get all these along with some exclusive texture packs as well, if latest news is to be believed.
Use Quills to Write On Books
4J Studios continuously kept gamers busy with new screenshot updates that confirmed some of the features that are about to land officially on the Minecraft PS4 edition. It included the anvil interface which has great anticipation among players for its ability to rename items, repair them and also combine enchantments. The concept of being able to write on a book with quill is said to be part of the next gen game version as well but one has to wait to know if it will make it to the final version. It is already available on computers but they make use of the typing facility available. If console gamers will enjoy leaving notes for entities and other players, it will most probably make it to the final edition.
Regarding the title update 14, 4J Studios said that it may be weeks away before it finally makes it way to certificate testing. They did not have any formal news on Twitter about the release date for Minecraft PS4 but based on these frequent updates, one can expect it to be close.
In Tuesday's news release, Sony also touted the PS4's social achievements. More than 100 million shares have been captured through the "Share" button on the PS4's wireless controller, while more than 3.6 million gameplay broadcasts have been sent out via the Twitch and Ustream streaming platforms.Software sales for the PS4 topped 13.7 million as of March 2, Sony added. That number covers both retail store sales and digital downloads from the PlayStation Store. Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription service has won over more than half of all PS4 owners, according to Sony. Ranging in price from $10 for one month to $50 for 12 months, PS Plusrewards PlayStation users with free games, discounts, and other benefits.
