“Grant us eyes, Grant us eyes!” [Bloodborne]
Bloodborne blindsided us with truths we weren’t ready to see. All the Souls-like games feature a minor running theme of curiosity — and the dangers of curiosity. Bloodborne goes all-in, truly tempting us with dark knowledge we aren’t meant to known, and only giving us tantalizing glimpses into the true world of Bloodborne in trailers.
The game begins with beastly humans and werewolf-like monsters, with a strange sickness turning men into mutated animals. Later in the game, you discover the source of the madness — and Lovecraftian is the only word we can use. After stepping through the bottom of a lake and doing battle with a legless spider, you’re sent spiraling through a mirage of nightmarish locations. As your knowledge increases, based on a stat called Insight, you’ll see more strange beings that were once invisible.
Returning to the city with your eyes open, you’ll see the terrifying reality. The kin reveal in Bloodborne is one of the most disturbing moments in any game, and it’s exactly the kind of creativity weirdos like me hoped to see.
We Ran Out Of Time [Xenogears]
The infamous ending of Xenogears is a completely different beast than what we’ve been looking at so far. Metal Gear Solid 2 featuring some pretty heavy editing, but the story is basically intact. The case with Xenogears? The developers just completely ran out of time.
That leads to an absurdly rushed, flat-out bizarre Disc 2. Unlike a normal JRPG, you’ll be told the story through a series of black screens. The player doesn’t really play — you’ll complete some of the events, fight some of the bosses, and it’s all disconnected because the game just wasn’t finished. And we’re not talking about the ending! This is like a huge chunk of the game.
Usually in cases like this, games reconfigure the story and allocate resources to land on a satisfying conclusion. For Xenogears, they barreled ahead and found a very strange solution to a pretty common problem in the game industry. If you ever wonder why developers say a game isn’t done until it’s done, now you know.
Explore more twisted game stories that go in unexpected places on the next page.
