This is a beginner’s guide to Bloodborne. The guide is partly sourced from VaatiVidya, whom you can subscribe to here. For the purposes of brevity, we’ll skip over some explanations, which are best understood in the video.
The red bar is your health. You want to keep tabs on it constantly. You can get back health lost immediately if you strike back against your enemy. Even as the enemy lays dying, you can get that health back if you keep striking. In general, enemies are easy to stagger, so use this to your advantage.
The green bar is your stamina. Stamina is needed for running, attacking, etc. It regenerates quickly but also needs constant attention.
Blood vials are your healing items, consumed with triangle. Quicksilver bullets can be used with L2, but only if you have a firearm on your left hand. Guns don’t kill in Bloodborne, they stun. If you stun an enemy just right before it hits you, you can dive into a Critical attack/Riposte by pressing R1.
You have a quick access menu, where you should place your most consumed items. You can toggle the items you placed here by pressing down on the d-pad. You use the selected item with the square button.
You also have easy access to a personal effects bar by clicking on the right side of the touchpad. The game will pause for you. This place is ideal for items like the Summoning Bell.
Blood echoes are the game currency, earned from killing enemies. You lose them when you die, and in some cases enemies absorb your echoes, so that you have to find that last enemy and kill them to take them back. Most of the time, however, they are where you last lost them. You have one chance to retrieve your echoes so you don’t want to die twice in a row.
When you invest in a skill, you gain a level. Subsequently, other skills raise the bar so that you need to reach higher levels to get them. Your in-game skills are ultimately more important than raising your skills.
Insight is a consumable you need to enter multiplayer. You earn Insight mostly from bosses, but you can also consume Madman’s Knowledge.
When you use Insight, you get the Beckoning Bell and enter the Hunter’s Dream for multiplayer. You consume an Insight point for coop, but get it back if you succeed in that session. Use the Silencing Blank to reenter regular gameplay.
Most of the time, your right hand will have your trick weapon, aka the transforming weapon, and the left will be a gun that uses the quicksilver bullets. The shoulder buttons are your attacks. R1 is the standard attack with the right hand. Hold R1 for combos. R2 is heavy attack. Most weapons will let you charge R2. If you hit an enemy fully charged from the back, you can transition to a Critical backstab.
You’ll want to familiarize yourself with what each weapon does to best utilize it under given situations.
L1 transforms your right hand weapon. You can do a transforming attack by pressing L1 immediately after R1 or R2.
L2 usually fires your quicksilver gun, but when you are holding a two handed weapon, it gives you an additional attack for that weapon instead.
If you run out of quicksilver bullets and you need them, you can press up on the d-pad to barter five temporary bullets with your health. You can, in a sense, convert blood vials into bullets using this method.
The x button is for interacting with the environment and circle is your dodge button. You can hold circle to sprint, but remember this consumes stamina.
Lock on enemies by pressing down, and toggle between enemies by pushing another direction, all on the right analog. You will revolve around one enemy while locked on to it. Your dodge changes from a roll to a dash while an enemy is locked on. You can take advantage of the 1-2 second invincibility you get from dodging when enemies strike you. You will, in general, dodge to get out of your enemies range.
In general, this game is about learning from your mistakes. Figure out what you could have done better when you die so you can win next time. Arguably, From makes games where you are supposed to die, cuz that’s the only way you figure out how to beat certain enemies or overcome certain situations.
While coop is an option, most of the game was designed for and is best played solo. In particular, you will want to take your time and check every nook and cranny for doors, hidden paths, and secrets. You will want to especially keep an eye out for Wanderers Lamps, checkpoints to reenter the Hunter’s Dream.
The Hunter’s Dream is your hub menu, and where you will be doing upgrading, entering portals, etc. This is also where you’ll be spending your blood echoes. In general, you will prefer to save your money and not use it to stock up on consumables. Instead, stock up consumables you earn from easier sections of the game. When you get stuck, as you will inevitably do, that level becomes stingier in doling out blood echoes. You are better off preparing for that eventuality than trying to get through the current level immediately.
