25 Things You DIDN'T Know About Bloodborne

25 Things You Didn’t Know About Bloodborne

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re looking at Bloodborne and tripping up casual fans. Die hard fans might already know these, but I spent the whole time researching going “What!? No way!!”. These are 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Bloodborne. Let’s go!

Did It Hurt When You Fell Out Of Heaven?

Imagine trying to navigate romance in a place like Yharnam. Different customs. Different dangers. Slightly higher chance of being disemboweled mid-conversation. That’s why one of the funniest little details in “Bloodborne” hits so well. If you poke around the Hunter’s Workshop and take a closer look at the pile of books near Gehrman’s personal library, you’ll spot something unexpected sitting on top: a book titled “How To Pick Up Fair Maidens.” Right next to his copy of “She Comes First”. Okay, one of those is a joke, but “How To Pick Up Fair Maidens” is 100% real. It’s such a perfectly absurd touch. You’ve got eldritch gods, cursed blood, and townsfolk losing their minds, and Gehrman’s over here studying the pickup artistry.

Kos Has A Human Face

Beating the Orphan of Kos in “Bloodborne” feels like you just took on Mike Tyson in his prime with no boxing experience, and somehow won. It’s fast, relentless, unpredictable, kinda like my mudda-in-law am I right fellas? I hate what I’ve become. But just like my mudda-in-law, did you know there’s a human being in there? After the chaos settles, if you resist the urge to sprint away and instead take a quiet moment to examine Kos’s body, something unsettling reveals itself. Beneath the grotesque, ocean-warped form is a face that looks… human. Not vaguely humanoid. Not fully alien. Human enough to make you uncomfortable. It’s a detail that completely reframes the encounter. You didn’t just slay a nightmare. You ended something that once looked like you.

The Envious Moon Presence

The Moon Presence is a Great One, more specifically the Great One who created the Hunter’s Dream. Through Gehrman, it gives hunters a purpose: cleanse the city. Kill the beasts. Restore order. But that’s only the surface story. The real target? Mergo. An infant Great One. The child of Oedon. But the reason why The Moon Presence tasks hunters to kill Mergo is completely unknown, but there is some heavy subtext that hints towards an answer you may have missed. The Great Ones may show strange sympathy toward humanity… yet that doesn’t mean they extend that kindness to each other. Rivalry. Jealousy. Territorial dominance. If Oedon and the Moon Presence are rivals, then the entire hunt is just collateral damage in a divine feud. And not the kind hosted by Steve Harvey.

Rune Pattern In The Astral Clocktower

Opening the Astral Clocktower requires the player to beat Lady Maria, then using the Celestial Dial, it sets the mechanism in motion, the great clock shifts, and glowing runes flare into existence as the path to the Fishing Hamlet reveals itself. It’s dramatic. It’s deliberate. It’s intentional, and that’s why when something seems out of place, you can’t help but think it was for a reason. Look closer: As the clock face turns, a rune briefly appears in the pattern that players can’t actually obtain anywhere in the game. It isn’t in the inventory. It isn’t lootable. It isn’t tied to any known quest. It simply exists in that moment and nowhere else. FromSoftware doesn’t accidentally draw symbols. If that rune is there, it’s there for a reason. And the fact that no one has found it only makes it more unsettling.

The Music Box

If you thoroughly explore early Yharnam, you’ll encounter a young girl speaking through a window near the sewers. She explains that her father, a hunter, hasn’t returned home and gives you a Tiny Music Box in hopes you might find him. Not long after, you do find him, but in the form of Father Gascoigne. He’s one of the game’s first major difficulty spikes: fast, aggressive, and eventually transforming into a savage second phase that overwhelms unprepared players. The Tiny Music Box, however, momentarily stuns him when used during the fight, briefly snapping him out of his frenzy and making the encounter more manageable. But even though some players missed this useful trick, the real hidden fact is if you summon Gascoigne earlier in the game (which is kinda its own hidden secret) and play the music box near him, he lets out a faint chuckle, a small, tragic reminder that beneath the beast, the man still lingers.

Familiar Armor

Once hunters grow comfortable carving through the nightmares of “Bloodborne,” they start collecting materials for Chalice Rituals, the system that opens up the game’s procedurally generated dungeons. Scattered among the corpses in the dungeons are suits of armor that feel strangely out of place. In some chambers, entire piles of bodies wear gear that looks lifted straight from a “Souls” title. And then there’s one that’s clear as day: a suit identical to the iconic armor from “Demon’s Souls,” even positioned in the same stance as the original box art. It’s not random. It’s a quiet nod. Is it an easter egg for fans? Or an actual link between worlds? I dunno, why are you asking me!? Oh wait, Mojo video. Uhh, next entry.

The Blind Lead The Blind

Players will notice throughout “Bloodborne”, that a lot of the characters you come across hide their eyes behind bandages, cloth, or have seemingly lost them altogether, NPCs, enemies, and key figures. Then you notice the items, many of which have titles or themes that allude to vision, site, and seeing that tie into the Old Lords. Eyes are everywhere in the lore. And it all circles back to one mechanic: Insight. The higher your Insight climbs, the more the world changes. Enemies grow stronger, hidden horrors become visible, reality peels back. The implication is brutal. Scholars at Byrgenwerth and members of the Healing Church sought enlightenment through the Old Ones. They wanted to see more, and when they finally did, they couldn’t handle it. So they tore their own eyes out to escape what they’d learned. Dark.

A Craft of Love

We won’t pretend this is some hidden revelation. If you’ve spent five minutes reading about “Bloodborne,” you’ve heard the name H.P. Lovecraft, and the references back to the infamous author. The influence isn’t subtle: Tentacled horrors, townspeople descending into madness, beings with too many eyes, ears, or anuses. It’s textbook cosmic horror. Lovecraft built the blueprint for “elder gods” and unknowable entities watching from beyond reality. But it goes deeper than vague inspiration. Some creature designs feel lifted straight from Lovecraft’s nightmares. Beings that echo Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, and other Lovecraftian monstrosities. It’s less homage, and more ho-my god did they steal that!?

Who’s The Boss

PvP has long been one of the most exhilarating and aggravating elements of FromSoftware’s titles. It’s where players test builds, and sometimes rely on the most ingenious, or downright cheap, tactics to secure a win, this includes using bad internet to their advantage goddamnit. But some players have taken things a step further. Rather than simply invading to duel, they fully commit to roleplaying as bosses from the game itself. A certain number of players in the game have actually taken to dressing up and behaving exactly like a number of bosses found within the game. While many bosses can’t realistically be recreated due to their size, complex designs, or unique attack patterns, that hasn’t stopped dedicated fans from trying.

A Special Message

Anyone who’s spent time wandering through the bleak streets in “Bloodborne” has met the messengers. They’re those pale, shriveled little figures clustering around lanterns and notes left by other players. At first glance, they’re unsettling, but compared to everything else in Yharnam, they’re borderline adorable, especially once you start putting little top hats and accessories on them. What many players don’t immediately realize is that their numbers aren’t fixed. Sometimes only a few appear, other times they swarm an object in such huge numbers they look like a writhing pile of hands. But this variation isn’t random. The messengers reflect online activity. The more you see, the more players are active in that area for summoning or PvP.

Full Beast Mode

The “Beast Roar” Hunter Tool is usually treated as a panic button. Surrounded by enemies? Trigger it. The shockwave blasts outward, staggering and knocking back anything caught in its radius. It’s one of the most reliable crowd-control tools in the game, especially when mobs start closing in from every direction. But its usefulness doesn’t stop there: If you activate “Beast Roar” just as a projectile is about to hit you, the shockwave will deflect it completely. Bullets, fireballs, and even those grotesque tentacled attacks can be sent flying harmlessly away No damage, no stagger. No worries.

Gerhman In The Hunter's Dream

Gehrman might be the most quietly tragic figure in “Bloodborne,” and the game only lets you see that side of him if you’re paying attention. Most of the time, he’s calm, reserved, almost distant. But if you visit his workshop at the right moment in the Hunter’s Dream, you can overhear him murmuring in his sleep. And, just to be clear, these aren’t the “counting sheep as you fall asleep” kinda dreams, more like “watching your sheep friends be massacred by 1000 warriors” kinda dream. Regret bleeds through his voice as he speaks of things he can’t escape. The Dream isn’t just a sanctuary for hunters, for Gehrman, it’s a prison. And that brief, vulnerable moment reveals just how heavy of a burden that is.

Connected Doors

For years, players were baffled by two particular doors in “Bloodborne”: The one at the far end of the Cleric Beast arena on the Great Bridge, and another at the edge of Cathedral Ward. They looked important, intentional, like they had to lead somewhere, yet they never opened and no obvious route connected them. The mystery lingered until one player came up with a borderline brilliant idea. They dropped Shining Coins in front of the Great Bridge door and made the long trek back to the Cathedral Ward entrance. When they reached the other side, the faint glow of the coins could be seen through the door. That small shimmer confirmed the theory, the two locations were physically connected behind the scenes. God, people are so clever.

A Waking Dream

Every hunter spends time in the Hunter’s Dream, that quiet area made up of a graveyard, a workshop, and the Doll who calmly levels you up regardless of the destruction taking place. It’s one of the only truly safe spaces in the entire game, which means players explore it obsessively. What many don’t realize at first is that the Dream isn’t just a metaphorical location, its layout is mirrored by a real place hidden within Yharnam. After defeating the Blood-Starved Beast, a new path opens in Oedon Chapel leading up a tower. If you circle around, enter through the lower doorway, and carefully descend through a large pit, you’ll land before a sealed door. Beyond it lies the Abandoned Old Workshop, the original version of Gehrman’s workshop, the physical foundation for the Dream itself.

What's The Real Story?

I know this seems silly to just tell you the story of the world, like it’s something you don’t know, but the funny thing is: You probably don’t. The Soulsborne series has never handed players its story on a silver platter, instead it gives you the story on a sieve, forcing you to piece everything together like a detective in armor. “Bloodborne” follows that same fragmented storytelling style as “Dark Souls,” but instead of knights and dragons, it’s cosmic horror. Beneath Yharnam lies an ancient labyrinth, the Chalice Dungeons, where the city’s scholars discovered the Great Ones and their incomprehensible power. Master Willem founded Byrgenwerth to pursue Insight and elevate humanity’s understanding. His student, Laurence, disagreed on the method, believing the Old Blood itself was the key. He established the Healing Church, and Yharnam embraced blood ministration as a miracle cure. It worked, until it didn’t. The blood warped minds and bodies, turning citizens into beasts. That’s the simplified version, and the tale at the heart of the hunt.

The Tomb Prospectors

Most players feel like they’ve seen everything in “Bloodborne” after enough hunts, after enough beasts fall and every shortcut has been unlocked. But there’s a different breed of player that never truly clocks out. They aren’t satisfied with just finishing the story or clearing the DLC. In the community, they’re known as the Tomb Prospectors. This dedicated Reddit group dives relentlessly into Chalice Dungeons, exploring every variant and depth in search of rare enemies, strange anomalies, and high-value loot. They catalog unusual spawns, document hidden layouts, and share dungeon glyphs so others can experience the discoveries. Walkthroughs for brutal dungeon paths circulate within the group, turning isolated exploration into a shared effort. To some, it sounds exhausting. To the Tomb Prospectors, it’s the real endgame. In their world, “Bloodborne” doesn’t end, it just changes.

The Plague State of Mind

During the real-world medieval era, the Bubonic Plague TORE through Europe: Entire communities were wiped out, bodies piled up, and with no real understanding of disease, people turned to what made sense at the time: religion, superstition, and mysticism. FromSoftware clearly tapped into that historical chaos when building “Bloodborne.” The Victorian atmosphere, the paranoia, the plague-doctor aesthetics, even certain garments and tools all echo imagery from real-world outbreaks. The sense of mass hysteria in Yharnam, citizens transforming into something monstrous while clinging to belief systems that only make things worse, mirrors how societies once responded to catastrophe. It’s a nice connection to our universe, making it seems completely possible that if Covid had gone worse, I might have gotten a sword.

Umbasa!

Today’s gamer will forget that there was an Alpha build for “Bloodborne” before it launched. The alpha build only gave players a small slice of Yharnam to explore, just enough to wander an early version of the streets and fight a prototype of the first boss. It was controlled, limited, very “nothing to see here.” Of course, that didn’t stop a few determined testers from doing what gamers do best: breaking things. By glitching past a blocked-off section, some players managed to access content they definitely weren’t supposed to see, including an early encounter with Father Gascoigne, and after killing the player, he delivered a line that never made it into the final release. Calling the hunter a poor, corrupted beast, he then said “Umbasa,” a term familiar to fans of “Demon’s Souls,” roughly equivalent to “Amen.” A tiny cut detail, but a fascinating link between the two games.

Hunters Who Play With Dolls

Anyone who’s played “Bloodborne” knows the Doll, the soft-spoken figure in the Hunter’s Dream who handles leveling while everything else in the world tries to tear you apart. On the surface, the interactions are pretty simple: You level up, she speaks gently, that’s about it. But if you start experimenting with gestures, there’s a bit more personality hiding there. Certain emotes trigger certain reactions. She might clap politely, give a small bow, or stare at you like you’ve completely lost it. It’s a small touch, and sometimes a sassy touch.

Making Contact

Speaking of gestures! Players can also use them to communicate with NPCs, and other hunters online. For a lot of players, gestures feel cosmetic, fun for PvP taunts or co-op greetings, but ultimately optional. Except one of them isn’t. The “Contact” gesture looks simple enough, your hunter raises their arms at a strange angle, pauses, then slowly mirrors the pose on the opposite side. It feels ceremonial, almost pointless, unless you happen to use it in the right place. At specific locations tied to the game’s cosmic lore, performing “Contact” long enough will trigger hidden rewards, including a powerful moon relic! Pretty cool.

It’s All In The Cards

If there’s one thing we’ve established across the last 20 entries, it’s that “Bloodborne” fans are nothing if not thorough. They’ve cleared the main story, combed through Chalice Dungeons, cycled through New Game+ runs, and pushed difficulty as far as it will go. At some point, though, even the most dedicated hunter might feel like they’ve seen it all. That’s when it might be time to look away from the screen and toward the tabletop. “Bloodborne: The Card Game” takes the Chalice Dungeon concept and reimagines it as a competitive board game for three to five players. You’ll face familiar enemies and bosses, but you’re also competing against each other for rewards and survival. I know this sounds like an ad, but honest and for real, I don’t give a f*** if you buy it, I just thought it was crazy there was a “Bloodborne” board game and I didn’t know.

It's All About Perspective

Scattered throughout the game are a few strange spots where a well-angled leap can completely mess with the game’s perspective. By jumping from certain high ledges and landing just right on a lower surface, players have managed to confuse the camera into locking into an overhead view, the same dramatic angle normally used when your hunter plummets to their death. At first, it’s kind of cool. Seeing Yharnam from above gives everything a weird, almost strategy-game feel. But the novelty doesn’t last long. It’s still a glitch, and the game doesn’t really know how to handle it. Characters can turn invisible, animations break, controls behave oddly, and large portions of the map become unstable. Fun to poke at for a few minutes, but not ideal if you enjoy the game not melting in your hands.

Gascoigne's Daughter

Everyone remembers Father Gascoigne as that early-game wall, the frantic, axe-swinging nightmare who turns new players into stressed-out button mashers. But like most Soulsborne characters, his story hits harder than his attacks. Gascoigne was once a respected hunter who slowly lost himself to the very hunt he swore to uphold, driven mad by the horrors he witnessed. His wife went searching for him and was killed in the process, her body left on a rooftop while he continued spiraling. Back home, their daughter waits, unaware of what’s happened. If you speak to her, she tells you everything. If you break her mother’s jeweled brooch and show her the remains, she leaves in search of safety, only to be devoured by the giant pig in the sewers. It’s bleak, even by “Bloodborne” standards.

Tip Line

Shuhei Yoshida, Sony’s longtime head of worldwide game development, wasn’t just professionally invested in “Bloodborne,” he was personally hooked. He even earned the platinum trophy, which by the way is no small feat, I’ve never even bothered attempting, and yes, he got there the same way most players did, by putting in the hours and dying repeatedly. But Yoshida had one advantage most hunters don’t. When he hit a wall, instead of digging through forums or deciphering cryptic in-game notes, he went straight to the source. He reportedly emailed the developers directly for guidance whenever things got rough. Having FromSoftware on speed dial definitely helps, but it also highlights something else, even someone deeply embedded in the industry needed help.

The Saint and The…

Two very different women cross your path in “Bloodborne,” lucky you, and if you pay attention, their tension doesn’t just stay in dialogue. Arianna is a kind-hearted prostitute who offers her blood as thanks if you send her to safety. Adella, on the other hand, is a nun of the Healing Church who sees the hunter almost as a chosen savior. Their lifestyles couldn’t be more different, Nun, prostitute, not really the same deal, and Adella makes it clear she disapproves of Arianna. If you accept Arianna’s blood three times, Adella snaps and murders her, leaving Arianna’s body slumped lifeless in the chapel. It’s abrupt and brutal. Even creepier, if you rotate the camera during their conversations, you can catch Adella glaring at Arianna with a jealous, tilted stare. God damn, cold-blooded.