So, because I've done everything else I decided to try some of Bloodborne's playable cut content last night, which features a test area FULL of monsters, including some never used in-game, and two bosses, among other things. I'm posting this here since the information is a little more significant and comprehensive than a play update and I don't want to keep spamming the 'Playing' thread.
First, a little background, as I said a major facet of this game is gaining access to an unseen plane of existence where cosmic beings control or exert influence on reality, or in our dreams, or perhaps realities that are dreamed by those superior beings. That's the main game, there's also an optional secondary, concurrently playable, campaign accessible from the main hub where you explore ancient ruins, Chalice Dungeons, to uncover more about these cosmic beings, an ancient civilization that rose and fell with them, and perhaps even physical manifestations of those beings themselves the deeper you go. These dungeons also have their own unique areas, enemies, bosses and story progression with its own final boss, so it's more than a side game or remix of the main game's assets, it's another half of the game.
In gaming terms, the Chalice Dungeons can be set dungeons for the "story" Chalices, or procedurally generated random dungeons, created through rituals and requiring special ingredients, that you can also use to add modifiers for difficulty, etc. These random dungeons can then be shared among players via glyph codes. This naturally led to many players exploring deeper and deeper, or seldom seen, layers of the dungeons for heretofore unknown enemies or bosses. These players were known as "Tomb Prospectors," named after the faction which originally explored these ruins according to in-game lore. They've been figuring out how the dungeon generation works and finding new and unique dungeons and monsters accordingly, literally discovering new in-game enemies years after the game was released. The biggest breakthrough though happened once Bloodborne's files could finally be read and datamined, which led to the discovery of not only cut content in the files by Sanadask and ZullietheWitch, but some actually playable content used by the developers, including new areas, enemies, and bosses! This was in December 2017 and January 2018, and functioned almost like some unofficial DLC once Zullie shared them via glyph. So, I backed up my save files and decided to give them a try. Below are my experiences and impressions. Of course, calling it "cut content" is boring and almost has a negative connotation, so given the nature of the game and its themes, accessing eldritch truth and other planes of reality, literally unearthing it in cases, through ancient ruins or dreamlands ala H.P. Locecraft, I'm dubbing the experience:
Bloodborne: The Lost Nightmares
"The Murder Dungeon" (glyph: 2c8czh8h)
This glyph was supposed to transport me into what I thought was a one-on-one fight with the Chalice Beast, an enemy seen on the Bloodborne prototype "Project Beast" load screen, but not the final game. Instead I found myself surrounded by enemies, including multiple Undead Giants! After being immediately gang-attacked I was able to escape and ran down the hall, only realizing more enemies were spawning or waiting as I went and the previous mobs followed. I didn't even know if this hallway had an end, but it did, featuring a huge Bloodletting Beast and a creepy, hostile disembodied voice telling me my actions were "most uncharitable"... Well! I put up a fight and wasn't killed by the mob outright, but got knocked out of a archway on the platform to fall into an empty gray void until finally hitting an invisible floor and dying (an enemy was apparently knocked off with me as I could see their silhouette off to the side). This thankfully returned me to the Hunter's Dream.
Attempt two went much better. I took on the initial mob and realized, though they could damage me, it was relatively light, and most couldn't take a hit, at least not from my 900+ attack rating Holy Moonlight Sword. Surviving the initial throng allowed me to pace myself and lure out the rest in manageable numbers. I indeed fought the lost Chalice Beast, a Pthumerian Ghost, and a strange egg-shaped enemy that resembled a facehugger pod from Alien. There were others that seemed unfamiliar as well, or like variations of enemies, some partly invisible. There were so many lined up that at times the game could hardly keep up animating them or running their AI. Halfway through my sword broke, it was outfitted with cursed gems affecting durability and I'd forgotten to repair it; I replaced it with Ludwig's, which seemed to make little difference despite the lack of gems. Finally, I reached the end, killed the Bloodletting Beast and discovered the source of the unfriendly voice: Patches the Spider. It was his death dialogue, I must have inadvertently killed him when I fought the mob the first time. This time it would be intentional, and indeed most uncharitable since he wasn't hostile. First I retrieved my Blood Echoes from the archway, panning the camera to keep an eye on Patches all the while. The fittingness of this situation amused me, and since he does indeed push you into a pit in this game, I wouldn't have been surprised if he was programmed to do so here, but alas, no such scene took place and I dis-Patched him. Before exiting I noticed a prompt for an apparently invisible Bath Messengers, which sell you items in the Hunter's Dream and Chalice Dungeons. I checked their wares, but the only thing of special interest were Uncanny and Lost versions of the DLC weapons, which I think the regular Chalice Bath Messengers sell, and the only ones I could currently afford I already had, so no memento unfortunately. It was time to leave, and see what sort of boss could follow an area such as this.
Great One Beast (glyph: arkhv2vs)
AKA Silver Beast according to game files, not to be confused with the regular enemies that may be its servants. Once again, while I expected to be transported outside a boss room, a telling roar close behind told me I was already in one, a Chalice Dungeon boss arena. I turned to see the Great One Beast approaching. I can best describe it as looking like a wolf crossed with a dragon; long tail and serpentine neck leading to a beastly head, and covered all over with long levitating hair that would float and wave above it as if it were underwater. With these characteristics, of beast and kin, I could see where it got its name.
It approached slowly and deliberately, but attacked fast, and could seemingly fly accross the room. It hit me with some kind of projectile, but I couldn't see it and the only indication the Beast was causing the damage was that it roared as it was inflicted. Unfortunately, it was not nearly powerful enough otherwise to put me on my heels and just hitting it with some of my ranged arcane attacks did a fair amount of damage, enough to finish it off. Apparently hitting it with fire will burn off its fur and leave it looking like a hairless dog, but I didn't get a chance to try it (Update: Tried to with Flamesprayer and nothing). I made short work of him, and there is bigger squid to fry.
Inherit The Nightmare Last Form (glyph: sikgc3sm) - AKA an alternate "Moon Presence" final form or a unique Chalice Dungeon variant. I noticed this battle happens at ?PlaceName?, which is a fitting display name of this final location beyond all others, clearly because it's unfinished like the previous ones, but all of this happily only fed into the surrealistic, dreamlike state of these places. This time I was outside the boss room, in a small ruin that opened to a strange beach with other ruins, crags and the branches of a humongous, unseen tree coming out of the clouds. It's actually more like the beach fight in Demon's Souls than Orphan of Kos, but given the content of this fight the similarity with the latter is unavoidable. It's official name is apparently the Lake of Mud, and it's mentioned in the base game as being hidden from sight now (which it is =).
Now this staging room is different for different players, and perhaps different versions of the game. Some see a ghost in the room before the boss, have access to an invisible lantern to safely warp back to the Hunter's Dream (I wanted to do that about now =), and see a boss bar with the "Moon Presence" name on it, implying this is some kind of alternative version or new final form, since they neither look nor attack alike (could also just be a template or placeholder essentially), and allegedly fully functioning fog door, Insight, and the boss waits for you to activate the fight. I have the base game CD with the DLC downloaded, rather than The Old Hunters or GOTY editions, and got none of those things, just the already hostile boss with a regular enemy health bar. One interesting theory as to why it changed is they continued work on it after the base game, perhaps as prospective DLC content that remained cut or a possible DLC Chalice that never was (Bloodborne was to originally have two DLCs that were purportedly combined, perhaps this beach confrontation gave way to the Orphan of Kos fight). If it was indeed supposed to be a follow-up or alternate Moon Presence fight, it would make more sense in a Chalice setting. Anyway...
Upon arrival there was already some epic boss music playing, and I could also see part of the creature, a wiry hand and huge tentacles like tree trunks attacking through the boss door, implying a truly massive monstrosity on the other side. This was genuinely intimidating, and unlike the previous Beast, this Great One apparently hit like a truck and could even one shot a max level character. I waited for the tentacle attacks to subside and immediately went for the door, it attacked again as I opened it but I was unaffected, happily freeing me on the other side between its attempts, which was fortunate since you come face to... whatever, with a massive maw and possibly an eye, blocking your way, but as I moved to one side it so too turned and allowed me to slip by. I ran a good distance away toward the ocean to avoid it's tentacles and have a good look. When I finally saw it, it was much greater than even a new form of the game's final boss; more like Nyarlathotep or Azathoth, Oedon made flesh (it resembles the Oedon Writhe rune, and a reaper =), or given the setting on a dream-like beach, Kos herself or even some form of The Old One from
Demon's Souls. To put it more mildly, it was a cool-ass giant squid monster!
As with the Beast I tried my Blacksky Eye to put my 99 Arcane to the test. It damaged it visibly, but not enough to drain it's life pool effectively; I was going to need to move in. I hit it with my Holy Moonlight Sword and did decent damage, but had to be careful of its tentacles, a glancing blow took off a quarter life. Before long I got greedy and, with me stuck mid-attack animation, it slammed all its tentacles down pancaking me and crushing the life out of my body.
YOU DIED. The next try got off to an inauspicious start as I tried hitting him though the door but got hit back instead for the aforementioned quarter life, but fuck it, I'm not here to cheese him through the door anyway, I want to slay the Leviathan! Back through I was more cautious, I used the Zapruder method, back and to the left, to continue hitting it without facing the wrath of it's forward or back facing tentacle slams. Midway through it started floating in the air and slamming its whole body down. It was hard to tell exactly where you were in relation to it or where it would come down so I kept trying to maintain position but always rolled away at the moment it came down, hoping that if I wasn't in the right spot the invincibility frames would cover me, and I don't think I was hit once by this attack, nor the psychic shockwave seen above. This proved effective as the beast unfortunately didn't have any other counters that I saw and so I was victorious against one of the most imposing, if not actually that difficult, Souls bosses I've encountered. Of course, the downside is in my version the fog door didn't work properly and disappear after do I was forced to commit suicide to respawn on the other side of the foor, then jump to my death to return to the Hunter's Dream. Despite that, all in all a very cool unexpected follow up all this time later.
Now, these aren't the only playable cut content, just the most significant and readily available ones, and more cool stuff, like cut questlines, bosses etc are still being discovered to this day. I might dig into more of this, like there's some Maria content that can be restored with a downloaded save that resets the triggers for a short questline, which actually makes a lot of sense, or more so than two boss fights back to back at least, unless they decided the Living Failures so lived up to their name they should be a feint. Anyway, I'm definitely going to check out some more cut content glyphs and rare or unique Chalice Dungeons. In any case, this was a lot of fun and if you're into
Bloodborne or were it's definitely worth giving a try.