Waking up for the first time after what felt like departing the world is a scary feeling. The first thought that comes to your mind is, “Am I in hell? That can’t be true, I’m not a sinner. What did I do to offend God?” After having this momentary existential crisis, you suddenly realize that you are not in some otherworldly place. But residing in the place where you fell, which provides some temporary relief. Only to notice, that you are in an unknown location. Fear begins to set in. Quickly hearing some loud noises in the room ahead of you. Slowly approaching it, you see a wolf-type creature eating something. Upon further inspection from afar, the feast for this creature is a human. This takes you back and promptly looking for a way out of this disgusting place. The only way out is past this monster. Thinking to yourself, “I can do it.” Taking a deep breath, and rushing past this creature. It swiftly strikes you down and begins to eat you. Except the monster is unable to feast on you, you phase through the ground like an apparition. Everything can kill you in Bloodborne, and this is a tactic which is meant to instill fear in you. Every combat scenario is meant to make you tremble in your boots.
From the first moments of the game in which you find yourself deprived of the things for basic survival. You struggle to muster the strength to advance, and this leads to you collapsing to everything in your way. Pushing past, and striking down the foes on your path requires a lot of strength. This strength fades rapidly as you approach every new foe. Making every breath shorter, and having your heart pound. The pounding slowly rises to what feels like outside your chest. Making you fall to your knees, time and time again. Only after defeating every enemy, you find yourself on top a bridge. Seeing a giant beast ahead of you. An image flashes in your mind of the Wendigo. You take a step back, realizing that this monster is a myth. Slowly creeping upon this mythical being, it notices you. Howling at the sky, that sense of fear comes back to you. Frozen where you stand, finding yourself defenseless to the devastating attacks of this creature. The beast makes quick work of you, and this is due to how your fear just took over you.
Finding yourself slowly recovering what the monster did to you, whispers of its name float in the air. The Cleric Beast is what you gather, it is called. Knowing the name makes you feel stronger, going up something unknown is one of the worst things on the planet. Not knowing anything ahead of you is frightening, and coming to any uncharted locations evokes this fear. Slowly making your way back to where that beast resides, you begin to feel confident.
The Cleric Beast is visible in the distance, it notices you. The fear begins to creep back in, but you take a deep breath. Pushing back the fear, you stand tall, able to deal with the beast throws your way. Slowly moving forward, the thing hindering you begins to go away. However, you rapidly fall to your knees. It consumes you in less than a minute and leads to your downfall once more. You begin to question where this fear came from, “Is it from the horrific nature of this monster? Or simply the sheer size of the damn thing?” It’s a mix of both, but these fears aren’t irrational. They feed into something primal, things that are bigger than you are meant to frighten you.
Every encounters in Bloodborne makes you afraid, making you fear the unknown. Having to rise up time and again, takes a mental toll on you. Often confused on what the origins of the monsters in front of you are, which makes your fear stronger as time progresses. Not to mention the images in which they bring to your mind. It’s as if, these things came from your twisted mind. Coming out of your brain, arriving to haunt you and you only. While every breath is slow, and this is due to not being properly equipped for lies in front of you. Every advance you make, it’s still not enough to help you. Only small incremental additions, but those don’t strengthen your mind. Instead, just putting on a black face. Making you look tougher than what you actually are. A stark reality of how you actually feel, which hinders you.
Fear is an emotion which has the ability to spread all over your body and make you feel weaker than you actually are. By slowly attacking your fear, the mental strength waxes, and wanes. The more and more it happens, a feeling of endurance builds.ds. But it degrades you, making you feel more and unstable with every step. The opposite of which you thought it would, and brings the fear to the forefront of your mind. The hallucinations appearing have a serious detriment on your psyche, and the dark makes you afraid. The most childish fear inflicts a sense of terror, and those around begin to notice it.
The amount of time spent in Bloodborne can have a serious effect on your mental health. Even seeing yourself fall into the same traps over and over. Constantly making the same mistakes, because you cannot stand the monsters which lie in front of you. Instead of rushing into rooms with glee, you slowly creep into them. Afraid of what resides there, and the nightmares it might give you. It is human nature to be curious, but to slowly be afraid of things which once sparked your curiosity takes a serious toll on you. The time which was spent wondering is now spent being afraid. This shift is something which was painful and is slowly changing you for the better. The notion of forward progress is lost currently, and it moves you back three spaces.
This loss of progress is reflective of your mental space, feeling like you move forwards against your fears. But in actuality, it hurts you and hinders you. Slowly taking over how you view things and hurting your outlook on life. The positive glowing nature you once possessed is now a more demented twisted outlook. The mental toll is not one to be taken lightly, and it would hurt you more and more. Every moment spent dwelling is one which makes you move backwards. Even when you feel that you are moving forward. Slowly losing the sense of reality, and becoming afraid of every step taken.
Fear stems from people being scared that something dangerous is around the corner. Slowly merging both worlds, taking a deep and twisted mental outlook. It’s almost as if, this were to be destroying what you knew. Taking away your optimism, and making you afraid of every little detail.
