Meet ‘The Old Hunters’ in Bloodborne’s First Expansion

After more than two million pale-blooded souls have hacked, slashed, shot, and rolled their way through the swamp of Gothic symbolism and viscera, Sony has finally revealed an expansion to the acclaimed PlayStation 4 exclusive Bloodborne.

The expansion was originally teased by Sony Computer Entertainment’s Shuhei Yoshida in May on Twitter:

So I have been asked by many people if we are making DLC for Bloodborne. I can say… An expansion is coming. More info later this year. :D

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) May 21, 2015

The Old Hunters serves as both an indirect prequel and parallel narrative to the original campaign. While players uncover the secrets of past hunters, they will fight their way through a sort of cursed limbo in which these once-heroes are now entrapped. The mix of world-building, expanded backstory, and enhanced character development should satisfy even the most rabid loremongers among the Bloodborne faithful.

This expansion also brings with it the expected slew of new areas, enemies, environments, and weaponry, and at least one six-fingered-horse-faced-mutant-demon-thing whose parts are in dire need of proper reorganization. I do not anticipate this fellow being a romantic interest.

Bloodborne is developer From Software’s spiritual successor to the Dark Souls franchise. It eschews the more deliberate pacing of previous installments, focusing instead on forward momentum and counterattacks. Breitbart’s Noah Dulis declared it “the first exclusive to justify the purchase of a next-generation console” in his impressions of the game.