With the Future Press Bloodborne guide delayed to April 14 it appears we'll get a chance to experience the game without information out in the wild. It's true that early copies are out and people have beaten the game, but I don't believe anyone has bothered detailing a guide of their own playthrough.

Is there any other guide or source of information that people will be able to use for the game aside from random reddit posts or forum topics? Will it be true exploration? Online Chalice dungeon hasn't been seen yet right?

It probably just means roughly an extra week of bullshit rumors going around. Unless you're a terrible person you'll always play Souls-ish games blind and it will always have that feeling of exploration. Of course for NG+ wandering around aimlessly trying to find random odds and ends probably isn't the best idea, but it kind of worked for Lords of the Fallen I guess? I'm still not sure we found everything in that game.

Is avoiding information so tough? Surely a lot of guys will be in the same boat in terms of wanting to find out on their own.

I kinda wish it would just arrive with the release of the game. It was plenty easy to finish Dark Souls 2 without any outside information, and then having the guide there for anything I missed was great. This just means people will be arguing over the true meaning of certain elements of the game for a couple of weeks. I suppose it gives me the time to play the remake of Dark Souls 2, so it's not all bad.

I still haven't seen any footage of the game, except for the announcement trailer, going in blind is my preffered souls tactic, I trust these guys to make a compelling game regardless of hype. It worked out great for DS2 since I didn't see any of the torch dynamic lighting I wasn't surprised to see it cut from the game, and didn't feel the need to bitch about something that ultimately didn't really impact the gameplay that much.

Anyway I look forward to stumbling around in the dark with no idea what I'm actually doing, and seeing the forum discussions and wiki entries on this or that esoteric stat spin out of control.

I usually get my info from: http://darksouls.wikidot.com/ or in this case probably : http://bloodborne.wikidot.com/

I'm never too fussed with whether I find out stuff or not. The combat itself has always been the thing for me in those games more than the exploration. I enjoy the lore discovery stuff but that's different than simply where everything is. If it's like Dark Souls II I expect there will be a few comprehensive YouTube playthroughs going up early, I think both Marcus (EpicNameBro) and Franz (A German Spy) worked on this guide again so they'll probably have fairly detailed playthrough series from day one.

I'm picking up the guide but where I ordered it from it wasn't due until 10th April anyway so it's only been pushed back a few days. I'm happy to play without it though, I just like having it for ease-of-use on comparisons and checking stuff (or any lore tidbits they throw in). The wikidot will probably fill out fairly rapidly too. Game looks juicy as anything.

Fredchuck hit the nail on the head with this one. I never used the guides for anything other than looking up weapon stats/upgrade info quickly since doing in game comparisons can sometimes be far more time consuming and cumbersome. Not to mention lead to a ton of wasted resources. These games are meant to be played blind for best experience and looking everything up in a guide just kills that excitement. The fact that Demon's Souls suffered the least from huge info leaks going into release was probably a big part of the reason I still like it best. Only time in my life I was happy I couldn't read a foreign language :P.

Bloodborne is doing a really good job of keeping a lid on stuff though and I am seriously looking forward to learning the game for myself, by myself.

@shindig:

I know right, isnt that the genius of this franchise your own self discovery?

Yeah I agree with this, I'm not really there to fumble around with bullshit. I take this to the extreme though, as I actually prefer to play the game with summons the whole way through as well. Not because it's too hard, I just get bored on my own, and having a buddy was the only reason I finished DS1.

The only thing I want to know going in is what the stat attributes are and a general sense of how to level up my character. For info I'll go to fellow players...there's a very friendly and dedicated Souls fanbase on the EuroGamer forums that helped me get around the initial curves the first time I played Dark Souls. I'll likely dip back into that thread for fun and to share info.

When Demons Souls was around the whole mentality of playing these games revolved around a think-tank. Everyone played and constantly cross-checked their info with that what was officially known. Somewhere along the line when Dark Souls was really blowing up thanks to YouTube I noticed a lot of talk about how to properly experience the game etc come about. Now granted this was present in Demon's as well with the big consensus on "Royal is easy mode" and I even wrote about how you should play a melee class to really experience that game. Still I feel as if the hardcore Dark Souls community like to take this stuff always those few steps too far.

If you want true exploration then simply don't go on message boards pertaining to the game or watch videos about it. Personally I cannot wait for the game to come out so we can get over the customary Souls "this game is way easier than Dark Souls" growing pains.

Real, genuine info (that could be patched out, tbh) > misinformation.

Let all the wikis be perfectly filled in day 1, I don't mind.

Did the first Dark Souls have a guide around launch?

specifically in the Souls games, I don't see the problem with using a wiki or a guide. People act as if it's immoral to look up how to, for example, craft in Dark Souls; a system that is obtuse and frustrating if you haven't dealt with it before. The amount of time and resources wasted on that isn't rewarding. "oh, next time I'll save my Titanite Slab" isn't fun.

@golguin: Okay, so seeing "Bloodborne" and "delay" in the same sentence just about gave me a heart attack (yeah, I know it's way past the window to do that, but I can't help it, it's instinctual).

Anyway, this is rather interesting to me. I'd be playing BB blind anyway, but the idea of no large scale, highly reliable info being available for a week reminds of the good old days. Regardless, this doesn't change my gameplan.

Thanks for the fright!

I really enjoyed those days with Demon's Souls. A bunch of us on another forum imported the Asian version and played it months before it came out here. And there was no info about the game online at that time. So it was all of us posting about the crazy things we found and comparing stories and findings. It was great. Its really hard to have that experience now. Not that that is a bad thing, not saying that more people enjoying the game is bad. I just liked that small group trying to figure it all out with no outside information. So we are going to try and do the same thing for Bloodborne now. But that might be impossible.

Until April 14 we'll have 3 weeks of full mysteries, which I think is great. The Company of Champions covenant in Dark Souls 2 had little to no info when the game came out and while it was frustrating to play through it without knowing the benefits, game changes, etc. of being in the covenant it was fun knowing that you were discovering things that the majority of the people didn't know about.

A good example of unexpected discoveries thanks to the Company of Champions was the rising water environmental mechanic of the Flexile Sentry boss fight. The boss was dispatched fairly quickly playing through the game normally so the vast majority of people never noticed the water. The boss buff in the Company of Champions meant that I had to fight the dude for a while and was eventually done in by the water making me almost immobile. I like knowing that little things like that will exist to be discovered.

I suppose the full weapon list wont be known until the guide comes out, but I'm hoping that an Uchigatana/Katana moveset will be found in the game. It was my main weapon in DS1 and DS2 and it would be great to have it again. If it's not around I'll probably just go with the Great Scythe combo weapon thing.

@golguin: Personally I hope there are no movesets from the previous games and this is a completely new IP with minor callbacks to past series. I enjoy the series but by the end of Dark Souls 2 I started feeling a little burned out on the familiar aspects of it all. Not the games themselves mind you, I still think DS2 is a better game than DS1, but the whole structure of familiar movesets, familiar areas, familiar moments. I don't want to find a weapon that controls just like the weapon I used for 50+ hours in the previous game, that would be absolutely tragic.

The rigid movesets was one of my least favorite things about the Souls series. Logically it makes sense that a rapier thrusts while a falchion slashes, because thats how those weapons work, but it also means that no matter how cool I think the rapier is I will never use it because that is not a very accommodating moveset for the majority of the game. I also hoped that they would introduce different weapon stances you can unlock thanks to stats. Like having over 100 str should let you use ultra greatswords lightly as if they were regular swords - it's the payoff for putting all those points into one stat. It was always so tragic when you found an awesome weapon and the moment you swing it you realize you'll never use it again.

The guide delay doesn't bother me as I wasn't going to look at it while playing, like many others here (though I did bundle it with this sweet teapot for free shipping so I hope that's not delayed too). I just bought it mostly because of ENB's involvement and for the Miyazaki interview. The DSII guide was very well made so I'm also sure this will be another nice thing to have on my shelf.

It sucks that the game leaked since a lot those lore and gameplay discussions are happening right now and many of us can't take part because of spoilers.

I've heard the idea of getting into a souls game early echoed a lot lately. I just don't get it. If you want a fresh experience then don't go message boards for the games. I went into Demon Souls months after it came out and never touched a message board for the game. I am sure my experience was a pure as someone who got the game day 1. I intend on doing the same thing for Bloodborne.