Later on in the game, a considerable amount of new mechanics enter the equation, such as the Charyll runes, which are replaceable stat changes and buffs (poison resistance, additional stamina, bullet-drops when you 'visceral' kill an enemy) that can help you set up in a specific way for a boss or an area that you're having trouble with. Feel like you need more poison resistance? Bloodborne got you covered.
Magic is back. Yep, there is in fact magic in this game. And there are a lot of ranged weapons that scale with the arcane (magic) stat, so expect to start seeing a lot of late game builds that focus entirely on those elements. There's a ridiculously impressive knock-back spell, which I imagine will work pretty well together with a long distance weapon, or hell.. Anything with the flamethrower / cannon. (Yeees, those are in the game, and they're so much cooler than you could imagine.) More complicated weapon runes also unlock later on in the game, which basically enable you to ascend your weapons as in the previous games to become "raw", "enchanted", etc. It isn't a permanent change this time around however.
And there's plenty of elements already introduced that begin to become more important as the game goes on. The stat for your ranged weapon, for instance, also allows you to do more damage the more covered you are in blood. There are pills you can swallow to obtain a similar effect, and so, you can do some pretty neat preparation for a boss fight by bathing in the blood of your enemies. Literally.
You also begin to see some VERY diverse environments later on. And the game continues to do a fantastic job of fucking you over in every which way imaginable. My favourite one being, "hey, you know this from our previous games. NO, NO, YOU DON'T!" by which I mean they punish the hell out of you for making assumptions based on prior experience with the series. To the point where they're deliberately setting certain things up to seem familiar only to tear you down a notch.
There's other stuff, but I don't want to spoil more than I already have. My point being, the game really begins to open up as you get into it. I don't think re-playability will be a problem, whatsoever.
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