Science and Bloodborne: The research methodology applied to the cosmic occult.

The start of Bloodborne’s campaign, the PS4 game released in 2015, is interesting because it puts you in a pretty simple line of action: You are a hunter, brutally armed, without much argument to think about but to kill anything that appears in front of you.

Gradually, as the world unfolds, you find that things are not as simple as they seem. The beasts you have been facing were people, the residents of that region. Still, it is revealed the participation of a university and the church in the transformations that occurred in that place.

While the church propagated a blood disease based purely on the promise of healing (and like most dogmas, it convinced through faith), the people of Byrgenwerth University studied and experienced the “disease” in their eagerness to attain a hidden knowledge.

Science generally breaks down barriers into the unknown, testing increasingly advanced formulas and hypotheses to advance each arm of knowledge. For this, reproducible methods and experiments are developed that prove a certain hypothesis, event or result. This is so with any area of ​​knowledge, biological, exact or philosophical. Discussion, experimentation, reproduction of techniques, and analysis are among the most common terms for a scientist.

In Bloodborne’s story, the problems begin with the interaction of the people with ancestral creatures of unknown origin. The local fishing village, for example, exploits the wrecked corpse of one of these creatures, which triggers a series of physical and mental changes in the local people. In town, we have people who try to communicate with these entities or simply accept their influences. Already in Byrgenwerth, his students tried to understand these beings, through scientific methods, resulting in physical and psychological experiences that gradually dominated the place.

Interestingly, all the information we have about ancestral beings comes from these studies. The Byrgenwerth students were able not only to devise ways of communicating with these creatures but to reproduce, albeit simplistically, their physical characteristics and psychic abilities. While exploring the game world, it was impossible to imagine if Byrgenwerth university could not really achieve a healthy knowledge that would save the region if it were not for the massive influence of the church in the city. Anyway, we arrive in the region in a state where there is no more practical solution than to continue the hunt.

For those who have not played yet, I recommend discover the rules and mysteries of that journey by drawing their own conclusions. I, as a scientist, was fascinated and curious, wanting more information from those creatures and people, but like everyone there, I had my walk interrupted by a painful but satisfying awakening.