Bloodborne DLC Expansion & Dark Souls III: What's New?

The 2015 Tokyo Game Show had both the Bloodborne expansion and Dark Souls III playable, and from the looks of them, it seems fans of FromSoftware’s popular masochism simulators have a lot to look forward to.

Bloodborne‘s expansion, The Old Hunters seems like a prequel, based on the title and fact that things are still kinda on their way to the moon during the demo. Its chief gameplay additions are new items. Nothing flipped the game on its head or anything, but all served to spice it up.

Most interesting is the bow, which doubles as a curved sword, and its attacks are fairly standard.In bow form, it allows players to fire off little quickies, or pull back for a longer time to take somewhat longer shots from a distance. Watch out, though, because the bow’s ammo supply is linked to your Quicksilver Bullets. The bow is powerful, but doesn’t seem game breaking, at least from the demo play. For fun and giggles, you can also just take an arrow and melee attack with it, if you want to.

There was also a great sword that can change into a lethal whip. It’s slow and kinda hard to use, but I guess someone out there might love it.

Dark Souls III

Souls games that maintain the souls title and not just spirit, meanwhile, are still evolving with Dark Souls III. In this demo, it was made clear that there are new type of Estus Flask, the Ash Estus Flask, which restores MP. Just like a regular Estus Flask, these recharge at bon fires — sweet, sweet bon fires.

Speaking of MP, it’s displayed on a traditional bar. Oh.

While Souls may have been a jumpoff point for Bloodborne, Dark Souls III goes the other way, drawing inspiration from its cousin, specifically in movement speed. Either I’m not as scared as I used to be or this game had a faster-moving character than previous Souls iterations.

The other key change was that magic has become more of a thing. We weren’t told how developed our characters already were, but our Dark Souls III avatars were able to zing effective projectile spells with power and accuracy pretty much right away.

Dark Souls III is a March 24 release in Japan, with some time in April the target for North America and Europe. Bloodborne: The Old Hunters is meanwhile looking at a worldwide Nov. 24 release.