Bloodborne The Old Hunters Guide: How to get into Beast Mode

Just like rings in the Dark Souls series, Bloodborne has its own way to upgrade the player with various bonuses – the Caryll Runes. In The Old Hunters DLC, you can obtain a special rune that transforms your character into a terrifying beast.

This guide will lead you through the process of finding and applying the Beast’s Embrace, a rune unique to The Old Hunters expansion for Bloodborne.

1. Defeat Ludwig, The Accursed

As soon as you enter the new expansion, head to the Nightmare Grand Cathedral, similar to the one in Yharnam, where you fought Vicar Amelia. Inside you will find a seemingly dead Flaming Cleric Beast – Laurence. He holds the Eye Pendant, a key item that unlocks the surgery altar in the Healing Church. Take this item and proceed to the first boss fight with Ludwig, The Accursed.

You can easily defeat Ludwig by following this boss guide.

2. Find Laurence’s skull

After defeating Ludwig, continue up the stairs until you reach another hall with an altar. Insert the Eye Pendant and wait for the elevator to activate. Now, it can take you to the next area – the Research Hall. We don’t need to go there, but you do have to get to the platform below the altar. In order to gain access to this other altar, after you activate the elevator you must quickly jump off.

When the second altar appears in front of you, grab the Laurence’s skull and head back to the Nightmare Cathedral for a fight.

3. Defeat Laurence, the First Vicar

Interact with Laurence and he will wake up to fight you. In order to defeat Laurence, you need to dodge his left-hand sweeps in the first phase and bursts of lava in the second phase. As soon as you beat him, you will receive the Beast’s Embrace.

4. Apply the Beast’s Embrace rune

Go back to the Hunter’s Dream and head towards the Memory Altar. Beast’s Embrace is an Oath rune related to The Blood Beast covenant, so memorize this rune in your dedicated slot. You will be immediately transformed into a beast.

This mode not only changes your look, but also gives you a Beasthood stat that allows your character to deal more damage, especially when using the Beast Claw weapon (located in the Ailing Loran Chalice), which also gets a new set of moves.

Have you tried the Beast Mode yet? Tell us about your impressions in the comments section below.