7 Important Things You May Have Missed in Bloodbourne

By now, many have worked their way through Bloodbourne, but those who have played it may just have missed some things that are not included in the tutorial.  Some of the mechanics of the game are a bit obscure and unless you are a completionist, trying everything. You may have missed these advanced tips.

Please note that the following may contain spoilers:

You can attack while climbing a ladder

In most games, when you climb you can’t attack – so this one might be easy to miss.  It’s simple to do: while on a ladder press R1 to punch upward, or R2 to kick downward.  The chance to actually use this may be low since NPCs don’t actually climb ladders, but it’s good to know. 

Just don’t run out of stamina while climbing or you will fall to your death.

Your Trick Weapon transformation is also an attack

When striking an enemy, you can Press L1 to perform an attack that also transforms your weapon. 

It can be useful when you are fighting a group of enemies and the next enemy in the group is farther away. You won’t need to slow your barrage of attacks.

You can restore the health lost from blood bullets

You know you can create bullets from your own blood at the cost of your health by pressing up on the D-pad.  What you may not know is that the health loss is part of Bloodbourne’s regain system. 

When you attack any nearby enemy immediately you can regain the health, essentially giving you free bullets.

You can add gestures to your notes

When you jot down notes in your notebook try pressing R1 a few times.  You can add a second set of words and you can also add a gesture.  When other players read your note they will see the gesture in spectral form. 

This can be useful in many ways like adding a point gesture to point out secrets and specific pathways when you line yourself up right.

You can break out of grab attacks

In the Forbidden Woods you will encounter enemies that grab you and deal a lot of damage while it seems you are unable to move.  But if you quickly alternate between L2 and R2 you can break out of the grab quicker than you normally would.  If you do it this way you won’t be knocked to the ground where it takes a few seconds to get up, instead you will throw the enemy off and be able to attack immediately.

You can reassign controls

With the PS4’s 2.50 System Software Update you can reassign every button on the DualShock 4 controller.  This can be useful for things like moving the sprint/dodge button from circle to L1 and it can allow you to control the camera in same way the Souls series does. 

Some bosses are best tackled without locking on so with full camera control and sprint the battles become more bearable.

You can regain health from dying enemies

The regain system allows you to restore health by attacking enemies so it’s only natural to assume that once the enemy dies you can no longer gain health from it, but if the system is still active that is not the case. 

Keep attacking those collapsing corpses to maximize your health gain. 

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