Reworking Bloodborne’s ‘Insight’ System

FromSoftware’s 2015 smash hit ‘Bloodborne’ features a system called Insight. Perhaps most directly comparable to the Humanity or Rune Arcs of the Souls series or Elden Ring but functionally a bit different. In my eyes, this cool mechanic was wasted with its current implementation. I think this would be a good way to change it.

As it currently is, Insight is a counter on the players HUD that raises when the player does the relevant action – discovering a new area, discovering a boss, defeating a boss or seeing a lore relevant scene or NPC. Insight can be spent in the games hub on consumables and armour or it can be stolen by the grab attack of the ‘Brainsucker’. The player needs at least 1 Insight to be able to level up in the games hub, and when the player reaches different insight thresholds, different things happen in the world:

15 – New enemies in Hemwick Charnel Lane, certain enemies in Cathedral Ward have new attacks, more lore in the Hunter’s Dream.

30 – The singing of Winter Lantern’s can be heard from further away (I think you still have to be in the area, so it’s more of a warning)

40 – Allows the player to see the world as it truly is (This world change usually occurs when the player has beaten midgame boss Rom, the Vacuous Spider who in lore holds back the Blood Moon and thus the truth about the god like Great Ones. The player cannot access areas locked behind the Blood Moon reveal when found through insight, only through killing Rom)

60 – The player can hear the cry of a baby when exploring the world (Clueing in the player on their real objective in the game – kill the newborn Great One Mergo in the Nightmare to end the nights of the hunt once and for all)

Detriments to High Insight

Higher insight then only provides cool lore details to a playthrough, should you even notice it. 40 Insight after beating Rom would render no change for example. Higher Insight also makes the player more susceptible to Frenzy, a status effect which is a lot more common in the end game. The only Insight change the player may come across is 20 and even then with no reason to return to Cathedral Ward later on in game, you may miss it when you get to that level.

There’s more reasons to keep Insight low than there is to raise it. As previously mentioned, only 1 Insight is needed to access Level up (a different currency is actually used). The main reason is the opposite mechanic to Insight, Beasthood. While Beasthood is less of a defined mechanic, it is primarily shown off with consumable item ‘Beast Blood Pellets’ – Attacking when using one of these fills a bar, the higher the bar the more damage is done per hit. Higher insight causes this bar to fill slower so you want it low.

How would I make Insight more beneficial while still keeping the risk vs reward feeling? Well there’s a few different ways, mostly about making the system risk vs reward.

Character Changes – Enhanced Dodges, More Rune slots

Some kind of basic changes to the character would be the most accessible and noticeable changes to a player. Giving one or two extra rune slots that are locked behind insight thresholds could allow for better usage of the already limited rune system. Independently of that, having more iframes on dashes , a second chance on lethal hits, slow-mo on certain attacks could also be cool.

World Tendency

Before Dark Souls took the world by storm, there was Demon’s Souls. Demon’s Souls was a little different to the titles that came after, one big difference being the World tendency system. It’s a complicated system but in short the player’s actions could affect the world around them, with the highest and lowest ranks of the system – Pure Black or Pure White – revealing new paths and areas to explore. You couldn’t copy this 1:1 in Bloodborne as the WT system operates on a neutral changing to negative or positive whereas Bloodborne is a zero stat that will never decrease past zero. That’s still okay though, you can still arbitrarily lock these changes behind a certain number threshold, such as the 40.

Gravelord Servants

While Dark Phantoms (Hostile versions of friendly NPCS) were a consequence of Black World Tendency, I think Dark Souls 1 had a more interesting system to replicate. Joining one of the in-game covenants allows the player to ‘infect’ the world of other players with special Black Phantom enemies. These are stronger versions of regular enemies, signified by their reddish black silhouette. The only way to rid yourselves of these intruders is to find the size of the Gravelord in your world and enter their world to kill the host.

I wouldn’t want to repeat this 1:1 in Bloodborne (The difference here being you could if you really wanted to) but there’s some things you could do. Given the existence of the Winter Lantern song and Mergo’s cry, these could be adapted. With the Winter Lanterns, they could spawn in the world and only disappear when you reached the next lamp or with Mergo, more difficult versions of enemies spawn that offer stronger rewards. Not sure wjat would be the end state for this one, maybe death?

Hunter… Spells?

Instead of the traditional Sorcery/Miracle/Pyromancy of previous games, Bloodborne uses Hunter Tools which require replenishable item Quicksilver Bullets to use. Some of these Hunter Tools might work better as a new category of thing, a Hunter Spell if you will. Since Insight is a finite resource, I wouldn’t suggest using Insight to cast these items, instead it being more of a ‘level’ requirement with each of these new “Spells” having a finite usage per resting at the Lamp like the spells in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2.

It’s all fine being an armchair developer but I’m sure all of these ideas and a hundred variants there of were floated and discussed but ultimately decided against. Still, it’s nice to think about what could have been or what mods could do. Another time, perhaps.