Bloodborne has an emphasis on quality over quantity. But I’d like to talk about one major feature which lacks both. Speaking as a fan ofchalice dungeons, I understand the average player’s aversion to them. Your introduction to the concept is a small, sparsely populated environment with weak enemies. There are no secrets; marvel at one or two rooms, throw the lever, kill the boss and repeat… then you stop paying attention. Most rooms in chalice dungeons impress only once. The reason isn’t solely a lack of possible rooms, but lack of detail. There are no organic shapes in chalice dungeons. Everything is arranged in and connects at right-angles.
Warframe is another game with randomly generated levels. Two years ago, Warframe’s tilesets contained ten or so different rooms, and each level was composed of as many as fifteen rooms. It wasn’t rare to see a room adjacent to two identical rooms. Now, however, there are more than thirteen PVE tilesets with 30+ unique rooms apiece. Each room has multiple permutations with hidden treasure grottos, stealthy side passages, and secret exits, all of which may or may not appear. Warframe also has game modes and mechanics that incentivize exploration (hidden medallions are crucial for those who want access to as many Syndicates as possible). Lore covers every inch of the levels in the form of banners and logos, hinting at culture and possible connections between factions.
Chalice dungeons do become more interesting and sophisticated later on. Many players praise theIsztileset for its appearance. Depth 5 root dungeons have surprising permutations on rooms. I myself have seenWatchdog of the Old Lordsas a mob, in a giant room filled with oil,bone ash hunters, and cannon-wielding giants. Sometimes a subarea before the lamp will bypass the layer’s gate and lead directly to theboss. I have even seen subareas that lead between layers, allowing you to skip a layer and its boss completely.
But these surprises are few and far between. The complexity of the environment generated is based on the difficulty of the dungeon. In a series prized for its environment design, it seems antithetical to reserve all the interesting sights and discoveries until the end. Spending resources to craft root dungeons forces the player to grind forritual materialsif they want to progress to the next standard dungeon, which makes players reluctant to explore at all. The treasure areas in standard chalices contain enough materials that a player will never need to grind, as long as they perform no rootrituals, but this is in no way apparent. The frustration players experience with co-op only compounds this. A system exists to help those stuck in root chalices, true, but you may’t have a conversation about the merit of chalice dungeons without someone mentioning theShort Root Ritual Chalice.
And that’s not to speak of the implementation ofblood gems; with bosses' gem drops varying by each individual instance of that boss, uncommon shape drops, and even uncommon gems, every rule laid down by the drop system is violated.Arcanebuilds have no choice but to endure this rigor, or else their damage pales next to simple and efficient physical builds. This is fun for people like me with an obscene breadth of patience. But most players grind only through the standard chalices for the platinum trophy, or wait for chronic spelunkers to locate bosses with ideal gem drops. There is no profit in exploring - until the end, whereby the system has frustrated you into losing interest.
But this article isn’t meant to chastise. Sure, chalice dungeons seem like a barebones sideshow. But having played a variety of games with procedurally-generated environments, I can say FromSoft is very close to gold. They’ve accomplished in one game what took Warframe’s developer, Digital Extremes, almost four years to perfect. And chalice dungeons aren’t even the game’s focus. Rather than criticize, I imagine what could be. The main problems are lack of: room variety, possible room connections, organic angles, and adequate rewards. At least enough materials to avoid farming. But the sheer volume of content needed to fix these problems is better described by the word “expansion” than the expansion itself. I don’t want to see FromSoft abandon procedurally-generated environments, but I’m not sold on a Bloodborne sequel either. No, I propose something else.
Older readers may be familiar with an ancient ASCII game calledNetHack. Like chalice dungeons, the environments are procedurally-generated. You play a character from a class of your choosing with randomly rolled stats, and then navigate an ever-descending labyrinth filled with traps, treasure and horrifyingly overpowered monsters. you’re able to die from poison while surrounded by slimes on the first floor. I draw the comparison because NetHack has its difficulty in common with Souls games (although far crueler), and the RPG mechanics are nuanced and not directly explained to the player.
Imagine an isometric roguelike by FromSoft in this style. Instead of multiple dungeons, you could navigate a single neverending labyrinth broken into regions (depth), and sections of these regions (layer) could be shared with other players via glyph. Similar toDragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, if Bitterblack Isle were randomly generated. There’s danger around every corner.Covenantscould become a system of deities that govern multiplayer and confer bonuses. You bleed resources as you progress, opening shortcuts to connect checkpoints for exploring later.Bloodborneattempts to apply these Souls-essential concepts to chalice dungeons, however successful. Many of Souls' mechanics translate well to a brutal, turn-based roguelike. Know what I say, From? Make a whole game like this, and make it amazing. You are a perfect match for this genre. Trying another gameplay style might even give you ideas to improve the next Souls game, whether or not it’s called “Souls”.
What would you guys like to see in a FromSoft roguelike? Real-time or turn-based? Diablo II-style loot, or fixed-stat equipment with upgrades? What about theme? Tell me your ideas in the comments.
