Bloodborne Players Plan a Return to Yharnam as Game Goes Free on PS Plus

Beware the old blood.

News by Matt Kim, News Editor

5 March 2018

Bloodborne is free on PS Plus this month so there's no better time to jump into From Software's PS4 masterpiece. Or if you've already beaten the game, maybe pick it up again and help new players who are joining for the first time?

That's the logic behind Return To Yharnam, a Bloodborne community event meant to repopulate the Bloodborne world as part of a revitalization effort. While the game was a massive hit at launch, Bloodborne is nearly three years old now, and that means player counts have dropped since 2015.

However, Bloodborne has the same style of co-op and online functions as previous From Software action RPGs like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. That means a good part of the fun in Bloodborne is reading messages left behind by other players, getting invaded by enemy players, or summoning others to help fight a particularly challenging boss. But with less players in the game's world, there are less of those co-op instances across the game. Nowadays, only popular areas are filled with players for PvP and co-op.

Return To Yharnam aims to fix that. In an event similar to ones hosted for other From Software Souls games, the event is meant to enliven the dead world of Yharnam so that the new players can have a game experience similar to that of launch.

However, be warned. A lot of high level players could now be populating early areas. While I like to say that the Souls community has a sort of unspoken honor code for PvP, sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand and an enemy invader will just be too powerful.

For that, you can always opt to set your game to play offline, at least through certain portions of the game. While purists might object, it's still a viable option on how to play Bloodborne, and really any Souls game.

If you really need help starting out in Bloodborne check out our complete guide of tips, tricks, and walkthroughs to help you get past the most challenging parts of the game (read: the whole game).

The Return to Yharnam event is set to start on March 10 and last through March 24, so get ready as the night of the hunt approaches once more.

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Matt Kim

News Editor

Matt Kim is a former freelance writer who's covered video games and digital media. He likes video games as spectacle and is easily distracted by bright lights or clever bits of dialogue. He also once wrote about personal finance, but that's neither here nor there.