The scholarly hunter: a textual analysis of the ways in which Bloodborne’s narrative and environment invites player involvement and initiates critical debate

This thesis discusses Bloodborne's narrative and its ability to make players invested in its narrative through its genres, environmental storytelling, high-intensity gameplay, and the open-ended nature of the narrative. The thesis uses Henry Jenkin’s narrative architecture as a structure to present current academic findings on Bloodborne while also delving into the roles of environmental storytelling, game mechanics, and the action horror genre in relation to player investment and agency. Further on, paratextual narrative co-construction is examined, and this concept carries us into the final chapter of the thesis.

Before looking into the co-authoring of a narrative between players and game developers, this thesis will first break down Bloodborne's narrative in its first chapter. In the second chapter, I explore the gameplay and difficulty of Bloodborne in relation to the horror genre and its ability to evoke strong emotions. Finally, the third chapter investigates my claim that Bloodborne’s narrative and cryptic storytelling style have created a lore-hunting culture and community that inspires players to co-construct the narrative and solve unanswered questions. Suggesting that the developer of Bloodborne intentionally creates narratives and worlds in such a way as to sow the seeds for critical debate and discussion surrounding the narrative.