When it comes to dark fantasy, it’s hard to argue FromSoftware’s merits. Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring all take the genre and put a powerful, unique spin on it. Of these, though, the one that stands out the most is Bloodborne. Its gothic Victorian aesthetic ensures that it is almost entirely different visually, but there are other deviations.

For example, in comparison to the other games, it has the saddest endings (generally speaking) in the franchise. Whereas Elden Ring ends on the equivalent of killing God, two of Bloodborne’s endings are ultimately about two people trying to save each other from suffering, and dealing with the unintended consequences.

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Bloodborne’s Three Possible Endings

bloodborne ending gehrman execution good ending

There are three endings players can achieve in Bloodborne. After defeating Mergo’s Wet Nurse, players can return to the Hunter’s Dream and the doll will tell them that Gehrman wants to talk to them. Under the Great Tree—a predecessor to Elden Ring’s Erdtree in a way—Gehrman will offer players a way out of the Dream.

If players choose to submit, Gehrman will strike them with the Burial Blade and they will leave the Dream. They’ll find themselves in a world where the sun rises. The long night is over, and the Hunter is done—metaphorically speaking, of course, as Bloodborne throws the player right into New Game Plus. It’s worth noting how big of a sacrifice this is for Gehrman.

Gehrman has been trapped in the dream by the Moon Presence for a long time, and some dialogue when he is asleep shows his pain. He begs for someone to come and free him. He still believes someone will return with a Great One baby to replace the Moon Presence’s lost one and free him from the dream. But the Hunter’s Dream is filled with headstones, indicating how many Hunters have fallen to the dream or how many Gehrman has managed to free. Gehrman is choosing to suffer, so other hunters do not pay for his mistake.

The second Bloodborne ending comes when players refuse to submit to Gehrman, and the third ending is essentially an extended version of it. If players eat three parts of the umbilical cord, they’ll be able to face the Moon Presence after Gehrman and defeat it, becoming a Great One.

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Bloodborne: The Hunter vs. Gehrman

hunter and the doll.

The first ending is a resignation—Gehrman to his fate. The second is a refusal for Gehrman to suffer. In other words, the Hunter is refusing because they are here to end the nightmare that Gehrman has suffered for too long. When they refuse, Gehrman asks why but doesn’t accept any answer: whether it was the blood or the dream that kept them there. Contextually, there’s not much reasoning directly provided for the Bloodborne character to do this, but it is the Hunter’s awareness of the dream that fuels their decision.

If the Hunter kills Gehrman in the dream, they can free him and end his suffering. However, Gehrman does not—in equal measure—want the Hunter to suffer his fate. Thus, the final battle of Bloodborne is a battle of suffering and of freeing the other from said suffering. This is truly reflected in the second ending when the Hunter, taken by the Moon Presence, essentially becomes Gehrman. They must now oversee the dream, as he once did.

Bloodborne: The Hunter vs. The Moon Presence

This makes the third ending more hopeful and more powerful…if perhaps as equally as sorrowful. In the second ending, the Hunter is enraptured by the sight of the Moon Presence. They, as Gehrman once did, give into it. For a character who has fought Great Ones and atrocities all throughout the game, the sheer impact this must have cannot be understated. It only adds to the tragedy of this Bloodborne ending.

But the Moon Presence is not able to use its hypnotic effect on the player, should they consume three pieces of Umbilical Cord in the game. This, in a very gothic kind of way, resembles a strength to resist the Moon Presence. At the same time, though, while this does lead to the second final boss fight of the game, its ending is still quite sad. It’s not as tragic as the battle between two hunters trying to save one another, but it’s not as great as it’s made out to be either.

After defeating the Moon Presence, the Bloodborne player becomes a Great One discovered by the doll. Many sought, throughout the game, to achieve this very same thing, but there are only two real options here. If, as a Great One, they are able to fully grow and ascend, it may not be so bad. Mysterious, creepy, but not so bad. However, if they remain in the Waking World, then they will suffer the same tragedy all Great Ones suffer.

If they have a child, they will lose it. A Hunter may come along and kill them. They may just become the next Moon Presence to someone else’s Gehrman. They become the power in a cycle that doesn’t bode well for Bloodborne’s world of Yharnam, and all of this breathes tragedy into FromSoft’s catalog—even more so than other games.

Bloodborne is available now on PS4.

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