Summary
Beyond its brutal difficulty akin to other games developed by From Software,Bloodborneis best known for implementing cosmic horror elements within a gothic setting. The setting feels almost like a living character as its atmosphere shifts and the player explores more of its environments,piecing together Yharnam’s dark history.
The game’s story does not outwardly explain much, which inBloodborne’s case gives it a dream-like feel that transforms into a nightmare. It often gets compared to the works of H.P. Lovecraft as while all ofBloodborne’s lore is original, it takes clear inspiration from the author’s work. Even with item descriptions filling in many blanks, this vibe never goes away with it only being more enforced with specific items.
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The Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge Helps Enforce Bloodborne’s Lovecraftian Horror
Bloodborne’s Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge is one of the more simple items in the game. Like any other badge, it unlocks more items to purchase in shops found within the Hunter’s Dream. These range from consumables likethe overpriced Poison Knifeto upgrade materials for weapons like the Twin Bloodstone Shards, but the things it unlocks are the least interesting facts about it.
There is a short description that gives some background behind its significance. These blurbs are often fairly straightforward, but theCosmic Eye Watcher Badgealmost reads more like poetry. After stating that it is a badge for a group known as the Choir, elites belonging to the Healing Church, it states, “The eye signifies the very cosmos”.
This description does make sense as it depicts an eye with the cosmos inside it, but then a passage follows describing how the Choir stumbled upon the epiphany that despite having feet planted in the earth, the cosmos are just above their heads. It’s a small description that sounds as beautiful as it is terrifying.
The scene it visually paints is vivid for such a short sentence, of looking toward the night sky and seeing the stars above. At the same time, because that very sight is just above the observer, an unknowable terror follows. Despite the beauty belonging to an entity that resembles the cosmos, its presence would no doubt shatter thoughts about what could be out there in the universe.
Cosmic horror can be incredibly tricky to pull offin any form of media, particularly video games, but descriptions like the one from the Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge help show why it is as effective as it is inBloodborne. The game takes advantage of true beauty existing in celestial bodies, but there is something inherently horrifying about them due to the fear of the unknown. Many creatures from Lovecraftian horror stories are beings that came to Earth from another part of space that humans may have been able to observe but never truly know the conditions of because of how far away they are.
The game also takes advantage of human curiosity since the world’s condition partially comes from factions like theHealing Church communing with incomprehensible forces, gaining knowledge no human should ever know. There is a sense that people would have been doomed regardless as alien creatures and gods began coalescing in and around Yharnam. One of the few things that can be noted about their time interacting with people is that the distinction between dreams and reality has become muddled, with the former feeling about as real as the latter.
Bloodborneis a masterful work of cosmic horror despite not technically being a horror game. The narrative works on its own as a dream-like experience, but this feeling only becomes more pronounced when taking the time to comprehend the messages behind items like the Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge.
