If Bloodborne is your game, you will remember waking up in Iosefka’s Clinic and being thrown into a ruthless world with little explanation.
There is only you, a wobbly table, and a vicious Wolf Beast itching to tear you apart before you can grab a weapon.
But if early development plans had played out differently, that unforgettable beginning could’ve been something else entirely.
Was Iosefka’s Clinic Always This Restrictive?
The final game makes Iosefka’s Clinic feel cramped and limiting until more of Yharnam is unlocked.
Players could immediately explore the rooftops above and even enter upper floors that wouldn’t become reachable until much later in the released version.
An unfinished map shows a path where you can roll onto another rooftop, enter through a broken window, and see a placeholder graveyard that was later filled with trees and tombstones.
How Early Could Players Access the Graveyard in Test Builds?
That quiet graveyard, which becomes a familiar checkpoint, wasn’t always as hidden as it is now.
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+ 2In fact, in some test builds, it was available much earlier. McDonald’s exploration shows that what is now a carefully gated loop via the Forbidden Woods was once part of a much simpler cave-like route.
Back then, the shortcut involved climbing a series of ladders from the woods into the Clinic’s rooftop zone. That feature would go on to be reimagined and refined into the poisonous swamp path we know today.
Was the Wolf Beast Always in the First Room?
The beast that greets you before you can even defend yourself sets the tone for the entire game’s brutality, but that encounter wasn’t part of the earliest versions either.
click to enlarge+ 2The clinic was more open-ended, but enemy placements designed to build tension came later in development to create the dread FromSoftware games are known for.
Looking back at these scrapped versions offers a rare glimpse into the studio’s creative process.
Blocky test maps and placeholder environments show a game still figuring itself out where players might have started with a more freeform, exploratory experience instead of the tightly choreographed intro we finally got.
The start was made more atmospheric by FromSoftware by holding back player freedom.
Truthfully, the final version works by making you learn through failure and fight for power, so every shortcut and area unlocked feels like a hard-won prize.
The opening of Bloodborne was close to being something else, but what it became is now a classic moment in modern gaming.
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