The document discusses how reception theory is relevant to analyzing the video game Bloodborne. It explains that reception theory asserts media is encoded by producers and decoded by audiences, and that Bloodborne uses this approach by embedding secret messages for players to decode. The document analyzes various gameplay and story elements that utilize reception theory, such as item descriptions providing riddles rather than direct explanations. It argues reception theory is one of Bloodborne's main foundations and integral to how it tells its story.

1. How is reception theory relevant when analysing
Bloodborne?
For my essay I have chosen to explore and analyse ‘Bloodborne’, an action/
adventure game released in 2015 by popular game development company
FromSoftware. Through my exploration on the game and its foundations I hope
to realise and try to fully understand how it uses secret messages embedded in
many aspects of the game to relay a specific message to the audience, or in
other words I wish to discern how Reception theory is relevant when analysing
Bloodborne. I will do this through macro and micro analysing some of the
games key components such as lore, gameplay, themes and fundamentals.
Reception theory- Reception theory asserts that media is encoded and
decoded, the producer encodes a certain message into their media product
which is then decoded by the audience. The Duke university press had this to
say about the concept- 'Reception theory is an outgrowth of ideological
conflict within west German academic literature.'. Communicationtheory.org
described the theory as ‘far more complex in understanding as each mind
perceives in its own way. A single person can have a mixed reaction of being a
dominant, oppositional, and negotiated reader when they are going through
the process of receiving the message.'. These two examples show the diverse
perceptions on Reception theory.
Bloodborne is a gothic dark fantasy video game set in an infected world,
'old blood' is the blood of the 'Great ones' (God like beings), the blood was
discovered in 'the tomb of the gods' that resides underneath one of the main
locations in the game known as 'Yharnam'. The blood has great healing
properties and also the capability to evolve mankind. The 'Healing Church' uses
the old blood and spreads it into the public as a treatment for disease,
however, misuse of the blood resulted in turning many people into 'Beasts',
animalistic and violent type creatures. You progress through the different
stages of Bloodborne hunting down different 'beasts', 'great ones' and other
sinister creatures. 'The magnificent city of Yharnam began its slow and
endless descent into ruin long ago.' Bloodborne has 2 main components, the
base game and the DLC extension known as 'The Old Hunters', the DLC is set in
an alternate version of the main Bloodborne dimension, it features multiple

2. pre existing locations in the Bloodborne base game, only in the DLC they are
transformed and present more of a nightmarish aesthetic. They also feature 2
brand new, unique locations exclusive to the DLC known as 'The Astral
Clocktower' and the 'Fishing Hamlet'. The premise of the DLC is that this
alternate spacetime you find yourself in is a hunters nightmare, Hunters who
become 'drunk with blood' are transported to this realm and trapped forever.
'It’s a spiritual and mechanical return to the old, reliable, tense, and violent
patchwork of terrible places that make up this atmospheric and secret-filled
world.' Bloodborne tells its story mainly through item descriptions and NPC
voice lines, they don’t directly give you the meaning of everything in the game,
more so it adopts the reception theory and bases all of its storytelling on it.
They implement certain messages that may seem random and unrelated to the
situation, but if you really think about it you can create meaning, this is a clear
example of the creators encoding a message and the consumers then decoding
that message, although not always in the same way. 'From start to finish,
Bloodborne revels in its unique – if somewhat masochistic – approach to
entertainment. There are very few games that cause you to curse their
developer one minute and sing their praises the next – but this is one of them.
It is, quite simply, a sensationally designed and superbly refined offering.' The
Hunters dream in Bloodborne is a hub area of sorts, a safe space that shields
you from the abstract horrors that plague the cities and streets of the game, at
first glance the Dream comes across as a light hearted and peaceful place,
however, this is a distraction, they are hiding the truth behind a smokescreen
of sorts, in actuality the Hunters dream is a very dark and sinister place with an
extremely unsettling past. In terms of function, the Dream allows you to
upgrade your characters stats to gain strength and other different and unique
abilities, the workshop at the top of the small hill allows you to upgrade your
weapons and imbue blood gems within it, it also allows you to apply different
runes granting you different character attributes. Within the dream you are
accompanied by Gehrman (an old, retired hunter bound to a wheelchair, he
acts as guidance and helps you along your travels through the nightmare) and
the Doll, a literal sentient doll. The implementation of these warm and
welcoming characters even further blinds you from the truth of the Hunters
dream. The Dream maintains a very dark theme and uses mostly dark colours,
this could be to represent the very dark and unsettling lore and history behind
the location. The white moon shining upon the final boss arena coupled with
the bright white flowers saturating the ground embody the hope within this

3. final battle. Lore wise both the player and final boss are fighting in order to
save one another and set each other free from the ‘dreadful nightmare’ so I
think the implementation of these bright colours represent this. The moon in
this part of the game is extremely large and bright, it never leaves the dream
and always appears to be watching over you and Gehrman, I think because of
this the moon symbolises the moon presence (a great one that created the
hunters dream and imprisoned Gehrman). Lore wise the moon presence is
described to keep watch over the Hunters dream at all times, monitoring
Gehrman, his puppet of sorts. This is also backed up further in the end portion
of the game, when you kill Gehrman you cause a disturbance and imbalance
within the dream, this causes the moon presence to emerge from the moon.
The moon also turns red to emphasise the moon presences anger now that its
creation has been disturbed. Bloodborne is an extremely detailed and intricate
game that adopts a unique way of storytelling, the game hides the lore and
story behind multiple complex systems, the player has to actively search for
information rather than just being handed it. Even when you discover certain
pieces of information imbued within the game, most of the lore is presented as
a riddle, the contents are not easy to decode, because of the riddle like format
in which the story is presented, everyone will mostly have a different
interpretation. I think this is a perfect example of ‘Reception Theory’-
‘Reception theory asserts that media is encoded and decoded, the producer
encodes a certain message into their media product which is then decoded by
the audience.’. The foundations of Bloodborne have been crafted with this
theory in mind, I would argue that other than the gothic, dark theme of the
game, the implementation of Reception theory is the most prominent aspect
of the game. Every piece of lore, storytelling, character details and general
information within the game has been encoded into the game for the very
purpose of the audience decoding it. Even the official Bloodborne wiki
mentions that the lore of the game they include on their website is only an
‘interpretation’, since the messages and themes within the game can not be
100% accurately decoded. The fact that not every message can be decoded in
the same way by everyone is a concept mentioned in
communicationtheory.org’s article on reception theory- 'Reception theory is
far more complex in understanding as each mind perceives in its own way.’ At
the end of the game, there are 3 options for a different ending, each one of
them containing lots of important aspects and lore information. If you choose
to surrender at the end of the game you unlock the first ending, in this ending

4. you are killed and awaken, still alive under the morning sun, this implies that
up until awakening, the entire game was all a dream/nightmare of sorts,
however which reality is the dream and which is real has not yet been
completely discovered and its left with the audience to decode and create
their own interpretation. In the true ending when you kill the true final boss
‘The moon presence’ you are then transformed into an infant great one, this
has created a lot of confusion and theories regarding the method in which the
player actually transformed into a great one, before this the character has
killed multiple other different great ones so the question arises, why did the
player transform into a great one after killing the moon presence specifically
and not every other time they had killed a great one. Some decode this
information as the moon presence being a unique great one, a god above the
gods that operates completely differently, meaning when we kill it, the
reaction and ways in which it affects our character is very different to that of
killing a normal great one. Since the main topic of my FMP is also going to be
bloodborne I will be implementing a lot of themes, ideas and aesthetic aspects
mentioned in this essay into my final major project, for example I will be using
the reception theory within my fmp in a similar way that the game does it as
discussed in this essay. I think using this method will accurately and truthfully
represent the game, this is important as Bloodborne has a very defined
formula, altering even one small aspect of the games foundation could change
the entire product into an unrecognisable piece of media. I also plan to embed
the core aesthetic and visual themes of Bloodborne into my FMP, the dark
gothic, cosmic horror way of artistic expression really suits my interests and I
feel like with my experience with the game I can replicate this and apply it to
my own work. A final theme used in Bloodborne and mentioned within this
essay that I also plan to incorporate into my fmp is the process of disguising
the true meaning, story and lore of the game/product, I think this adds
mystery and allows the consumer to apply their own meaning and
interpretation of certain things. In conclusion, reception theory is not only
relevant when discussing Bloodborne, but is one of the main topics within the
game and is embedded into every part of the story, it is undoubtably one of
the main foundations, the storytelling aspect of the game completely relies on
this and would fall apart without it.

5. Bibliography
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2. Henry J. Schmidt. (1979). Text-Adequate Concretizations. p.157.
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[Accessed 9 November 2022].
3. Martin, G.D. (n.d.). HIDETAKA MIYAZAKI’S TRANSCENDENT
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https://killscreen.com/previously/articles/hidetaka-miyazakis-
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2022].
4. Brandin Tyrell. (2015). Bloodborne: The Old Hunters Review.
[Online]. ign.com. Last Updated: Nov 23. Available at:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/11/23/bloodborne-the-old-
hunters-review [Accessed 16 November 2022].
5. Ben Potter. (2018). Bloodborne Review (PS4). [Online].
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https://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/bloodborne [Accessed
16 November 2022].
6. communicationtheory. (n.d.). Reception Theory in mass
communication, psychology, behavioral and social science.
[Online]. communicationtheory.org. Available at:
https://www.communicationtheory.org/reception-theory/
[Accessed 9 November 2022].