Video game favorite archaeologist Lance McDonald is back with a new one Blood borne video. This time, he explores the unused dialogue for the Doll, the NPC that raises the 2015 level. And while the alternate voice actors are fun, it’s what she always said that really piqued my interest.
Blood borne, like most From Software games, is narratively opaque. Story details and plot points are often hidden in item descriptions and easy-to-miss side missions, making every bit of spoken dialogue that much more important to retrieve even a fraction of the knowledge. In his video, McDonald explains that the doll originally had a lot more to say to the player about the world of Blood borne, and the unused dialogue sheds light on early details that didn’t make it into the final game.
Much of it unused Blood borne dialogue revolves around the fact that you may be playing as someone who is sick and hallucinating on his deathbed. For example, instead of greeting the player as a ‘good hunter’, the doll used to call them the ‘sick one’, a name that can still be found in the note templates that players can share between their games. She also welcomed the main character in the “nightmare” at the start of the game, calling it “a dream of the sick, of those on the threshold of death,” shedding more light on the strange hub area.
Blood borne in its lore is just as fascinating and compelling as playing. Avid hunters still discuss the finer points of his universe, a testament to both From Software’s effort to make the story as obscure as possible and the depths of the story’s concepts. While this unused Doll dialogue may not affect the story as it plays out in the actual game, it does provide an interesting perspective on Blood borne as a whole and the changes it has gone through during development.