The Chalice Dungeon expansion for Bloodborne The Board Game works as an alternative style of play for the core game. It runs a similar system of exploration and combat, but without an overarching story. No campaign and a more streamlined style of play. You enter, complete a single objective, then take on the boss. The gameplay’s core mechanics are the same for players as they would be in the core game, with players running Hunters the same way they would in a campaign. This objective doesn’t change for any Chalice Dungeon experience, but whole system works with any enemies, bosses or Hunters chosen from any module or expansion. What’s more, is that this expansion includes five bosses unique to the video game’s Chalice Dungeons and unavailable to any other expansions. There’s even scope for a competitive mode. Differences The board game is a much larger and more detailed experience. It's filled with plenty of elements that will excite fans of the video game and keeps newcomers involved, introducing them to new objectives as they arrive on the board. Says designer Eric M. Lang, "My goal with Bloodborne was to channel the intensity and frustration of the video game into a contest between players. Lots of death." Compared to the video game, the two options for a tabletop experience are faintly similar, but different entities. The card game almost feels like a demo version of the board game at times.

Still, nothing quite beats the video game. Bloodborne is a fantastic piece of artistry. It continues FromSoftware’s trend of solid gameplay with plenty of player agency. It has great replay value and feels like a complete experience. The DLC, or game of the year edition, merely expanded upon what was already a complete work. Each scenario is three chapters. The length of a session depends on how much of one scenario you play. A chapter usually takes around an hour, with a whole campaign lasting upwards of three to four hours. The game is a campaign-based adventure game for 1-4 players entirely played without dice. Instead, your abilities all have a speed and are resolved comparing with the speed of your enemy. You choose which actions to perform with cards. Bloodborne is my favorite of From Software's iconic Soulsborne series. Not only was it a brutal and harsh action RPG, but the entire setting dripped with gothic dread, a ghoulish and diseased atmosphere, and unsettling cosmic horror. It did a great job making you feel like you were trapped in a nightmare with lucid but somehow inconsistent dream logic, even while you were slicing through beast monsters like a human blender. That exact same blend of horror, suspense, and high-intensity action is replicated in the aptly named Bloodborne: The Board Game, designed by Michael Shinall and Eric M. Lang and published by CMON Global Limited. Alright, our options are to explore the unknown or possibly die to monsters. Whose first?Another important mechanic within Bloodborne is ‘Insight’. You gain Insight through defeating bosses, discovering locations, and using items that imply a gain in knowledge. ‘Insight’ is an integral part of exploration, which is a major factor of the game, between its beastly encounters. Forsaken Cainhurst Castle: an expansion with 2 extra campaigns and more miniatures. The KS version has also an exclusive Reiterpallasch Hunter.

For the fans of Souls video game series, the experience of their beloved game transformation into the physical format of board games has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. The anticipation of the Dark Souls: The Board Game was sky high and it came crashing down. The following smaller card games based on both Dark Souls and Bloodborne have been fine, good even, but they could never compete with the expectations of a miniatures heavy big box game. Bloodborne plays really well, weaving risk and reward into almost every decision you make. Should you enter the hunter’s dream now and bank the little you have collected or risk it for a biscuit and try to collect some more first? On top of the list above, the original KS campaign contained two pledge levels. The Blood Moon pledge, the basic one, added to the core game a new box of exclusive rewards (sometimes called the Blood Moon Box) like 6 new Hunters, 1 boss, 18 enemies and miniatures to replace some in-game tokens like the Lamp, the Chest and the Doll. It contained also an expansion with a single campaign called Mergo’s Loft.There is no levelling up as classic games, instead your reward for killing enemies consists in a selection between 4 randomly selected stat cards that are more powerful than the basic ones you start the game with. Every enemy you kill gives you a Blood Echoes token. Should you go the Hunter’s Dream of your own accord, i.e. without dying, you can then exchange each token with a new stat card. Note that you can’t have more than 3 Blood Echoes at a time. If you add the expansions, not all are available on retail and would increase the price considerably. We suggest getting the base game before to make sure you like it before making a big splurge.