The D&D Mind Flayer footage was taken from the Baldur's Gate 3 cinematic intro: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wWHEw36gTwU.html Incidentally, the Tower of Latria has a recurring theme of manmade demons, with prisoners of the tower being used as fodder for terrible experiments. It wouldn't be too outlandish to assume the Mind Flayers in 3-1 were somehow similarly gestated from regular humans too.
Wow, they modeled the stitched together head knowing that no one would probably ever see it in game. I love the attention to detail in these games so much.
They just copy the concept art to a T, not botheritng with optimizations via reducing unimprortant details at all. Which is why mind flayers have more detail than anthing in BB or DS3 lol
Brainsuckers get cannon/bowblade therapy, depending on how mad they make me. With maxed bloodtinge, it's the most amusing way to mess them up. Though Madara's whistle is also amusing.
@@cwheels01 while amusing I will argue that Beast Roar does use fewer resources for the same effect. more efficient but if you have the Quicksilver Bullets to burn then be my guest.
Oh god they are even more terrifying . I always thought that tentacles are part of their face (think Davy Jones from Pirates of Caribean) and not bursting out their mouths. Bloodborne has such amazing and horrifying enemy designs.
The noise of these enemies will forever haunt my 5th grade dreams. I was too young to understand this game, and far too young to even play it holy shit it’s amazing but god damn the nightmares
I bet the artists at From are happy that someone is out there looking at and appreciating all the detailed hard work they put into their games. I had no idea about the stitching on the head of this creature type. Fascinating as always.
well, they usually have their hoods up prior to landing their first grab attack. There are very few cases where someone even *could* see the intact stitching in-game. I assume most people thought the tendril was always out and just hidden under the hood.
Just imagine the From employee who was responsible for putting that in the game. Maybe they slipped it past the higher-ups somehow (the way Miyazaki did with the Ring of Sincere Prayer and what would eventually become Solaire’s Praise The Sun gesture), maybe it was a reference to content that never made it into the game/DLC, maybe it was a tribute to a buddy on the project whose ideas hadn’t made it into the final game. Even if there was only a slim chance players would notice, it was worth it to this person to add it. And now here we are, able to examine and display it and speculate on what it might mean, and the person who made it might eventually find out that Zullie took notice and shared it with the world. I think that’s kind of beautiful.
@@bigjedimullet its almost wholesome exept for the fact its about a mind sucking parasite. I give credit to them though. They had a good twisted imagination
They probably don't even care. They've made the game, they got their money, and they are now living happily in Japan without having to deal with a silly westerner's positive appraisal on their works.
It would make sense that a parasite taking over a human host would aggressively try to suck more energy/insight from whatever it could find, like a certain moon scented hunter
Given how much experimentation went on with trying to create Celestial Emissaries the notion of someone in the Healing Church saying "why don't we stick this weird thing in someone's head and see what happens to them?" isn't that far fetched.
@@johnather that or you'll forget about mortal life and find a new appreciation of staring at the moon for days at a time... with the eyes on the inside...
There's something deeply unsettling to me about the way the tendril stays active permanently, until they are killed. You're watching a parasite twist its host into something different right before your eyes. I can't explain why, but it's more effective to me than the snake-head dudes in the Forbidden Woods or the headless Bloodletting Beast, precisely because it only happens when they land the grab, rather than being guaranteed every time you fight them.
It's almost as if the parasite is focussed on maintaining its body until it gets the grab, and then it goes all in on the brainsucking. As if it can't help itself any longer - there's a distinct kind of hunger to it.
Theyre not all aliens xD some are hinted at being from outer space like the amygdala and the emissary but for the most part it isnt stated that they are aliens.
These thangs scare TF out of me. It's not really their design that bothers me (tho after seeing this it sure the hell does lol) but the constant paranoia that this lil fuk can take my insight away. Had an extremely unpleasant time in upper cathedral ward that's for sure...
@@RealityWrecker Your comment reminds me of a comic that shows Ebrietas getting her distinctive face-tentacles by face-planting into a bowl of macaroni. I just googled "ebrietas macaroni" trying to find the image I was talking about and it turns out that's a whole meme about her I wasn't aware of. Nice.
In a strange sort of way, they're actually helping the player by removing their insight and thus their ability to perceive the insanity of the Great Ones. It's sort of like a reverse Winter Lantern scenario.
The worst part about this opponent is, perhaps, that these creatures were probably born of the orphans on whom the Healing Church was experimenting. This would explain why there are so many of these opponents in the Upper Cathedral Ward, where the orphanage was.
To those who don't know, mashing the attack buttons during their grab makes it do much less damage. Makes these things much less of a pain to deal with.
I like TB Skyens interpretation of the story being that the corpse that washed up on the shore isn't actually a great one, or even anywhere really that close to them. Instead it is a parasite that infects humanity with a maddening need to see, communicate and contact higher beings. The higher beings, are of course, so alien and above humanity that they have no problem using humans as snacks. And thus, the parasite that had infected humanity now reaches it destined host, a Great One, where it finishes it's life cycle, and somehow makes it's way back to the deep of the ocean to repeat the process. Skyen draws evidence from the fact that Bloodborne mentions two other fallen civilisations, brought to ruin through some eldritch forces. Pthumeria and another one, something starting with an L, I think. He draws a parallel between the way snails can be infected with a parasite that basically drives them mad; it controls the snails mind and makes them climb as high as possible during daylight, to attract birds to eat the snails. The parasite inside the snail is consumed and reaches it's host, the bird. Parasite > Snail > Bird > repeat. Kos parasite > Human > Great One > repeat. this is my favourite interpretation of the game; that all this pain and misery was simply the result of some unearthly parasite's life cycle. As Skyen says, that's pretty cosmic horror, the lack of any actual reason beyond a parasite trying to reproduce.
Sure it hits the "humans are small and insignificant" part of cosmic horror, but completely misses the "unfathomable and unknowable" aspect of it. It sounds like they are completely caught up in applying human rationale to it, which totally misses the point. It is just a monster story with some body horror at that point. I think they frequently tunnel vision in their analysis. But it is far from the dumbest or least interesting take on the story I've heard lol
@@Michael-bn1oi To be honest, I don't think much of Bloodborne is really unfathomable or unknowable. The old ones have a very understandable motive; they seek children.They want to reproduce. Hell, we can eventually turn into an Old One. It's pretty simple too, eat their yucky umbilical cord to lure an Old One in, then kill it (presumably the umbilical cord gave you some magic mojo enabling you to perform this feat) and replace it. For such unfathomable and unknowable entities, they seem to be pretty beholden to some core attributes about life; they can die, and seek to perpetuate and propagate their species. In the same way that an ant would be completely unable to understand humans, but still understand the basic desire to live, and perpetuate the species that both humans and ants have, I think we can understand an awful lot about the Old Ones. I see all of the other creatures that aren't Old Ones in the same light as rats and mice and bugs. They are the "parasites" gathering around the old ones the same way vermin and bugs gather in our houses, feeding off our scraps, taking shelter in our homes. The corpse of Kos is just a dead tapeworm.
I fucking love the quiet little stylistic bromance Bloodborne and Demon's Souls have going on Returning the hair clip to the doll, the One Reborn's arena, the spiritual hub that lets you "awaken above ground" It's like if you know you know
From what I've heard, at some point (very) early in development, Bloodborne was going to be secretly set in the same world as Demon's Souls - the Chalice Dungeons were going to be revealed to be the buried ruins of Boletaria; also, remember that early public beta test where Gascoigne namedrops "Umbasa" when he killed the player. Even if that's no longer the case in the final release, Demon's Souls' influence on Bloodborne is clear in lots of little ways, like you mentioned.
God, seeing them up close make them even scarier. I always just saw the tendril face, but now I will forever see the shallow eye sockets and know that the tendrils are bursting out of his mouth. Thank you for making me hate these things even more.
I always thought they just had chronic case Davy Jones face. Now I don't even want to imagine how the slow process of their transformation must've looked like.
When you climb the steps inside of the cathedral (just before Amelia) there's a window all the way in the back that looks like an eye opening up as you go. The artwork around that window is hard to see from the ground and it'd be cool to see it and the skull area up close and from different angles. ^^
Bob the Hollow has a superb lore exposition channel and I believe he addressed the implications of this in one of his videos. What was implanted into the skulls of the brain suckers (which are indeed experiments by the church) are phantasms. They feed on insight. This is why Brainsuckers can drop madman’s knowledge, and in the item depiction for madman’s knowledge you’ll notice a phantasm emerging from the skull on the little icon. These are most probably Pearl slugs, or else the aquatic looking things the villagers in the fishing hamlet are collecting.
This video is absolutely chilling, and my favorite one of your lore features. It elevates a vaguely creepy Demon’s Souls callback to something truly horrifying.
Never could I imagine feeling bad for an Enemy that I absolutely despised. There is just something that really gets to me about assimilation. Like it’s one of the worst possible fates one could experience in fiction
I feel the same way. Have you ever played Fallout New Vegas? There's a mostly abandoned vault in FONV that is a science experiment gone wrong, and it involves "assimilation". It also has some major The Last Of Us vibes.
I mean, you were half-right at least. The horror was just a little higher up than you thought, and funnily enough, that means the large parasite is still smaller than it would otherwise have to be to crest over their heads from lower on their backs.
This didn’t quite get referenced in the video, so I will add it to the conversation. The mind flayer in D&D also fight like the ones in both games. Having the ability to stun their victims with their psionic powers before grabbing them to eat their brain. Just another layer to the not at all subtle reference.
I love how Zullie is constantly finding these small details in a game that has for the most part been analysed extensively. Really shows the dedication of the developers in making interesting stories and worlds, as well as Zullie's own determination in discovering these things.
Quality content and amazing discoveries, as usual! The failed stitching of their brains seems extremely painful and terrifying. They are also aware of the Hunter and still retain some form of humanity, because they often scream "Die!", after sucking the player's brains.
It's fascinating seeing the similarities between the mind flayer's parasitic worms here, linking to cosmic ability, and the green larvae and centipedes in Sekiro, which signified immortality. Having the fascination of longevity and power transformed into a grotesque visual puts a brilliant spin on how humanity clashes against the beliefs of transcendence.
This is probably one of my favorite videos of yours. I love the idea of Mindflayer type enemies. This also makes me wish I knew more about the "world" of Dungeons and Dragons.
@@da_BemBem Thanks for the recommendation! I just checked out his youtube channel and it looks pretty promising. Also the video he has displayed on his channel's homepage (it autoplays when you visit his homepage) is about Mindflayers, lol. So yeah i'm definitely subscribing to his channel.
@@thecandlemaker1329 No, there's Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Domains of Dread, Dark Sun, spelljammer, Ebberon, Nantir Vale, of which Forgotten Realms is the most publicized and is what people think of when they think D&D now a days.
Yeah, when I saw the tendrils they immediately made me think of Phantasms. In the original game the phantasms we find are linked only to Ebrietas and as we find more of these guys in the Upper Cathedral Ward, it might be more likely to be something from her rather than Kos. Interesting that both Great Ones associated with phantasms are female "mother" Kos, "daughter" Ebrietas.
@@wayoftheredpanda2898 I guess... My main point is so much of the lore is "inspired" that drawing a specific conclusion from one HP story is kinda moot, in my opinion.
Just more proof that From's art Design is head and shoulders above any other developer right now. Can't think of any games that come close to this level of meaningful detail. Elden Ring will be even better.
The Phantasms and other cosmic creatures of Bloodborne always fascinated me so. I never knew these creatures had their heads stitched together: I always assumed that they were purely cosmic creatures like the Phantasms, hence their presence in the Isz chalice dungeons. The idea of them being humans infected by a parasitic phantasm really adds an extra special lair to them and now I wonder if the parasite could continue growing as it feeds. What could the Brainsuckers potentially grow into, similar to how Mind Flayer tadpoles grow into Neolithids if they are not put into a host.
That Kos connection seems so obvious now that you've pointed it out. I can definitely see the Healing Church experimenting with those Kos parasites and planting them in some poor fool's head. It makes me think of the patients in the research hall - whatever was done to them likewise infected the head in some way. Brainsuckers even constantly pilfer insight from other people's skulls, just like the Old Hunters did in the Fishing Hamlet. Dude, I played Bloodborne for the first time six years ago, and I'm still learning more stuff about it. I love it!
Anyone else can see the resemblance between the parasites of Kos and the Great Carp's white whisker from Sekiro? A white, glowing tendril that makes nobles trascend mortality and turns them into a sea like divinity. Also, the waters they drink and worship are mixed with the Divine Dragon's blood, just like yharnamites are known for their blood destileries (it is known that the Church found Ebrietas at some point, and made an extended use of their blood)
Seeing these Bloodborne videos makes me wish it were on PC so modders could create fresh new experiences for those who have beaten the games many times. Mods like Convergence and Daughters of Ash brought me back to that feeling of not knowing what was coming next, which in Bloodborne included genuine fear at times.
Imagine what we could get if Bloodborne was released on PC. The ability to properly dissect the game aside, just being able to improve the textures and frame rate would be incredible. Brainsuckers with 4K textures would be absolutely horrible
If Bloodborne was released on PC, we could probably even have a unofficial Bloodborne DLC or sequel dealing with even more Lovecraftian horror stuff, perhaps to the point where we start to kill some Elder Gods here and there, but eventually we end up catching glimpses of Cthulhu throughout the mod, and at the end of the mod we fight a physical incarnation of Cthulhu, but even after we kill it we hear ominous laughter and look towards the sea to see Cthulhu rise from the depths, bellow ominously and then sink back down to the depths. Maybe we’d explore the city of R’lyeh. Oh there’s so much untapped potential if we could just mod Bloodborne. I’m a huge sucker for Lovecraftian horror. Hell maybe, there could even be a mod that incorporates Demon’s Souls enemies, bosses, weapons, armor sets, and NPCs into Bloodborne’s universe in a way that feels organic. AAAAAA FROMSOFT Y U NO RELEASE ON PC? sorry, just the amount of sheer possibilities is simply infinite.
@@thewanderingstruggler8601 It would be way worse than the rest of the game though, it’s pretty delusional to think modders even have the ability to do that. How are they going to get all the resources for that?
I just want it on pc so I can play it period. I don't own a PS4, and really have no desire to buy a whole console for the one single game I care to play on it. Same with DeS, but I kinda gave up on ever getting to play that.
Knowing that those tentacles are coming out of their face rather than being a part of it, and the fact that their skull splits open for the larger tentacle, makes these things even more terrifying. Also, kudos for the usage of scenes from the Baldur's Gate 3 trailers.
0:53 Zullie, you brought me straight back to 2010 again😊👌 ⚠Worst story ever alert:⚠ That chime echoing through the asylum, trying to run from their paralyzing spell, even being frustrated that my deaths were keeping the realm's state in the black, preventing me from rescuing the blue-shaded prisoner.. My exgf watching me play in horror, screaming "look out!" & making me panic roll off the edge. I used to like myself back then lol.. It's appreciated👏
The upper cathedral ward ones were something else. It's like their aggro range and attacks were increased. They are one of the most annoying enemies in the game.
Everytime I think I've seen every fascinating and creepy thing about bloodborne something like THIS is discovered. Thank you Zullie, you keep my flame of ambition burning
@@thewanderingstruggler8601 Taking the Magic Initiate feat would do the trick, but unfortunately the Rage feature specifically states that you can't cast spells while raging. So a spellcasting Barbarian doesn't work very well.
I’ve always loved how Bloodborne starts as Van Helsing style horror and turns into a cosmic horror. Actually, it was Bloodborne that got me so intrigued in it.
1:01 And that's why I hate those enemies. Their whole strategy of "I'll stun you for a long time so I have time to run from the other side of the room until I reach you and can perform my grab attack while you're going to be standing there; defenseless, being unable to do anything about it" it's so cheap and unfair. And now I get to know that they might be parasite-like lifeforms just makes it worse: I hate parasites, those creatures way of living is gross and disturbing as few things in nature are. That said, I love the content you give us, Zullie. I get to see in detail the models and textures of the enemies and places while learning some interesting things about the games that would have been quite hard to notice while playing, all thanks to you. Thank you, form the bottom of my heart.
A video being viewed almost 70k times in 3 hours isn't"massively underrated" at all I don't know why you're"massively "over exaggerating" and massively brown nosing.
This is the kind of quality content that I subscribed for. Its amazing that almost 7 years after launch, there are people in the community that still find hidden secrets in this gem of a game, some of them hidden in plain sight.
Thank you Zullie, I watch your videos every day. I can't imagine the amount of work that it takes both to come up with the ideas for the videos, and execute them, in a manner that one can be released every day. Your dedication and love for these games is humbling. Keep it up, please!
One thing I find curious in Bloodborne, I've seen quite a few windows that you can see through, but don't exist from the other side. Most notably the windows in Iosefka's Clinic, that from the corridor show the outside, but from the outside they are in completely different positions. There are also many bridges that lead to plain walls and other things like that. These unpolished part of scenary seem far more common in Bloodborne than in Dark Souls (I never played Sekiro, so I wouldn't know about that one). I believe it's a result of making the area so much more detailed with so many visible parts that you can't go to compared to Dark Souls (DS cities look like dungeons, Bloodborne cities look like actual cities), but it seems strange that so many errors like those can be found. I'd like to see how places like Central Yharnam look from different angles.
You can see the Church of the Good Chalice where the Bloodstarved Beast is under the two bridges in Central Yharnam. But when you look down from Cathedral Ward where you find the Monocular, there are completely different buildings. I also think when you look from the roof of Cainhurst Castle at the Witch's Abode, the buildings are all switched around. And I remember in Dark Souls 3, the bridge where you find Yoel has a different number of spans when you're on it an when you look up to it from the swamp. They try to make the background stuff in the distance look similar, but aren't super careful to make it match exactly.
You also had a lot of stuff like windows and front doors blocked off with gates or other houses, particularly in central Yharnam. Well that and grave markers bursting from everything. Not sure if it's fromsoft being fromsoft, or if the places you visit aren't entirely real.
I think of it as the dream version of what Yharnam looks like. In my own dreams, places I'm familiar with often have slight changes that make them a mockery of the real thing. Bridges leading to walls, buildings being switched or out of position, so on and so forth. In the waking ending, the hunter appears to awaken in cathedral ward, but the place looks different, in fact more structured and real. Maybe the real world, until the nightmare returns again.
This is why I love FromSoftware and their games. So many little details that they don't have to add, but put in anyway for those just as interested in art as the devs.
I've always wondered what the stone the Garden of Eyes cling onto, and get a closer look at thr Mannequins that appear in the Micolash fight. The seem to have beards, but it's hard to tell.
I never thought Bloodborne could get any more horrifying but ding dong I was wrong! Thanks for the new info Zullie. My least favorite enemy has now become that much worse! :) god I love this game
Ceremorphosis is a complicated and imprecise process. The Brain suckers being malformed may be a further reference to D&D Mindflayers, considering how many statblocks there are for incomplete or mutant Mindflayers and Illithids there are
wow bloodborne is my most played game ever and ive been through so many times and i never even saw that level of detail i really thought the tendrils grew from its head making it somewhat like a lovecraftian cultist not a moving corpse. i thought they were somewhat like the great ones themselves and not just theyr nourishment
The parasites Form with the many tentacles coming out the hosts mouth and the singular, thick tail area that stabs you in the Brain is both similar to Kos' shape with her tentacle hair over her face and the slug body... and its similar to the infant Great One the Player Character turnes into after killing the Moon Presence.
My head canon is that all the normal monsters can be lumped into different categories based on abilities and physical attributes. And all these different categories were transformed by the blood of different great ones (or by other monsters in the same category). As we know the werewolves came from villagers taking to much of the healing blood from the church, where they got that blood from the catacombs. But many bug men are around Rom, fish people and slug bastards in the nightmare realms around kos, alien looking monsters around ebretus, brain and tendril and corpse beings around the brain of menses, and many wolf based monsters tied to the church or catacombs. Then there are weird examples like all the snake monsters, the vampire things in the castle, ghosts, giants, the amygdala, mergos wet nurse, the moon presence, those dog birds, the pigs, etc. Either they are a category without any confirmed great one, a great one without any confirmed monster downline, or exist in a very obscure and specific category that doesn't fit with the model of specific great one blood making specific monster.
Wow… that’s a horrifying prospect. I always wondered what they were (the amulet they wear always intrigued me too). Btw that Kos parasite transformation is really beautiful in slo-mo (2:00). Awesome video! 👍
Funfact, if you look at the madman's knowledge and great one's wisdom , the little dust motes are shaped like phantasms, implying that phantasms eventually find their way into insight filled minds.
I love how the Brainsucker grab attack is like this horrifying alien emerging sequence that permanently lowers your Insight stat, while the other monster's grab attack from Demon Souls is just like "Behold... *GUT PUNCH!!!* ".
For once i forgot this was a channel about videogames and thought "yeah great way to not make me sleep this night" Relief was bigger than disappointment.
"Ok so there's these slugs, and since they've been underground a long time, they probably know a lot. If we put the slugs on our brains, then we'd know a lot too." *"Get out."*
Never thought I'd see D&D mentioned here. If you thought the Mind Flayers are nasty with their reproduction, wait until you see the Elder Brain Dragon from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, that thing is a body horror nightmare. It's a Elder Brain (a giant brain that usually serves as the leader of a Mind Flayer colony) latched on top the back of an adult dragon, and it takes over the latter by piercing it's skull with it's tentacles while covering each other with a membrane. It has a deadly breath weapon that involves spewing Illithid tadpoles, which infects you even if you succeed your saving throw. If your health is reduced to 0 while infected, you're unconscious until several hours later when you become a Mind Flayer, and only a wish spell can save you in those hours.
Heh, I'd always thought the sound that ensued when its head tendril burst out was it pushing out of the skull... apparently it's that combined with the stitches ripping. I'd always viewed these things as failed attempts at making Celestial Emissaries.
This is why we love your work Zullie, little details like the surgical stitches on the back of brain suckers heads would have gone unnoticed by almost everyone. This content just makes me appreciate the level of detail the devs at Fromsoft put into their titles