“Fear the Old Blood”: The Gothicism of Bloodborne Hiranya Mukherjee 1 Abstract Gothic studies and Game studies are beginning to be explored in connection with each other to find various configurations of Gothic elements in the cybertext of games. In this article, I explore various Gothic elements in Bloodborne. My methodol- ogy incorporates the analysis of the manifestation of Gothicism in the game through the interplay between the figure of the player character, miseen-scène, and the pres- ence of psychologically affective states pertaining to the experience of playing the game. The role and aspects of player participation, performativity, and in-game mechanics are also examined with respect to the particular function they serve in the realization of the Gothic experience. The presence of Gothic and Lovecraftian tropes, symbolism, and elements of horror within the narrative are also explored. Keywords Gothic, horror, uncanny, bloodborne, Lovecraft Introduction: H.P. Lovecraft’s Cosmicism Bloodborne is a third-person action role-playing video game by FromSoftware, released in 2015 to high acclaim. It has been attributed to be very much in line with the general “flavor” of games created by the mentioned developer, largely overseen by Hidetaka Miyazaki. As such, Bloodborne is characterized by the trends and tenden- cies of the preceding Dark Souls series with engaging combat, a cryptic narrative with heavy environmental storytelling, and high difficulty with a relatively steep learning 1 Department of English, Presidency University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India Corresponding Author: Hiranya Mukherjee, Department of English, Presidency University, Kolkata, West Bengal 700073, India. Email: mukherjeehiranya@gmail.com Article Games and Culture 1–22 © The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/15554120231155325 journals.sagepub.com/home/gac