Pre-Release: Dreams of the Deceased

This post examines the idea that the game worlds are dreams or memories of deceased people and the entire game takes place in the past.

The following content was originally created in this thread on Reddit in /r/bloodbornethegame. All credit for the content of this post goes to  /u/Iosefka, with only minor changes being made to reflect the difference in format.

Dreams of the Deceased

I must give credit to /u/ZaHiro86 for preempting me on this, but apparently we were thinking along similar lines. The gravestones represent others (not necessarily hunters) who died and were buried outside the mansion. When we "awaken above ground" we are in actuality visiting these others' memories, or dreams. The "Dream Refuge" is just that; a refuge from their dreams. The other piece of evidence here is a line from the story trailer: "Long ago, Old Yharnam was overrun by the plague of beasts...". This makes me think that this all happened far in the past. What we experience in the game is all memory, similar to the ashen mist heart from Dark Souls II which, as we know, seems to have taken some of its game mechanic influences from bloodborne (or the other way around but... c'mon, really?). This idea of "awakening" is actually just the opposite and is tantamount to the old cliche of "is your dream life your real life or vice-versa? This would also neatly explain, lore-wise, the mechanic of why monsters re-spawn each time we re-enter a world. We are literally "fighting [our] nightmares".

I will go further to suggest that there will be a mechanic in which the dreams will become darker similar to a world-tendency system, as I suggested in a previous post. However, I will add that I think there will be a "nightmare world" mode that represents the pure-black tendency from DeS in which certain things will only appear when in that specific tendency or mode.

Anyway, I have a few other ideas that are floating around that are still a bit muddled, but that's what is pretty solid so far. Discuss. Also, I have a new post on /r/bloodbornelore about medicine and the history of lycanthropy in case you're interested.