“The Old Hunters” is a downloadable expansion pack for “Bloodborne,” the sister project to “Demon’s Souls” and “Dark Souls” which we looked at a few weeks ago. What it does is it adds new areas, enemies, bosses and equipment in to the game. “The Old Hunters” is in no way necessary to receive the complete “Bloodborne” experience, it is entirely optional bonus content. However, the original “Bloodborne” is required to play “The Old Hunters.”

The graphics, sound and gameplay of “The Old Hunters” are all very similar to the base game, which really is not a surprise given that it integrates to become part of the same program. So instead of being measured by its technical aspects, the expansion pack has to sink or swim entirely on the merits of its new ideas; how good are they, and how well does it pull them off?

The basic gist of “The Old Hunters” is that the player character gets taken away to an area called The Hunter’s Nightmare (a contrast to The Hunters Dream, which serves as the central hub of the main game). The Nightmare, as the player is soon told, is a sort of second dream created by fellow monster hunters who have become “blood drunk” and holds some sort of horrid secret deep within.

The Nightmare itself is divided into three very distinct sections, each representing some aspect of the early days of The Hunt and the Healing Church. The first section is an alternate, older version of the city of Yharnam. However, the whole city is a little different, a little changed by the Hunters who lost their minds and became drunk on the blood of monsters. The river that ran through the city and its sewers has here become a river of blood. The weapons found here are much crueler, instead of things like a simple sword or spear, the player finds weapons like a buzz-saw, the severed arm of a monster, and something simply called the “bloodletter.”

The other two areas move away from the bloody bacchanalia of the first section. The second area is the Healing Church’s research hall, where they have been performing human experiments. While obviously still very gruesome this section has more of a gothic horror flavor in comparison to the gory first area. The final area, without giving away too much of the story, is very much an homage to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Both of these sections are very good; they have a strong sense of tone and are nicely distinct from each other. However, neither of them really goes as all-in with its theme as the first section does. Granted, neither is as over the top as that first section, but it is kind of a letdown after leading with an area that introduced so many new items to support its tone.

None of these three areas is particularly large. They all seem to be much smaller than most of the areas in the base game. They will, however, likely take the player much longer to get through than their size would suggest. “The Old Hunters” is even more of a meat grinder than the original base “Bloodborne.” The enemies and bosses are stronger than those of the main game, and often much more densely packed together. “The Old Hunters” is definitely meant to be played toward the end of your playthrough of “Bloodborne” but the increase in difficulty may be tiresome even if you’re a devoted fan.

At $20, “The Old Hunters” is a little pricey for the amount of new content it actually brings to the table. Between the price and the difficulty, this expansion pack is definitely not for everyone. If you loved “Bloodborne” and just cannot get enough, then you will likely love “The Old Hunters” just as much. However, if you’re a more casual fan, you might be better off saving your money.