Bloodborne Gun-Only Run Videos

Shigeru Miyamoto has really outdone himself this time.

This is gonna be a quick post with a few videos of what a gun-only run looks like. As far as stats go, only two really matter: Vitality for HP and Bloodtinge for gun damage.

It was a very interesting run to say the least. No weapons allowed, only guns. Thing is, in a normal game, guns are basically used defensively for push-back / stuns, and do very little damage. As a result, in this challenge you start out extremely weak in terms of damage output. However, by the end of the game you're completely overpowered. It's sorta like doing a solo Black Belt challenge in the original Final Fantasy in that regard.

Cleric Beast - The first boss was also the first major challenge for a gun-only run. The key was to farm Blood Vials and ammo from the dark interior room near the Central Yharnam lamp. Lots...and lots of Blood Vials and ammo. You're pretty much reliant on punching yourself to generate phantom ammo so you don't burn through your actual ammo, and that means lots of healing needed.

Spending millions of souls - This was a fun little video. Once I got to where I could create my own chalice, the challenge got WAY easier, as I was able to quickly farm experience to level up.

Before this, the toughest fight BY FAR was the Blood-Starved Beast (3rd boss). For whatever reason it annihilated the first two bosses (who I normally have a little more difficulty with). I spent hours on that one fight, probably 3-4 hours out of the 18 hours total that this run took.

Well, I suppose I could have bought that one key for 10,000 souls and skipped it...

Cainhurst Castle is stunning, and it's amazing to me that they made this area completely optional.

The outside area of the castle. In this Gun-Only Run I generally avoided any and all optional areas...with the exception of this one. A) Because I love this area and B) Because I needed the Evelyn gun from here. It is easily the gun of choice for this run, and helps make the second half much easier than the first half. I basically went Hunter Pistol -> Repeating Pistol -> Evelyn in terms of weapon progression.

Cainhurst-in-Evermore: Adding Secret of Evermore music to Cainhurst Castle to good effect.

Another fun thing about this run was trying on different dresses. In the past I generally stuck to the Crow Garb as far as equipment/look goes, because it's so badass in a plague doctor sort of way.

By the time the game world turned to night, I was pretty well overpowered. Aside from leveling Bloodtinge way up, the key to victory is to get your weapons forged up. Evelyn should be +10 by the final area. I wouldn't get the Hunter Pistol higher than +3 or the Repeating Pistol higher than +6 before then because conserving upgrade materials is important.

The One Reborn: John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the scarier fights in the game...and also one of the easiest with this build. By this point I was getting somewhat OP, and completely lit him up with Bone Marrow Ash bullets and Evelyn +9.

Amygdala is an optional boss, and the only optional boss I fought. It was an accident that I stumbled into its lair.

By now I was SUPER overpowered. Behold how I absolutely annihilate this fight. Like I said, you go from pathetic to fully OP over the course of this run, like a Black Belt solo run. It's a total seesaw of power balance.

As the game drew to a close, I faced off with Micolash inside of the nightmare. This fight is normally a total hassle since you have to chase him around and try to corner him for melee attacks. Not in this game, as I simply blasted him.

You also get to pilfer his helmet at the end. Nice. It was great to just obliterate this guy after he jumped down, after all the times I had frustrating battles with him in the past.

Mergo's Wet Nurse is the creepiest fight in the game, with all of the chimes and baby noises in the background. One of the most visually-impressive fights in the game, too.

The actual fight wasn't bad at all, though certainly worse than Micolash. Really something to behold though.

Finally we get to the final boss, which took notes from the final battle of Metal Gear Solid 3 by taking place in a field of flowers.

Here's the final boss fight. As OP as I was at this point, this fight still posed some challenge. The final boss loves range attacks.

At the end of the day I'd say that this range-based run turned out to be easier than a standard run of the game, and pretty fun to boot. However you definitely need to do it the "right" way, and the early sections of the game are a real trial. Also, I didn't get too into any optional stuff, so I don't know how this build would fare against "uberbosses" like Ebrietas: Daughter of the Cosmos, or the super-tough DLC bosses.

If you want to see more of this gun-run, here's nearly a half hour of unedited gameplay footage from the run. Featuring the Shadows of Yharnam fight and Rom the Vacuous Spider.