Bloodborne Games in Order: Best Play Order, Release Timeline, and Story Chronology

Bloodborne is one of the easiest major action series to place in order because, despite endless sequel rumors and spiritual comparisons to the wider Souls catalog, the official Bloodborne line is still remarkably compact. There is one core game, Bloodborne, released for PlayStation 4 in 2015, and one major expansion, The Old Hunters, released later that same year. That simplicity is exactly why so many players overcomplicate it. They see Yharnam discussed alongside Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and FromSoftware’s other dark fantasy worlds, then assume Bloodborne must have its own sprawling subseries. It does not. If your goal is to experience Bloodborne in the correct order, the answer starts with a useful reset: play the base game first, fold the expansion into the late middle of that run, and do not wait for a nonexistent sequel before jumping in.

As of March 2026, there is still no officially released Bloodborne 2, no separate canon follow-up, and no branching line of side games that must be sorted into a complicated timeline. The main game launched on PS4 in March 2015, and The Old Hunters followed in November 2015. That means the best Bloodborne order is not a debate between ten entries. It is a question of how to experience one of the strongest base-game-and-expansion pairings in modern action RPGs without accidentally missing the expansion, entering it too early, or finishing the campaign in a way that cuts off late-game content.

The official Bloodborne order is shorter than most people expect

The clean release order is this:

1. Bloodborne (base game, 2015)
2. Bloodborne: The Old Hunters (expansion, 2015)

That is the entire official playable line in release order. There are no numbered follow-ups, no prequel game, and no separate canon remake that changes the sequence. For most players, that means the right starting point is also the right release-order path: begin with the base game and stay with that character until the expansion becomes available. The only real decision is when to enter the expansion, not whether the order itself is complicated.

Story order follows the same basic path. The Old Hunters is not a distant sequel set centuries later. It is an expansion that deepens ideas already present in the main story: the Hunters, the Healing Church, the old sins at Byrgenwerth, the violence hidden behind blood ministration, and the cosmic scale of the nightmare. In practical terms, that means story order is also base game first and expansion second, though “second” here means within the same overall playthrough rather than after an entirely separate title.

Why Bloodborne feels bigger than its official series size

People ask for a Bloodborne order because the game feels larger than a one-game franchise. Its setting is dense, its lore is fragmentary by design, and its atmosphere encourages the kind of theory-building usually associated with longer series. Yharnam opens as a gothic plague city haunted by beasts and frightened citizens, but it gradually reveals a deeper structure involving scholars, forbidden knowledge, eldritch beings, ritual experiments, memory, nightmare realms, and inherited guilt. Because the game’s plot unfolds through implication as much as direct explanation, many players come away feeling as if they touched only one chapter of a much larger saga.

That sensation is one of Bloodborne’s strengths, but it also causes confusion. The game belongs to a spiritual family of FromSoftware works that share difficulty, environmental storytelling, cryptic item descriptions, and tragic cyclical worlds. Yet those connections are aesthetic and design-based, not canonical. You do not need to play Demon’s Souls or the Dark Souls trilogy before Bloodborne. They are not part of the Bloodborne timeline. A player coming to Bloodborne for the first time can treat it as a fully self-contained work.

The best play order for most players

For nearly everyone, the best order is:

Play Bloodborne normally until the game opens into its late middle and your build is established.
Enter The Old Hunters before triggering the base game’s final ending sequence.
Return to finish the base game after the expansion.

This is the best path for three reasons. First, the expansion is difficult even by Bloodborne standards. Entering too early can make the opening stretch feel punishing in a way that is more frustrating than exciting. Second, the expansion adds some of the game’s richest lore and best boss encounters, and those moments carry more weight once you already understand the main factions and anxieties of the base game. Third, completing the base game without handling the expansion can push you into a new cycle immediately, depending on how you proceed, which is the easiest way for a first-time player to realize too late that they missed major content.

A good practical rule is to treat The Old Hunters as late-game content rather than post-game cleanup. You want enough levels, weapons, and system knowledge to survive it, but you also want the main campaign’s mysteries fresh in your mind so the expansion’s revelations land with their full force.

What changes when you add The Old Hunters

The Old Hunters is not a small side episode. It changes what Bloodborne feels like as a whole. The base game already suggests that the hunter tradition is soaked in hypocrisy and buried atrocities, but the expansion makes those implications far more concrete. It turns the history of hunters into a wound that will not close. It also sharpens the game’s emotional range. Bloodborne can seem cold from a distance because so many of its characters are doomed or distant, but the expansion introduces some of the game’s deepest notes of pity, remorse, memory, and unending punishment.

Mechanically, the expansion is also where some of Bloodborne’s most inventive weapons, most aggressive encounters, and most memorable boss fights live. That matters for play order because the DLC is not just extra lore for completionists. It is core Bloodborne at its best. Recommending the base game alone would give a new player the right chronology but not the best version of the experience. Recommending the DLC too early would create the opposite problem: correct completeness, poor pacing. The right answer is to integrate it at the moment when your hunter is strong enough and the story is mature enough.

Does story chronology differ from release order?

Not in any meaningful way for a first playthrough. The events of Bloodborne and the revelations inside The Old Hunters are so intertwined that trying to force a separate chronological order only makes the experience clumsier. Some players argue that pieces of the expansion illuminate earlier historical events and therefore should be “understood first,” but that is not how the narrative is designed to work. Bloodborne is built on discovery, misreading, and gradual recontextualization. You are supposed to learn some truths late. Playing the expansion after absorbing the base game’s foundation gives those truths their proper force.

In other words, release order and story order converge. Unlike franchises with prequels that radically change the suggested viewing path, Bloodborne’s expansion is best experienced in the broad order it was made: first the city and its plague, then the deeper nightmare of what hunters and scholars have done.

Should new players do chalice dungeons in a specific place?

The chalice dungeons are optional and should not be treated as mandatory story steps in the main order. They matter for lore, challenge, farming, and certain boss encounters, but they are not required to understand the core campaign. For a first run, it is usually better to engage with them selectively rather than treating them as a parallel campaign you must fully clear between story beats. Their structure is more modular and repetitive than the main world, and forcing them into the “official order” can flatten the stronger pacing of the handcrafted areas.

A sensible approach is to use chalice content when you want more combat, more materials, or more experimentation with your build, while keeping your main attention on Yharnam, the major optional areas, and the DLC. That preserves what Bloodborne does best: building an increasingly uncanny sense of dread through place, not just through systems.

The most common Bloodborne order mistakes

The first mistake is assuming the game needs wider FromSoftware homework. It does not. Playing Dark Souls first may help you understand some design habits, but it is unnecessary for Bloodborne’s story, setting, or mechanical identity. Bloodborne is faster, more aggressive, and more offense-driven than many players expect if they approach it as “Victorian Dark Souls.”

The second mistake is leaving The Old Hunters until after you have already triggered the ending. For many players that means either starting over, moving into a harder cycle, or losing the ideal narrative rhythm.

The third mistake is expecting a big official franchise roadmap that does not exist. Bloodborne’s scarcity is part of its aura. The lack of sequels and ports has made the game feel almost mythic, but from a practical standpoint it means ordering the series is easy.

The best Bloodborne order in one simple recommendation

If you want the shortest correct answer, it is this: play Bloodborne on PS4 first, then play The Old Hunters before finishing your first campaign, and ignore rumors about additional canon entries until Sony or FromSoftware actually announces one. That path preserves release logic, story impact, mechanical pacing, and the strongest version of the game’s emotional arc.

Bloodborne remains unusual because it proves a series page does not need a long list to be useful. Sometimes the most helpful order guide is the one that removes confusion rather than multiplying it. Bloodborne is not a ten-game saga hidden behind cryptic lore. It is one brilliant base game with one essential expansion. When played in that order and at the right point in the run, it feels complete, haunting, and far larger than its official count suggests.

Should you wait for a remaster, remake, or sequel?

For practical play-order purposes, no. Bloodborne has spent years surrounded by rumors about ports, remasters, performance patches, and sequels, but rumors do not create an order. If a player keeps waiting for the “right future edition,” the result is often that one of the best action RPGs ever made simply remains unplayed. The correct Bloodborne order is based on released material, not speculation. Right now that means the PS4 game and its expansion.

This matters because order guides are supposed to reduce decision fatigue. A lot of Bloodborne anxiety comes from players worrying that they are about to enter an incomplete or outdated version of the experience. In reality, the existing version is the experience that built the game’s reputation. Its atmosphere, combat tempo, weapon design, boss encounters, and oppressive dream logic are all intact. A future reissue could make access easier, but it would not change the fact that Bloodborne’s canonical line remains compact and easy to follow.

The best order for different kinds of players

A completely new FromSoftware player should stick to the simplest path: base game first, DLC late in the first run, no detours into series comparison. A player who already loves Souls games can do the same but may want to experiment more with chalices or optional side areas. A lore-focused player should be especially careful not to leave The Old Hunters until after the ending, because so much of the game’s thematic weight gathers there. And a returning player who already finished the base game years ago will often get the most out of a fresh run rather than trying to remember an old save and rush the DLC.

Those distinctions are minor compared with the larger point: every sensible route still circles back to the same official order. Bloodborne looks mysterious because its world is mysterious. Its release path is not. One game, one expansion, played in that sequence, remains the clean answer.

Readers who want broader context can browse the Video Games Guide: Reviews | Walkthroughs | Franchises | Platforms | and Releases or the Walkthroughs and Guides Guide: Deep Dives | Explanations | and Best Starting Points. For lore-focused follow-up pages, see Bloodborne Ending Explained: What the Ending Means and What Happens Next and Bloodborne Story Guide: Main Characters | Arcs | and What the Series Is About.