Bloodborne is celebrating its 10-year anniversary today, March 24, 2025. Below, we reexamine the divisive Chalice Dungeons, which have aged more gracefully in light of Elden Ring.
Ten years after release, it’s fair to say that Bloodborne is considered one of the greatest PlayStation games of all time. From its nightmarish late-gate dreamscapes to its haunting enemy design, every facet of its Lovecraftian world has been dissected and torn apart by thousands of fawning YouTube videos. Still, there’s one aspect of Bloodborne that’s considered underwhelming by almost everyone: its Chalice Dungeons, an entire ecosystem of optional procedurally generated content that some players don’t even touch.
And while the Chalice Dungeons certainly do have their problems, on balance, they’re an innovative addition to the Souls formula that prefigured the sprawling side catacombs and underground gaols of Elden Ring. Considering that all of us Yharnamites are still waiting for a hypothetical Bloodborne 2 with bated breath all these years later, perhaps it’s time for us to revisit this underappreciated aspect of the game with fresh eyes. We can approach it not as merely something that’s good or bad, but as a system that simply provides more Bloodborne to those of us who still haven’t had our fill more than a decade later.
For those needing a refresher, Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons are randomly generated labyrinths meant to represent the cursed underground beneath the city of Yharnam. To access your first, you must slay the optional boss Blood-Starved Beast in Old Yharnam, which drops the Pthumeru Chalice as a reward. From there, you collect more ritual materials and chalices by defeating bosses within the confines of these dungeons. You slowly work your way into more challenging corridors until you’re fighting even tougher versions of already-stout foes you struggled with in the main campaign.
You don’t have to look far to find people citing Chalice Dungeons as one of Bloodborne’s only flaws. Like the Covenants system in Dark Souls 1, when you examine these randomized dungeons under a microscope, you might wonder if From Software wanted to spend a bit more time refining their formula.
These dungeons tend to be dark, cramped, and confusing in layout, and it can sometimes be difficult to figure out the right path through, and not always in a satisfying way. Perhaps the biggest problem with Chalice Dungeons is that your main reward for completing them is… more Chalice Dungeons, especially early on. The baroque treasure rooms and massive chests you get for beating these bosses become a bit underwhelming when you realize that they tend to drop the same ritual materials you need to advance further down each chalice spoke. When you consider that most players trudging their way through these dungeons are likely just doing it to get the Platinum Trophy, it’s understandable that they might complain about their shortcomings.
However, far from just a vestigial part of the game, Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons are surprisingly refined when viewed from a broader perspective. For those of us who have played our favorite Lovecraftian action game dozens of times, these randomized bits of content have the potential to surprise and challenge you. Some of Bloodborne’s best and most memorable boss fights require you to delve into the Chalice Dungeons, including Watchdog of the Old Lords, Bloodletting Beast, Abhorrent Beast, and, of course, the Pthumerian Queen. Those who delight in the game’s lore will find much to dig into down here, from the item descriptions of uncommon drops to unseen interactions between lesser-known enemies.
The mobs that you find in the higher-level dungeons are also quite tough at times, and they’re capable of tearing even quite experienced players apart, especially if you aren’t careful about pulling them one by one. Foes that never put up even a remote challenge in the base game can become mighty killers in a dice-rolled dungeon, and you might even run into rare variants that few have ever seen, including bosses roaming around as regular enemies. When you add in the optional Fetid, Rotten, Cursed, and Sinister Rites, which dial up the challenge even further–especially Cursed, since it halves your health–these labyrinths have the potential to push you to your limit.
One of the key reasons that Chalice Dungeons remain underappreciated even today is that it can be difficult to understand how to get the most out of them without consulting online guides. The key thing to know is that the base dungeons you must complete to get to the Pthumerian Queen are static, and generally do not feature the copious rewards that you can get from Depth 5 Chalices, which are the hardest in the game. In order to get that loot, you must obtain the Root Chalices from completing the static content and use them to randomly generate new dungeons.
Root Chalice Dungeons contain the best loot in Bloodborne, including Lost and Uncanny versions of weapons (which are often needed for optimal builds), top-line Caryll Runes, powerful Blood Gems, and high-end ore for upgrading weapons, including the all-important Blood Rock. All of these add up to big differences in your character’s power level. You can also use the “glyph codes” generated by the Bloodborne community to enter instances that are guaranteed to drop the loot you need, but where’s the fun in that? These challenging bits of content require every bit of skill and finesse that you’ve gathered from your time as a Hunter, and if they get too intense, they offer an opportunity to co-op with your friends–a rarity in the game.
Bloodborne is sometimes dinged by fans for not offering enough content or replayability when compared to the Souls series. If you’re willing to change your perspective and adopt a dungeon-diving attitude, Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons offer reams of content to dig through: enough to rival even Elden Ring. It’s curious that From Software has yet to revisit this system in the 10 years since the game’s release, but given that the upcoming Elden Ring: Nightreign has adopted a roguelike structure, perhaps it’s the unlikely progeny of Bloodborne’s most underappreciated system.
So the next time you revisit Bloodborne and you groan at the thought of revisiting the Chalice Dungeons, consider giving them a chance. Why not pour a few hours into these random seeds for a chance to create your most powerful build ever? While they can’t compare to the game’s actual levels, they’re an interesting experiment that provide that extra drip feed of content for a game that still hasn’t received the sequel it so richly deserves. Until then, these dice-rolled corridors are the best we’ve got.