Editorial: Greatest Encounters in Gaming – Ludwig. the Accursed

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

As I primarily play games for their stories, lore, and immersive ambiance, I have decided to delve into specific gaming encounters, such as boss fights, events, or other memorable moments.

I’d like to kick off this series by discussing one of my favorite bosses, lore-wise, in the Souls Series – Ludwig, the Accursed.

I have a feeling there will be several bosses from the Souls Series included here, but I’d like to start with Ludwig. I feel that Ludwig perfectly personifies the game world of Bloodborne and its lore.

A great boss not only tells a story through cutscenes but also demonstrates its quality through its mechanics. This is something Miyazaki has perfected in the Souls games. I honestly didn’t expect such excellence from the first boss of The Old Hunters DLC. It completely blew my mind, and I still get a bit emotional when I think about it. Let’s give some context for Ludwig and why he’s such a good boss.

The world of Bloodborne is in chaos. The scholars of Bergenwerth and other academic institutions discovered ancient blood beneath the city of Yharnam. The church believed that this blood had incredible benefits when transfused into people’s bodies through Blood Ministration. However, this blood was cursed, diluted, and corrupt, leading to the scourge of the beasts. Men became addicted to the blood and transformed into monstrous beasts themselves. They lurked in the night, killing indiscriminately and reproducing their kind.

The establishment of the Healing Church Hunters was the result of this. Among them, Ludwig was revered as the Founder, the most honorable and devout. He not only used his influence for good but also possessed a legendary weapon known as The Holy Moonlight Sword, a recurring legendary weapon in FromSoftware games. By gazing into the blade and communing with the celestial beings of light surrounding it, he received guidance, leading the hunters to great prosperity. The sword allowed him to directly communicate with the cosmos.

After hunting for a long time, Ludwig fell victim to the bloodlust and turned into a beast himself, causing senseless death and killing beasts, hunters, and innocent people alike. Because of his bloodlust, he was banished to the purgatory known as the Hunter’s Nightmare after his death. He killed so many that the riverbank in the Hunter’s Nightmare is entirely filled with the blood of his victims.

There is a corpse, a bloody skeleton of a person kept alive by pure stress, fear, and terror. You speak to it when you enter the charnel house of Ludwig.

“Ahh, ahh, please… help us… Ah…

An unsightly beast…

A great terror looms!

Ahh… Ludwig the Accursed is coming.

Have mercy… Have mercy upon us…”

Ludwig attacks like a Feral Beast, tearing and clawing at you. He is a giant foul beast that no longer resembles a man. The fight requires razor-sharp dodging and managing his wild, frenzied strikes. When you do enough damage to him, he hits the ground and looks at the Holy Moonlight Sword with his remaining eye wild. This is perhaps one of my favorite moments in Bloodborne. His now human eye takes in the beautiful glowing sword with tiny beings of cosmos dancing around the blade, leading him to personal salvation, and he remembers who he is. He remembers his glory, his honor, and his humanity. He speaks aloud:

“Ahh, you were at my side, all along.

My true mentor…

My guiding moonlight…”

He grips the sword in his hands and faces you as a man, not a monster. He wants the honor of dying in battle to a Hunter. His fighting style entirely changes – precise, fierce strokes from the colossal blade show what a master swordsman he once was. He has an attack that fills the dank, corpse-filled room with light, which can one-shot the unprepared. It feels utterly majestic and powerful, even though he is a shadow of his former self.

Let’s discuss how this change is reflected in the stats. In his first phase, when he was classified as a Beast, Serrated weapons dealt extra damage to him. However, in his second phase, this is no longer the case because he’s no longer considered a beast, despite his monstrous form; he has regained his heart and his mind. This is Ludwig, the founder of the Healing Church Workshop, and the first and the greatest of the Hunters.

The boss is incredibly difficult, with unpredictable, beast-like movements in the first phase and a significant change in the second phase. However, defeating the boss is a powerful and emotional experience. It feels like a collaborative effort in the end. Initially, it feels like defeating a wild beast, but at the end, it feels like a poignant duel between two masters, allowing the boss to earn an honorable death after years of being trapped in his own personal nightmare.

The way you defeat Ludwig in Bloodborne makes a difference. If you stagger him and finish him with a visceral attack (critical hit), he has a different dying animation than if you use normal attacks. This is considered as giving him an honorable death, almost feeling like granting him the seppuku of a warrior.

At the end, his body collapses and disintegrates, leaving only his head. If you’re wearing a Church Hunter outfit, his head speaks to you.

“Good hunter, have you seen the thread of light?

Just a hair, a fleeting thing, yet I clung to it, steeped as I was in the stench of blood and beasts.

I never wanted to know, what it really was. Really, I didn’t…”

Tell me, Good Hunter of the Church.

Have you seen the light?

Are my Church Hunters the honorable Spartans I hoped they would be?”

You can tell him the truth. That the hunters are lost and commit more slaughter than the beasts – that his noble band of proud hunters who genuinely gave their lives to save the world are no more – all succumbed to the curse. As he dies in despair, he asks the sky “Does the Nightmare ever end?!”

But I can never do it. He sacrificed everything to save the world, and his madness is not his fault. In this wretched purgatory, I can release him with a lie.

And so I do.

 Though his monstrous jaws cannot smile – I can hear it in his voice nonetheless…

“Ah, good…that is a relief.

To know I did not suffer such denigration for nothing.

Thank you kindly. Now I may sleep in peace.

Even in this darkest of nights, I see… the moonlight…”

Bloodborne Game Information

• Price: $19.99 (Standard Edition), $34.99 (Complete Edition)
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Developer: FromSoftware
• Director: Hidetaka Miyazaki
• Composer(s): Ryan Amon, Tsukasa Saitoh, Yuka Kitamura, Nobuyoshi Suzuki, Cris Velasco, Michael Wandmacher
• Platform: Sony PlayStation 4

Buy Bloodborne PS4 from Playstation Store: Link

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