A Theory on Bloodborne's Conceptual Origins
Note: This is a speculative theory based on thematic analysis and circumstantial evidence. There is no official confirmation from FromSoftware that this poem was a foundational inspiration for Bloodborne. However, the parallels are substantial enough to warrant serious consideration.
It is my belief that this poem by Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid may have served as one of the primary conceptual sparks that transformed what was initially planned as Demon's Souls 2 into the distinct entity that became Bloodborne. While there is no official documentation of this connection, the thematic parallels and the known inclusion of other Scottish poetry in the game suggest this is more than coincidence.
Hidetaka Miyazaki has confirmed in interviews that his limited English comprehension when reading Fighting Fantasy gamebooks directly influenced the fragmentary, interpretive storytelling style of the Souls series. Unable to fully understand the text, he filled gaps with imagination—and those gaps became design philosophy.
Applied to poetry: What if a Japanese developer with fragmentary English encountered MacDiarmid's poem and interpreted its metaphors literally?
A native English speaker reads "Edinburgh is a mad god's dream" as poetic metaphor—the city feels dreamlike, surreal, chaotic. But someone reading with limited English might understand it literally: the city IS a dream. The entire structure exists within a dreaming consciousness.
William Ernest Henley's poem "Nocturn" is directly quoted in Bloodborne's DLC within the Research Hall. Henley wrote this poem while hospitalized at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, describing the sound of cisterns dripping—a rhythm that becomes the sonic foundation of Bloodborne's atmosphere.
If FromSoftware used one Scottish poem written about Edinburgh's hospital as direct inspiration, why not two?
"Mad god's dream": The entire framing of Hunter's Dream, Hunter's Nightmare, and dream layers as literal gameplay spaces
"Cleaving to somber heights": The vertical geography of Yharnam, with Cathedral Ward and Upper Cathedral Ward as the city's highest, most significant locations
"Stonily": The petrified beings throughout Yharnam and Old Yharnam—statues that appear to be people frozen in stone. The statues around Byrgenwerth's garden that seem too lifelike to be mere sculptures.
"Earth eyes eternity": The Insight mechanic (developing internal eyes), the Choir's doctrine of elevating consciousness to perceive Great Ones, the literal biological transformation that comes from seeing too much
"Unseizable/wildered": The Forbidden Woods and areas beyond the city—wild, labyrinthine, impossible to fully control or understand
Prague's influence is substantial but appears to be a later addition to the Edinburgh foundation:
Prague adds visual and cultural texture, but Edinburgh provides the thematic skeleton—the medical horror, the hospital poetry, the vertical dream-city reaching toward the cosmos.
Scattered across Yharnam and Old Yharnam are statues that feel too specific, too positioned, too aware to be simple decoration. These appear to be people who gazed too long at eternity—who accumulated too much Insight, who stared at the cosmos until they literally turned to stone.
"Till stonily, from soaring battlements, Earth eyes eternity" becomes the fate of those who see too much: frozen in stone, forever gazing.
The statues in Cainhurst appear more traditionally sculptural, suggesting this petrification may be specifically tied to Yharnam's cosmic exposure rather than a universal phenomenon.
Demon's Souls (2009): Medieval European fantasy, non-specific in its cultural references
Dark Souls (2011): Expanded world, still broadly "European medieval," architecturally eclectic
Bloodborne (2015): Suddenly hyper-specific—Victorian Gothic, Edinburgh medical history, Scottish poetry quoted directly, referencing historical events and practices that clearly tie to 19th century Edinburgh
Something changed between Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The shift from generic European fantasy to specifically Scottish medical Gothic suggests a singular inspiration—a foundational text or image that reoriented the entire project.
"Edinburgh is a mad god's dream" could have been that catalyst. A poem that, when read literally through the lens of fragmentary English comprehension, provided both structure (dream-city) and theme (stone, heights, eyes, eternity).
If you take the poem literally, Yharnam becomes Edinburgh becomes a city existing within a dreaming consciousness—fitful, dark, reaching toward impossible heights, where those who gaze at eternity are frozen in stone.
The Hunter's Dream is not metaphor—it is structural. The entire game takes place within layers of dreaming: the waking world, the Dream, the Nightmare. All of it "a mad god's dream."
And if the city is a dream, then everything that happens within it—the hunt, the transformation, the cosmic horror—is the dream processing itself. Working through its own implications. Trying to wake up.
I cannot prove that Hidetaka Miyazaki or anyone at FromSoftware read Hugh MacDiarmid's "Edinburgh" and used it as Bloodborne's conceptual foundation. There are no developer interviews confirming this. No art books mention it. No official documentation exists.
But the evidence is compelling:
Whether or not this poem was the literal origin, it functions as a perfect encapsulation of what Bloodborne is: a mad god's dream of Edinburgh, where stone heights reach for eternity, where those who gaze too long are frozen, where the city itself is fitful, dark, and unseizable.
And at the soaring battlements, Earth eyes eternity—forever.