Book Review: Bloodborne, Vol. 4 - The Veil, Torn Asunder

Madness is a key element of the world of Bloodborne. The plain of inhuman knowledge is governed by ones capacity for Insight. Insight allows one to further explore and perceive elements of the world no normal eye could ever see. The ability to not only see the Inhuman world but to understand it requires so much Insight and even then the chains of insanity will wrap around even the strongest of minds. Baring all of this into consideration, what does the journey of madness in the world of Bloodborne look like? What does the process of witnessing the world of the Great Ones entail? Can one truly hope to understand it or are they forever lost to it's immense complexity? I wish Volume 4 even tried to give you any of those types of answers but sadly this latest entry from Titan Comics work on Bloodborne is easily it's worst.

Released February 4th 2020, the latest volume entry in the Bloodborne series called The Veil, Torn Asunder is an attempt to delve into the cognitive deterioration of ones psyche. As per usual the credits for the comic remain the same. Written by Aleš Kot, illustrated by Piotr Kowalski, colourised by Brad Simpson and Kevin Enhart and lettered by Aditya Bidikar.

What little narrative exists in this entry follows a traveller called Yarem. Who upon his many wanderings, finds himself presently within the city of Yharnam during the peak of it's beastly plague. As the city takes it's toll on Yarem, he soon realises his own perception of reality is crumbing as he approaches true madness. Rather than flee though, Yarem takes the opportunity to dive deeper into this deterioration in order to learn more about the reality of his existence and the boundaries of time and space that are being revealed to him. On this deep journey through his own internal processing Yarem will bear witness to all manner of horrifying visions related to the Great Ones grasp on everything in Yharnam and the traveller must work out the truth of his madness before he succumbs to it fully.

That brief description is far more context than the comic itself even tries to divulge, All of my issues with Volume 1 and 3's abstract storytelling come back in this volume and are dialled up to some obnoxious levels. I get it! Bloodborne works as a video game because its supposed to be abstract, the player was always meant to piece together their own interpretations of what was happening. It doesn't mean this has to be the case in the comic book though, in fact it actively detriments the engagement when you go so hard on vague implications. The reader is relying on the panels to keep them engaged with some semblance of a plot. What we get in this volume is so devoid of any kind of structure or exposition that a lot of that detail I explained just now had to come from a synopsis from Amazon foe goodness sake! For all my issues with Volume 1 and 3 even they had some small semblance of a structure to give a minuscule amount of narrative to follow, it wasn't satisfying but it was a damn sight more than what this volume had.

Even the visuals of this volume aren't enough to keep me engaged this time around. Yarem doesn't have any compelling design behind him so it makes it hard to appreciate following him throughout all of it. There's brief aspects of interesting visuals but they are all underwhelming in comparison to the prior volumes. The comic does a poor attempt into diving into madness too, especially when you just had a far better example with Eileen the Crow in Volume 3. We're four volumes in now and the visuals are starting to lose their ability to be the comics best elements. The only saving grace for this entry is there are at least some larger panels which feel distinctly realised and creepy in their own ways.

The Veil, Torn Asunder is truly the weakest volume out of all the currently released Bloodborne comics. I really wish these writers would wise-up and realise the abstract storytelling is not the way to go here. Bloodborne has a wealth of lore to utilise and explore but you can't do that while choosing to be vague about all of it. Volume 2 showed you could do a brilliant balance of exploring the lore of this world while being a smart and well-layered story. Exploring madness would always be a vague concept I admit but this feels like such a lazy attempt to tie it all together to the video game in a way that just feels disingenuous.