There are few bosses that could have better primed players for exactly what Bloodborne was ready to dish out than the infamous Father Gascoigne at the end of the introduction area. While he might technically not be the first boss, Gascoigne acts as the first of many major hurdles in Bloodborne that players will have to conquer in order to move on to the rest of the game.
Not only does Father Gascoigne pit the player up against a larger-than-life hunter to give a taste of how powerful they might become later, the game also perfectly rewards exploration with better control of the fight. It's one of the many aspects that still helps to hold Bloodborne up as many players' favorite title under the FromSoftware banner, even after more than seven years.
Bloodborne's First Mandatory Boss
One aspect of Bloodborne's approach to bosses is that many of the strongest enemies that can be faced across the game aren't actually mandatory to reach the end credits. In fact, even the final boss known as the Moon Presence will likely either be skipped or simply missed depending on how well first-time players explore Yharnam. Father Gascoigne being one of the few necessary stops on the list marks this as such a core part of the Bloodborne experience that FromSoftware didn't want players to be able to bypass the encounter.
Interestingly, Father Gascoigne isn't even the first boss that can be encountered in Bloodborne. The Cleric Beast is actually the boss that will more commonly be fought first, but a plot point and red herring in the lore makes this boss optional for the intended path of the game. However, while the Cleric Beast is a simple enough encounter against a giant monster with easy tells and breakable limbs, Father Gascoigne is both mandatory and significantly harder. This all acts as a perfect primer for Bloodborne's city of Yharnam, as the necessary path will be brutally difficult, while side avenues might still grant powerful rewards at each dead end.
Father Gascoigne Rewards Players for Exploring
Tied to Father Gascoigne is one of the saddest quests in Bloodborne. The quest itself includes a lonely girl looking for her mother and father, a music box, and the death of an entire family. However, at the outset of this quest, the player is simply tasked with finding a little girl's mother. They are given a small music box in order to help her father if he starts to "forget his family" while out hunting. This father is, of course, Father Gascoigne himself, and by the end of the quest, players will learn the fate of his wife and his two daughters. Falling perfectly in line with Bloodborne's dark lore, no ending to this quest is pleasant.
Dark lore aside, this music box gifted to the player at the start of the quest actually has a strange use within the game, specifically as a way of controlling the fight against Father Gascoigne. The effect has been used in later FromSoftware games, like Margit's Shackle in Elden Ring, being able to stun a specific boss for a short time and give the player a chance to freely attack. In the case of Father Gascoigne, it won't necessarily stop his current combo or strap him to the ground, but it can cause him to stop attacking for a short time or even skip into later phases early.
Father Gascoigne's Multiple Phase Transitions
Even as recently as Elden Ring, it isn't common for a FromSoftware boss to have more than two phases, with many encounters from earlier games only having one. However, while the developer has since solidified multiple phase bosses as a consistent threat with enemies like Iudex Gundir from Dark Souls 3, Father Gascoigne still breaks from the mold by having three phases. This is so rare among FromSoftware titles, that the next most notable example in Bloodborne alone didn't arrive until the Old Hunters DLC.
The first two phases of the Father Gascoigne fight are hard enough on their own, easily cementing him the right to be one of the most difficult encounters in Bloodborne. He starts by wielding the same Hunters Axe and Blunderbuss that the player could have chosen among the weapons from the first visit to the Hunter's Dream. His second phase is denoted by Gascoigne holding the axe in two hands, giving him stronger attacks and a longer reach, while still being able to instantly fire the shotgun for a quick stagger.
However, it is the third phase where Father Gascoigne perfectly embodies the nightmarish pace of the best Bloodborne bosses. The boss stops for a moment before turning into a beast and forgoing the previous weapons for powerful claws that can destroy the environment as well as the player. This can be devastating because the objects in the environment, mostly tombstones, had previously helped keep the boss at bay when needing to heal or regain stamina. Instead, Gascoigne puts everything on the line to take away every advantage on the field, forcing the player to adapt quickly if they want to uncover the remaining secrets in Yharnam.
Bloodborne is available now for PS4.
