10 Video Games That Completely Switched Genre Halfway Through

FromSoftware's Bloodborne is an interesting example because it's a game that rather sneakily slinks between two different types of subgenre.

The game kicks off as card-carrying gothic horror, defined by distinctive Victorian architecture in the city of Yharnam, where players spend their time battling citizens who have been transformed into bestial creatures by a blood-borne disease.

There are suggestions that more is afoot than a mere blood plague, and at the game's mid-way point you arrive at Byrgenwerth, where it abruptly and jarringly shifts into Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Here it's revealed that the source of Yharnam's blood plague is the Great Ones, a race of ultra-powerful, inter-dimensional beings who exert considerable influence over humanity.

This revelation changes the entire tone of the game, and while you end up battling the Great Ones and their kin from this point, the shift from gothic to cosmic horror is impressively gradual leading up to your arrival in Byrgenwerth.

A more subtle switching-up of genres than any other game on this list, it remains one of FromSoftware's most impressive sleights of hand to date.