Across the Dark Souls Trilogy and Elden Ring, on occasion, you will find yourself about to deal with a difficult boss fight, or about to embark on a perilous trek through an area. In recognition of this, From Software may provide the player with one, sometimes multiple NPCs, AI controlled characters who are meant to give the player a little bit of a hand. Sometimes, these NPCs fall flat in what they were intended to do. Other times, they go above and beyond, and can even make the player themselves feel like the NPC.

In Bloodborne, the way this is handled is actually pretty thematically unique. These aren’t just random people with quirky names like in Dark Souls 2. They are referred to as ‘Old Hunters’, people who, much like the player, participated in ‘the hunt’ and similarly tried to vanquish and resist the oncoming scourge of beasts. These were people who did it before the Healing Church’s influence grew. It’d be like if you were to start a flag football rec league and saw a flyer up about Tom Brady giving throwing lessons.

Now, gameplay wise, there is no functional difference between the NPCs in this game and any other Soulsborne game. The NPCs are not intended to carry the player, instead to give the player a bit of backup if they’re struggling. Of course, as we’ll soon discuss, there is one Old Hunter in this game who does shatter that mold.

Unfortunately, in this game, NPCs cost precious Insight to summon. On my list of do’s and don’ts for a Bloodborne playthrough, I do encourage caution, especially early game, with Insight expenditure. This did factor into my list. As well, there are not very many Old Hunters in this game in general, so I only opted for a top 5 list, neglecting any sort of a bottom 5. For this list, the particular situation in which an NPC can be summoned for did seriously count. Otherwise, I could have brainlessly slapped Father Gascoigne right at the top and called it a day.

Let’s begin.

Fifth Best – Old Hunter Henryk

On top of having some pretty neat lore and an interesting prerequisite to access him, Henryk can put out some damage and in opportune places. He is a possible summon for the Shadows of Yharnam, which automatically gives him a bump up in usefulness as this is a gank fight where the player can greatly benefit from having some extra hands on deck. Similarly, he can later help when fighting Rom the Vacuous Spider and all of her annoying spider minions… If you decide to forgo an even better NPC for that fight, that is.

Fourth Best – Old Hunter Alfred

There is often beauty in simplicity, and that’s what Alfred brings to the table. He is the closest thing this game has to a Solaire of Astora, as he is unusually friendly, is obsessed with his own personal goal, and can be summoned in a couple of genuinely helpful instances.

The one thing holding this summon back is that, though he can be very useful to newer players in helping fight Cleric Beast and Blood-Starved Beast, these are early game encounters. The player will not have very much Insight. If doing a cooperative playthrough, Alfred becomes much less desirable. His use in helping new players get over a couple of early game humps is what gets him on the list. If Insight was infinite, he would probably be slightly higher up.

Third Best – Valtr, Master of the League/Beast Eater

This NPC gets some big bonus points for a few different things. The first is that this is the only summon in the game who actually gets much, much stronger if the player does his questline ahead of time. If the player does not do his questline, he will be known as “Valtr, Master of the League.” He will still be useful and, even in this state, belongs on this list. But if the player does his questline, his title turns into “Valtr, Beast Eater”, he actually takes his helmet off and, in doing so, becomes much more vicious and tangibly has superior stats to his Master of the League persona.

On top of being strong, Valtr is also opportune. The player won’t get to fight alongside him until they reach the DLC, but when they do, they’ll surely be glad to have his support against Ludwig the Holy Blade and Laurence the First Vicar, two difficult boss fights.

Second Best – Defector Antal

Like with Alfred, Antal does not try to do anything over the top or flashy. He digs his heels in and just fights. That’s exactly what the player needs from him when they go to fight The One Reborn. Smart players will try to take out the bell-bearing women surrounding the boss, but will have trouble doing so with the boss continuously harassing them. Antal can be extremely helpful with this, distracting the boss surprisingly effectively and giving the player all day to eliminate the bell-bearing women around the boss. Most Old Hunters, in fact most NPC summons across Soulsborne in general, will just follow the player around like a stray puppy when summoned. It’s difficult to say if From Software gave Antal smart enough AI to act independently during The One Reborn or not.

In addition to The One Reborn, Antal is a summon for Darkbeast Paarl. This is yet again a great time to have an NPC summon, especially for players tackling this notorious DPS check of a boss a bit earlier than they should to rush for that sweet Bolt Paper.

Honorable Mentions

Father Gascoigne – If you’re reading this and didn’t even know you could summon Gascoigne somewhere, I don’t blame you and that’s almost exactly why I couldn’t put him on the main list. Gascoigne is a bad ass. I mean, you are literally summoning a boss to fight another boss, what’s not to like about that? There are a couple of nagging flaws with this summon, though. He is extremely early game, where the player won’t have much Insight to spare. It’s to the point where the player is almost certain to not even have any Insight when they reach him, thus preventing the player from seeing Gascoigne’s summon sign. He’s also only actually a summon for one boss, the Cleric Beast, where there’s already a perfectly capable summon available. His status as a summon can easily be lost, on accident at that, if the player simply enters Gascoigne’s boss room too. A really powerful, and an incredibly fun summon, but positioned extremely poorly.

Tomb Prospector Olek – Get used to this name if you have aspirations to do the Chalice Dungeons, as per his name, you’ll run into Olek quite frequently. He is an absolute tanking unit, possessing more health than any other NPC summon at his latest summoning stage with a staggering Vitality stat of 65! Sadly, I couldn’t put him on the main list because he has absolutely zero presence outside of the Chalice Dungeons.

Best – Mensis Scholar Damian

I think Damian had a difficult time hearing me earlier when I said NPCs can’t really carry players in this game; he was too busy blasting Rom the Vacuous Spider away with A Call Beyond and his ridiculously random 40 in Arcane he just gets to have. The only bad thing about Damian that can be said is that he uses A Call Beyond and Blacksky Eye to such devastating effect that it will mislead the player into thinking they could possibly wield any form of spell as effectively as he could. I actually genuinely mean that, as Damian can spam these spells in a way the player literally can’t since he has an infinite amount of Quicksilver Bullets. Also, Damian gets his own, improved version of Blacksky Eye for some reason whereupon he can fire two bullets at a time, something the player straight up cannot do.

Earlier, I criticized Father Gascoigne for being incredibly powerful and fun, but being in the wrong place and at a bad time. When summoning Gascoigne, you are literally summoning a boss. As far as Damian goes, he has the exact same capabilities as Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, only he actually can just do things Micolash cannot and actually carries a melee weapon. Micolash is the second to last mandatory boss of this entire game, and Damian is literally Micolash but better. So in terms of summoning a boss, one could argue Damian outperforms Gascoigne, effectively performing as a “Micolash +1”

Damian also appears as a summon for Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos and even has a presence in the Chalice Dungeons too. Is there something this man can’t do? There are actual human players out there who are less helpful than Damian. It’s no wonder Defector Antal and Damian were the only two hunters who survived the School of Mensis.