Bloodborne was my first (I've since played Demon's Souls, Dark Souls trilogy, Sekiro and now Elden Ring too) and the atmosphere is what drew me in. Sure, the gameplay and the challenge kept me playing, but the atmosphere is what made it special. Over time, as I started to unravel more and more of the lore and storylines, that's what really got me addicted, but that took time. The gameplay alone wasn't enough, I almost gave up on the game initially, but the atmosphere and visual aesthetic really stuck with me. I've since bought a bunch of the art books on ebay too since I just love the Souls and Bloodborne visual design so much.

Now that I'm heavily mentally invested in their games, I am enthralled by their deep yet vague stories, but I'm constantly impressed by the visual creativity and aesthetic sensibilities. That screenshot in the article is incidentally an area I screenshotted myself just yesterday, although mine was more about the shadowy silhouettes of the statues in the foreground (not really shown in the image in the article).