A lot of people want a Bloodborne remake. A lot of people have, over the years, very vocally begged for a Bloodborne remake. A lot of people cook up conspiracy theories on the regular, latching on to the slightest of hints and generally getting very worked up to cope with the fact that, as far as we know, there is no Bloodborne remake on the way.
From the headline, you probably think I am one of these people. You have already scrolled to the comment section and typed COPIUM, with your mouse pointer hovered over the little button with the paper airplane on it, ready to send it.
Joke’s on you: I’ve never played Bloodborne. In fact, I’ve never played any of FromSoftware’s games, despite many of my friends begging me to do so, or to at least watch them play it when we hang out. I’m immune to your accusations of copium, because this is not my circus, and these are not my demonic, ugly monkeys.
Visions Of Joy… But Be Wary Of Suffering
Accusations of cope out of the way, let’s look at what’s been going on in the world of Bloodborne IP. In the last week alone, two Bloodborne fan projects have been hit by Sony with DMCA takedowns.
The first, and perhaps more persuasive, piece of evidence, is that a mod that made the game playable in 60fps was taken down at Sony’s behest. The patch, which allowed players with a modified PlayStation 4 and a backed-up copy of Bloodborne to play at a higher frame rate, was released a whopping four years ago, which prompts me to wonder why now, when the popular patch has already been around for so long.
The patch has already been uploaded to Nexus Mods by someone who isn’t the original creator. Posts on the mod are largely deriding Sony’s choice to issue a takedown notice. Most of them have curse words.
Naturally, the speculation here is that the notice was issued now because Bloodborne is going to get a remake, remaster, port, or patch that allows players to reach 60fps, and it wants to make sure that this option isn’t available externally.
The second DMCA notice issued this week was to a PSX demake of the game, as well as an old video about it. The demake, which was released on Itch.io three years ago, is about five hours long, adds some new content, and reimagines parts of the original game. Former TheGamer editor Issy van der Velde played and loved it. The game’s page now links to a DMCA notice and states, “This game’s files have been suspended for copyright (or trademark) claim.”
These consecutive takedowns led to the creator of the 60fps mod, Lance McDonald, coming up with what he called a “copium theory”: “Sony DMCAed the 60fps patch and the video about the Bloodborne demake so that when they announce a 60fps remake, Google searching for ‘Bloodborne 60fps’ and ‘Bloodborne remake’ won’t have collisions with our fan projects”.
This same modder said in 2021 that he had spoken to developers rumoured to be involved in a Bloodborne remaster and confirmed that, at least at that time, he was told Bluepoint wasn’t working on the project. Take that how you will.
Is This Copium Or Evidence?
The thing is, I don’t think this is necessarily a copium theory. Bloodborne turns ten years old in March, and if you’ve seen a calendar recently, you might have realised that’s next month. The evidence is piling up. The timing and the two takedowns of old projects with suspiciously SEO-focused names in quick succession do indicate that at the very least, we might be seeing an announcement.
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Of course, it’s also worth noting that former Sony Interactive Entertainment president Shuhei Yoshida has said that the reason we haven’t seen a remaster yet is because the game’s creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, is too busy, and because he loved the game so much, he “doesn’t want anyone else to touch it”. But then again, Miyazaki himself said that this is a guess because he “left first-party so has no idea what is actually going on”, so we shouldn’t take this as the gospel truth.
I don’t think this is intentional misdirection. Yoshida said this just last month, and he didn’t say that he doesn’t know if there’s a remaster in the works, only why he suspects there hasn’t been one announced yet. It’s also not entirely unusual for Sony to go after fan projects, like the aforementioned Nightmare Kart.
But man, the timing really does seem to be lining up. PlayStation has been really leaning into the PC release and remake/remaster strategy, and FromSoftware’s games are in such high demand that it feels like the company is just throwing money away by not doing so – it’s not just Bloodborne missing out either. It’s a guaranteed moneymaker.
We’ve seen hints of a remake announcement before, and obviously, none of them have been true… yet. The timing might be right, the logic might be there, and the evidence is adding up, but I don’t know – maybe this really is just another disappointment waiting to happen. Not for me though, I don’t personally care. Some of you guys might be crashing out right now, though.
- Released
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March 24, 2015
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Violence
- Developer(s)
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From Software
- Genres
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