Lance McDonald, the creator of a Bloodborne mod that makes the game run at 60fps, has been hit with a DMCA by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Combined with a similar DMCA striking down a YouTube video promoting a PSX “demake” of the game, McDonald speculates that the reaction from Sony is in response to a Bloodborne remake being in development.
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As showcased in a 2020 video, McDonald’s patch enabled Bloodborne to run at 60fps on the PlayStation 4 Pro running in Boost Mode. The mod would be fully released the year after. Fast forward to January 31st 2025, and McDonald released a stilted tweet revealing the mod had been taken down due to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act request.
“On February 21st, 2021, I created and released a patch for Bloodborne which makes the game run at 60fps. Today I received a DMCA takedown notification on behalf of Sony Interactive Entertainment asking that I remove links to the patch I posted on the internet, so I’ve now done so,” McDonald explained.
In subsequent tweets, McDonald then linked to the aforementioned video, and to an older tweet from October 2024. Back then, he showed Sony at one time may have not had issues with his mod, or at least not the then-President of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida.
“I met @yosp [Yoshida] and said to him ‘I make mods for PlayStation games’ and he said ‘oh!’. And I said ‘I made the 60fps mod for bloodborne‘ and he laughed so hard. Beautiful to meet him, such a wonderful person,” McDonald praised.
Yoshida would retire from Sony on January 15th, 2025, just over two weeks before the mod would be taken down.
Along with condemnation, other X users speculated the DMCA was due to Sony working on a Bloodborne remake or PC port with enhanced graphics and performance. A separate DMCA request on another fan project didn’t help quell that speculation.
Lilith Walther (@b0tster on X), the creator of Nightmare Kart (originally a Bloodborne racing fan-game), utilized similar retro-style graphics for Bloodborne PSX– a fan-game as though Bloodborne had a “demake” for the original PlayStation console. Walther was hit with a DMCA on the YouTube video promoting it, despite having launched in 2022 and other videos on her channel remaining unscathed.
Though Walther’s initial tweet is now deleted, it seems the takedown occurred around February 3rd, three days after the 60fps mod was taken down.
McDonald was aghast at two unrelated fan projects being struck down in such a short period of time. “DMCAed my page about the Bloodborne 60fps patch. And now they’ve DMCAed an old video about the Bloodboren [sic] PSX demake project. That’s pretty wild. What the hell are they doing??”
McDonald provided his own theory on why Sony had joined the hunt against their own fans, though admittedly it was born (Bloodborne?) of hope something good would come of it.
“My copium theory is that 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. Let me cope,” McDonald teased.
Sony’s efforts may extend beyond optimizing search engine results, as McDonald theorized the legal issues it could cause. “Like if they plan on trademarking ‘bloodborne 60fps’ and ‘Bloodborne remake’ they need to actually clean up in order to actually file a trademark request. Right??”
The proposal has precedent, as fan-game AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) received a DMCA a year prior to Nintendo releasing their own Metroid II remake – Metroid: Samus Returns.
If McDonald’s idea wasn’t supported before, it was in the few days after the Bloodborne Demake video was taken down. On February 6th, Walther revealed the game needed to be taken down.
“I have been provided with evidence that MarkScan is working under Sony to issue a legitimate DMCA takedown on my video. Its now known that the issue was not on the video itself, but the download link in the description. As such, the download link for bbpsx is now removed,” Walther announced.
Walther later added that she would comply, and the game would not be available in the future. Nonetheless, Nightmare Kart would remain fine – announcing its The Old Karts free expansion the day before.
McDonald expanded on whether Sony had the right to take down fan projects like this.
“A lot of people are yelling about Sony’s DMCA claims being illegitimate. You’re right, they are. They won’t hold up in court at all. But they’re a light-touch method of letting us know they don’t want us using their Bloodborne trademark to promote 60fps or fan-remakes right now,” McDonald defended.
“I think that’s super interesting. But if nothing actually comes of it, I’ll just furrow my brow and be like ‘so what the heck was that about then?’,” McDonald predicted.
Bloodborne launched in 2015, and remains available exclusively on PlayStation 4. It’s the one FromSoftware title that fans have hoped would come to more devices, with Yoshida revealing in an interview Sony knows how much people want it.
Speaking to Kinda Funny after his retirement, Yoshida admitted “Bloodborne has always been the most asked thing, and people wonder why we haven’t really done anything- even like an update, or a remaster. Should be easy, right? C’mon, the company is known for doing so many remasters, right? Some people get frustrated.”
“I have only my personal theory to that situation,” Yoshida prefaced. “You know I left first-party so I don’t know what’s going on, but my theory is- you know because I remember- you know [Director Hidetaka] Miyazaki-san really, really loved Bloodborne, you know, what he created.
“So I think he is interested, but he’s so successful, and he’s so busy, so he doesn’t want- he cannot do himself, but he does not want anyone else to touch it. So that’s my theory. And the PlayStation team, respect his wish. So that’s my guess, right? Theory. I am not revealing any secret information, to be clear,” Yoshida emphasized.
Miyazaki last worked on Elden Ring‘s Shadow of the Erde Tree DLC (launched last year). The stand-alone Elden Ring Nightreign is being directed by Junya Ishizaki. Speculating just what Miyazaki is working on may be difficult, apart from him becoming a father for the second time in 2024.
It should be noted that PlayStation has announced a surprise State of Play presentation tomorrow, and 2025 is the 10th anniversary of Bloodborne – March 24th being the exact date. Will the hunt be announced then?