Bloodborne has been haunting PlayStation players for more than a decade, yet it is the seismic success of Elden Ring that has quietly pushed the gothic action RPG to a new sales milestone – reportedly adding another 1.5 million copies on top of its already impressive total. Sony has made millions off this renewed interest, which only makes it more baffling that the publisher refuses to touch the game with a patch, remaster, or PC port.

Bloodborne was, is and will likely remain one of FromSoftware’s defining masterpieces. Released in 2015, the only official way to play it today is still on PlayStation 4, or on PlayStation 5 via backward compatibility, where it runs essentially as the original build. There are no meaningful upgrades, no performance toggle, no current-gen bells and whistles, even though the game has steadily built up a larger and larger fan base over the years. Far from fading away, its influence has only grown, and PlayStation continues to benefit financially from a title that many fans still rank among the best exclusives in the console’s history.

Its twisted Victorian horror setting, faster and more aggressive combat and plague-ridden lore turned Bloodborne into a modern classic, and it is now the go-to recommendation whenever someone asks which PS4-era soulslike they “have to” play. For years, the community has been calling for a 60 fps mode, a PS5 patch or even a full remaster, yet the game remains frozen in time at a locked 30 fps, with only its original PS4 build available. Every new FromSoftware release sends fresh waves of players back to Yharnam, and every time the same frustration resurfaces: Sony has a beloved evergreen hit on its hands, and still chooses not to modernize it.

The launch of Elden Ring made that pattern even more obvious. The explosion of interest in soulslike games did not just benefit the open-world epic; it also drove many newcomers to explore the studio’s back catalog, where Bloodborne stands as one of the brightest stars. According to a new analysis, that halo effect translated into a significant bump in sales, even though the underlying product remains exactly what it was in 2015 – no updates, no new edition, no broader platform strategy.

Bloodborne sales estimate

A recent report from analytics firm Alinea Analytics estimates that Bloodborne has now surpassed 9 million copies sold worldwide. While this is not an official figure, the document suggests that FromSoftware’s soulslike has enjoyed a clear sales surge since the release of Elden Ring. At the beginning of that period, the game was believed to have at around 7.5 million units. Three years later, the estimate has climbed by roughly 1.5 million copies, which is how analysts arrive at that 9 million-plus number.

Analyst Rhys Elliott notes that Bloodborne moved around 400,000 units in the six months following the 2022 Game of the Year awards, when Elden Ring pushed FromSoftware’s entire body of work into the spotlight. Taken together, these figures paint the picture of a strong, slow-burning performer that has generated millions of dollars in revenue for Sony long after its initial launch. That is why many fans find PlayStation’s apparent lack of interest in the IP so confusing: the game is still capped at 30 fps, there is no PS5 performance patch, no remaster on the horizon, and absolutely no sign of an official PC version.

Some in the community speculate that Bloodborne might return as a PlayStation 6 exclusive remake, which would make a certain business sense. Right now, though, it feels like Sony is simply leaving money on the table, because a coordinated re-release – whether a remaster, remake, or straight port – on PC and PS5 would almost certainly be a huge hit. Hidetaka Miyazaki himself has said he would like to see Bloodborne on PC, yet Sony has repeatedly shut down unofficial fan projects related to the game. The end result is a strange contradiction: a classic that continues to sell and shape the soulslike genre, and a platform holder that refuses to fully capitalize on that momentum.

Source: 3djuegos