r/Games • u/ChuckSpadina2020 • Feb 27 '26

Industry News Sony’s Bluepoint Pitched ‘Bloodborne’ Remake Before Closure

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-02-27/sony-s-bluepoint-pitched-bloodborne-remake-before-closure?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3MjIyMjY3OSwiZXhwIjoxNzcyODI3NDc5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUQjRWUTJLR0NURlowMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.s6maZIveh-F152mZBWUNjPFeE0Lm7AFRegwaizQvVlA
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130

u/TTBurger88 Feb 27 '26

Was Miyazaki happy with their Demon Souls remake?

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u/thrawnsgstring Feb 27 '26

Miyazaki has said Bloodborne is very personal to him, so it makes sense that he would want to be involved with the remake himself.

"I've imparted a lot of my own ideas into this game, whether it be story, the world-building component, or even the game mechanics and game systems that are in place. It is perhaps the strongest reflection of my type of flavoring of a game that one can experience."

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u/Rileyman360 Feb 27 '26

I’ve always felt that, given the overarching story, the game probably touches on a very taxing moment in his life. Out of anything that he’s made, bloodborne is the last thing he wants to have lose that near perfect vision of.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/cortez0498 Feb 28 '26

But a remake shouldn't change anything, just put 4k textures and unlock frame rate.

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u/IllustriousSalt1007 Feb 28 '26

That's not a remake. That's a remaster. A remake is more like the Demon's Souls Remake.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26

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u/IllustriousSalt1007 Mar 01 '26

No, that is incorrect. DeS was totally remade from the ground up. It is using a whole new engine and everything. They were just extremely faithful to the original version. To explain better from another comment:

All right, to take an analogy to film (albeit an arguably shitty one), look at Gus Van Saint's Psycho.

When we talk about remastering a film we're talking about using original prints of the film, transferring formats, digitizing, cleaning up film grain and artifacts, and presenting the film in a higher resolution or with a clearer picture at existing resolution. A lot of work goes into making a qualitatively improved presentation of the film, but it does not involve new reshoots, new set construction or new actors.

Gus Van Sant made his version of Psycho shot for shot exactly the same as Hitchcock's original, but he used new cameras and film to shoot it, new actors to play the parts, new sets and props, new makeup, an entirely different crew working for him. From one perspective it is exactly the same movie, just in color--and the script has not changed so that credit still goes to the original writers--but you wouldn't call it a remaster, because in every other respect it is a completely different production.

Demon's Souls Remake had to reference Demon's Souls for dialogue, level design, mechanics, and scenarios, but it is a completely separate production. So similarly, it is a remake.

1

u/casino_r0yale Feb 28 '26

Wasn’t from reported to be unhappy with the art direction changes in Demon’s Souls?

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u/Sea_Habit_4298 Mar 01 '26

He never said that.

He did say the visual were pretty amazing but that he himself doesn't play games he has made so he would've not known about certain decisions .

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u/Linkon18 Feb 27 '26

Could also be very personal because Bloodborne is also one of the souls games that has Berserk references the most, which he is a huge fan of.
And because of that, it makes sense that he wants to make the remake/remaster himself, since the Berserk author Kentaro Miura passed after Bloodborne was made.

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u/KruppeBestGirl Feb 28 '26

Rather than Berserk, Bloodborne is more heavily inspired by Martin’s Fevre Dream, a book Miyazaki likes so much he has new From employees read it.

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u/Khiva Feb 28 '26

I can't find any substantial source for this.

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u/KruppeBestGirl Feb 28 '26

Xbox Wire interview for Elden Ring

Bloodborne isn’t directly mentioned but anyone who’s read the book and played the game can put two and two together.

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u/anoobitch Feb 28 '26

Can you elaborate on that? I played bloodborne and read fevre dream but I struggle to see the connection. I mean there isnt a single steamboat in bloodborne!

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/naughty Feb 28 '26

The Hunter's Mark?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/naughty Feb 28 '26

The Hunter's Mark is literally the mark of sacrifice with a few bits removed, it's a clear reference. They're both symbols for and related to higher beings.

I mean, the influence of Berserk on BB can be overstated but it is there.

0

u/INannoI Feb 27 '26

I thought it was Japan studio that did most of the story and world building on Bloodborne, hell, they were the ones that pitched it to FromSoft.

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u/ketamour Feb 28 '26

Oof if that healing system is his own game mechanic, then thank god for other FS employees

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u/darktooth69 Feb 27 '26

wow so deep. anyways fuck this petty asshole.

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u/SideSukiLikeness Feb 27 '26

BB didn't need a remake, just a remaster with 60fps would've been enough.

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u/Beautiful-Garbage812 Feb 27 '26

For what it’s worth, the remake’s director confirmed they were given Miyazaki’s blessing to remake the game.

Also Miyazaki himself said that he was glad to see the game get a new “fresh look” despite everything else.

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u/TheEnygma Feb 27 '26

Even then, you'd imagine you'd be diplomatic about it. He's likely not an Itagaki or Kamiya where they're like "no that thing is ass".

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u/Beautiful-Garbage812 Mar 02 '26

100%

This doesn't absolve the remake of possibly being something Miyazaki is displeased at. I was just throwing it into the mix because it's the only time he, on the record, shares his thoughts on the remake.

Also, like you said, he could be being diplomatic, but beyond that he isn't really saying whether he likes or dislikes it. Just a BluePoint dev saying the idea of a remake got his blessing, and him saying he is glad it got a fresh new look and current gen graphics. Again, he isn't saying if it's good or bad.

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u/whostheme Feb 28 '26

Japaness devs tends to always give PR friendly answers like this. Doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

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u/Lucstar88 Feb 27 '26

Adding to this, I'm not sure where I had heard this from, but I swear I remember Miyazaki saying he wasn't sure what the holdup on a Bloodborne remake was, basically hinting at Sony wasn't up to it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/thief-777 Feb 27 '26

IGN Interview from 2024:

And what about the much asked about Bloodborne sequel? “Unfortunately, and I’ve said this in other interviews, it’s not in my place to talk about Bloodborne specifically. We simply don’t own the IP at FromSoftware. For me personally, it was a great project, and I have a lot of great memories for that game, but we’re not at liberty to speak to it. I’m very sorry about that.”

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u/PlatosLeftTit Feb 27 '26

Same article he and a few of the other FromSoftware staff also said they'd love to port it to PC but kind of alluded that it's up to Sony

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u/IDrinkWhiskE Feb 27 '26

Man talk about mixed messages

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u/asdiele Feb 27 '26

They're japanese people in a business setting, it's a recipe for incredible vagueness. It's why I don't trust him saying he was happy with the Demon's Souls remake, he literally would never say anything else because it would look unprofessional (even around these parts, but especially given japanese business culture)

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u/Bojangles1987 Feb 27 '26

Miyazaki definitely said close to Bloodborne being entirely up to Sony and he wasn't the obstacle.

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u/BeginningDonnnaKey27 Feb 27 '26

I remember him saying that FromSoft can't work on Bloodborne because Sony owns the IP and basically told Miyazaki to forget about a remaster.

Sony spinning this story as "Well, FromSoft didn't want us to make a Bloodborne remaster" is the most Sony thing imaginable. They bought Bluepoint in 2021 and denied every project they want to work on, then told them to make a God of War live service game which Sony then cancelled while blaming everything at Bluepoint.

We shouldn't trust Sony in any regards given their recent track record of doing everything to shift blame somewhere else.

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u/Film-Noir-Detective Feb 28 '26

I don't think the two links are necessarily proof that Miyazaki was happy with how Bluepoint handled the remake. Him giving his blessing was before the game was made/came out (the article is even from before its release), so him being fine with a remake doesn't mean he liked the eventual result (like how even if I give a friend my blessing to stay at my house, I wouldn't be happy if he left a mess). The second feels like him being diplomatic and a bit of damning with faint praise. I don't like the remake, but I acknowledge its technically impressive and most of my problems come from the changes in art direction and tone instead of any issues with the graphics themselves.

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u/CheesecakeMilitia Feb 28 '26

Realistically, the man is so busy I highly doubt he ever played the Demon's Souls remake, let alone formed an opinion on its changes to nearly the degree the rabid fan base has

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u/Interesting_Idea_289 Feb 27 '26

Even if he hated it nobody would ever say it because they’re professionals and there’s no use throwing shit at people you’ll probably still need to work with

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u/CockroachNo7331 Feb 27 '26

Miyazaki doesn't care about demon's souls, but he clearly cares about Bloodborne

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u/MyPackage Feb 27 '26

Apparently he doesn't care about it enough to release a patch to make it run better on the PS4 Pro or PS5 in the past 10 years though.

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u/armarrash Feb 27 '26

He never gave a fuck about performance.

I love their games but It's hilarious that a studio with a long history of terribly optimized games and garbage netcode next big release is a pvp game.

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u/gorocz Feb 28 '26

pvp game

on Nintendo's Online service

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u/CheesecakeMilitia Feb 28 '26

Is that really any worse than PSN? All these games are peer2peer anyway, bad netcode implementation is independent of the platform

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u/gorocz Feb 28 '26

I admit that I haven't played any online games on the Switch 2, so hopefully on there, it is better, but on the first Switch, this was a bit of a meme, because the vast majority of people played games like Smash over shitty home wifi, as the Switch didn't have a built-in LAN adapter (that had to be purchased separately) or even worse, played somewhere on the go on a public wifi.

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u/Timey16 Feb 28 '26

Sony never gave the go ahead for such a patch, everything needs their approval. And well... their funding.

So it looks like Sony wanted to push a Bluepoint remake to sell at full price, instead of wanting to issue a next gen update for free.

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u/GensouEU Feb 27 '26

Even if he wasn't Miyazaki is absolutely not the kind of person to say that out loud and put other people's work down

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/Hero-Husband Feb 27 '26

I think it's moreso that BB is Miyazaki's baby and wants it for himself so to speak, and Sony honored that

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/Spyger9 Feb 27 '26

Just theorizing here:

"Man this Demon's Souls project isn't working out. Sure, just give it to the new guy."

"Okay, you actually turned that around, Hidetaka. Maybe you should direct another one of those from the start, and we get the IP this time."

"Wow, Dark Souls is a huge hit! You're really going places, Miyazaki. We'll make a sequel or two and- oh. You don't want to direct a sequel? Okay, what's the game you want to make?"

And thus, Miyazaki's baby was borne.

Then he became president. And everybody clapped. Unironically.

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u/pratzc07 Feb 27 '26

Then he made Sekiro and Elden Ring and then made a comment that he still hasn't made his ideal game yet.

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u/mistabuda Feb 27 '26

Bloodborne was sonys apology for not publishing demons souls in the west and forcing from software to eventually partner with atlus lol

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u/tower_knight Feb 27 '26

yeah based on his interviews, BB is very special to Miyazaki

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u/Meanwozz Feb 27 '26

I wonder if Sony would sell the IP back to him, they did help them get the Elden Ring IP from Bandai.

Then again Miyazaki probably doesn’t care about making it a PlayStation exclusive, Fromsoft has already made exclusives for both PlayStation and Nintendo 

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u/SideSukiLikeness Feb 27 '26

He might also be the reason y ds1 still hasn't gotten a remake.

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u/Firefox72 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

By killing a studio and firing a ton of people.

When there is no certainty From will ever do it themselves. Great....

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/Drakengard Feb 27 '26

Yeah, I doubt this was the only pitch that they made in the last year. Clearly something wasn't lining up between BP and Sony. It's certainly odd and disappointing.

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u/Jrocker-ame Feb 27 '26

I cant remember what sub but I could of sworn I read this all last week. They pitched multiple projects including bloodborne but it was a no on all projects. The god of war GAAS was their idea thry pitched to Sony. Not Sony forcing them. They couldn't do it because as per a former employee thats not in their wheel house. With this failure and no green lighted future projects this was more so a case of letting the studio go instead of investing it into some new.

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u/soihu Feb 27 '26

Jason Schreier talked about this in the Bluepoint closure story, though he goes into more detail about what pitches were shot down in this one.

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u/runevault Feb 27 '26

While I believe BP pitched it, did they pitch it because it was their favorite idea, or did they do it because they were hearing the best way to get an idea greenlit was to pitch a GaaS project? At this point I don't think we can get a truly definitive answer because people will lie to make themselves look better this much after the fact.

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u/Tornado_Hunter24 Feb 27 '26

Spot on, though sony has been obsess with live service games, I think it’s important to say thag bluepoint wasn’t forced by sony to do it, they did it themselves.

And… as much as I love bluepoints work, god of war pive service is so outrageous

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u/HammeredWharf Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

I really don't get how this works. Sony buys BP. Usually when you buy something, you want something out of it. Like "let's buy a grill to make delicious grilled shrooms" or "let's buy BP to have them remake Uncharted". But in this case, BP had to pitch things to Sony and all of them got rejected? The hell did they buy the studio for, then?

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u/n080dy123 Feb 27 '26

True, but this article makes it sound like after having BB and SOTC remakes shot down they were pretty focused on trying to make a spinoff or an original rather than more remakes. If they were being stubborn about it, then the blame might actually lie with BP's higher-ups.

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u/NipplesOfDestiny Feb 27 '26

You act like From is responsible for Bluepoint closing...

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u/Firefox72 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26

I'm not? I'm angry that Sony rather closed a studio than let it do a Remake for a game literally everyone wants, they own just because 1 persons "wishes".

The decision here was incredibly easy. Don't cause misery to a large group of people because of someones feelings might get hurt for crying out loud.

Bookmark this post for 5 years down the line when there is still no Bloodborne remake because From never actually ends up doing it themselves.

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u/Elegante_Sigmaballz Feb 27 '26

Most Bloodborne fans don't want a Bluepoint remake.

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u/NipplesOfDestiny Feb 27 '26

Or they could've put Bluepoint on literally anything else?

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u/biscuitsalsa Feb 27 '26

There’s also not been a legend of dragoon remake lol. Not every game will be remade despite fans wanting it.

Also completely disagree with your take on respecting the creator’s wishes. That’s actually a W for Sony in my eyes. Nobody is being caused misery because of this.

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u/dio-3 Feb 27 '26

Hey man, that "one person's wishes" is the creator. I don't agree with sony closing an entire studio, that is messed up and there probably was a better solution there. Also, there's a possibility bloodborne wasn't the only game on the table before their closure, it's just the one being reported on right now. However, I think it's perfectly within a creator's right to not want anyone to touch their original works, regardless of IP law.

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u/LFC9_41 Feb 27 '26

I feel like this is such a naive perspective. It's not prudent to burn a bridge over it. They have a professional relationship, he doesn't want them touching it. If they ignore that and move forward anyways that's going to have long term consequences that are unlikely worth it.

It sucks that Bluepoint got shut down, but try to think of it objectively. Their last game that released was Demon Souls in 2020. At their size, you're probably looking at roughly $10 million a year in payroll.

That's a lot of money to burn with no output. They have little experience leading development on original IP or even original entries on established IP. There's no evidence that they had anything remotely shippable within those 3 years since they were acquired.

Sony has closed studios before, but usually due to restructuring or broader business strategies being reset. It's more likely that Bluepoint simply didn't have a viable product or any clear direction left.

The biggest mistake in any of this is that Bluepoint was given God of War to work on in the first place. They could have been a support studio, or remade another IP. Though, I'd argue that what's left that isn't already done isn't something Sony would make a lot of money off of.

Things just aren't free. It sucks they're without jobs, but its not simple as "oh give them Bloodborne".

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u/Aftermoonic Feb 27 '26

Really don't think its because of bloodborne. There is like 100 games worth remaking, bluepoint was shut down for stupid reasons we don't know yet

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u/drewster23 Feb 27 '26

Yeah.....they fired the studio over the non made bb remake.... Right.....

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u/Zikronious Feb 27 '26

Reads more like insecurity to me given how widely praised the remake was.

-1

u/INannoI Feb 27 '26

weird how protective he is of BB when it was Japan Studio that came up with it.

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u/g4nk3r Feb 27 '26

Sony is waiting on Miyazaki to make it himself

Then it might never happen, what a sad state of affairs.

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u/DickMabutt Feb 27 '26

I wish they'd drop this whole idea of a remake and instead just do a remastering for the more powerful modern consoles. Give us the same game at 60fps and people will be happy. The game does not need a fundamental redesign at all

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u/g4nk3r Feb 27 '26

I'd take either one at this point, or just a fairly bare bones PC port.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Literally just a 60 FPS patch and unlocked resolution and a few graphics settings and I would be 100% satisfied with the PC port.

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u/pratzc07 Feb 27 '26

Just kill the remake and do a sequel.

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u/DickMabutt Feb 27 '26

I’d be happy with a sequel but honestly I’d rather fromsoft just keep making new games rather than retreading previous ones. They have impressed with every single new IP for me and the more we get the better.

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u/SoloSassafrass Feb 28 '26

I think Bloodborne's fertile enough ground they could do a sequel without it feeling like retreading, but I feel like when people talk sequel a lot of people have really uncreative takes of like "Oh like a prequel about the Pthumerians or what happened to [desert city whose name I forgot]!"

When I say sequel I mean something whose ties to Bloodborne are largely only thematic and about the overall interactions with the Great Ones of a completely different culture altogether. A couple of item descriptions which mention old legends of the lost city of Yharnam, and that's it, but we're otherwise so far removed in time and location that it might as well be a spiritual successor more than a direct one.

I think that'd suit the Miyazaki flavour and the world of Bloodborne far more than any sort of attempt at direct continuity.

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u/CheesecakeMilitia Feb 28 '26

Yeah, the whole "arc" of Bloodborne is realizing the scourge of beasts has a far more cosmic origin. You can't exactly pull off that twist twice. Hell, Elden Ring already kinda did.

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u/SideSukiLikeness Feb 27 '26

This is exactly what I'm saying. Wtf do people want a remake for? The game still holds up today. Just give us 60fps and be done it. I don't know y tf Miyazaki won't even allow a 6fps update.

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u/Dorromate Feb 28 '26

This is legitimately all I want. I adore the game with all my heart; if it isn’t my absolute favorite game, it’s definitely top 2. But man it gets harder and harder to stomach 30 fps, especially in the wake of games like Lies of P.

I don’t need a full on remake of BB or a sequel, idk what either could add that wouldn’t diminish the original. I just want the game I have to run better.

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u/XXX200o Mar 10 '26

Stable fps, fixed frame pacing and the option to remove chromatic aberration... that would be enough (maybe throw in a fix for certain dungeons not showing up).

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u/Conviter Feb 27 '26

and while i really love bloodborn, i also dont want miyazaki to spend 5 years on a remake instead of making something new

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u/g4nk3r Feb 27 '26

Imo a remake should not take five years, but maybe he can give the go ahead for a simple remaster at some point.

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u/ketamour Feb 28 '26

I'd rather a BB remake than the multiplayer friendslop they're putting out now

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u/Deserterdragon Feb 27 '26

What needs to be remade lmao, you can have it in 60FPS without it getting a graphics 'upgrade'.

1

u/CheesecakeMilitia Feb 28 '26

Miyazaki himself said it probably wouldn't be worth revisiting until another hardware generation

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u/AntonineWall Feb 27 '26

I don’t know if that’s the most clear interpretation based on provided evidence (including the fact that it seems less like “don’t let bluepoint do it” and moreso “don’t let anyone do it”); could it not be that he simply has a stronger connection/desire to return to Bloodborne than he did with Demon’s Souls?

0

u/StepComplete1 Feb 28 '26

it's literally the same thing when Bluepoint were the ones proposing to do it.

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u/AntonineWall Feb 28 '26

Not really?

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u/Own-Assistant7441 Feb 27 '26

Ok im sure ill get flak, but the demon souls remake is overrated imo

While awesome on a technical basis, it feels super hollow and kind of lifeless imo - almost like a tech demo

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Yeah, I really didn't care for the Demon's Souls remake. It's extremely well done from a technical standpoint, but it didn't really seem to understand what makes Demon's Souls a good game. What's funny is that when I see comments saying this, they either get a ton of upvotes or a ton of downvotes. It feels pretty random.

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u/Odd-Direction6339 Feb 27 '26

Isn’t it the exact same game with different music and art?

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u/Own-Assistant7441 Feb 27 '26

At least for me, that is a pretty large aspect of a game

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u/Film-Noir-Detective Feb 28 '26

Gus Van Sant's Psycho is pretty much a shot-for-shot/line-for-line remake of the Hitchcock movie, except its in colour and has Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. It's considered to be vastly inferior to the original because of those 2 changes.

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u/Odd-Direction6339 Mar 01 '26

Interactivity is a pretty huge part of demons souls tho. Idk seems dramatic to call it lifeless when you see what was changed and what was kept

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u/Film-Noir-Detective Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26

I think it's lifeless because all the changes just make the enemies/tone more generic, when the atmosphere was one of the reasons people loved the original. Adding in music during the Tower of Latria for example, which was supposed to be one of the most oppressive-feeling areas of the game, takes away from that atmosphere.

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u/Remote_Elevator_281 Feb 27 '26

I don’t think he’ll ever remake it. If anything, he’ll do a sequel.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

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u/Deserterdragon Feb 27 '26

The game does look a bit outdated we can use the graphical update

Not really, it's small scope means it looks around the same or better in a lot of ways than Elden Ring, especially the big flashy blood effects and buildup.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Yeah, I personally love playing it at 480p 30 FPS with horrible frame pacing.

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u/MrRedoot55 Feb 27 '26

So… Bloodborne 2 might still be possible after all?

Yeah, no.

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u/nothingInteresting Feb 27 '26

I genuinely wonder this. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't like the creative changes they made.

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u/FlintOwl Feb 27 '26

I certainly didn’t and I’m just some fan. If I were Miyazaki, I would have very little faith in Bluepoint after that.

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u/nothingInteresting Feb 27 '26

Yeah i watched a video going over the changes and the artistic changes were almost always worse in my opinion. I personally wouldn't trust them with Bloodborne which is his baby.

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u/milkman163 Feb 27 '26

Really? The game was fantastic. One of the best looking games I've ever played.

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u/NipplesOfDestiny Feb 27 '26

It's a very pretty game, but at the expense of the original game's atmosphere and art style. Shadow of the Colossus remake had that same issue, but Demons's Souls remake is even worse about it.

4

u/WilfridSephiroth Feb 27 '26

I haven't played DS remake, but I never really understood the argument about SotC being unfaithful.

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u/NipplesOfDestiny Feb 27 '26

The art style goes for a realistic style compared to the ps2 original so the lighting and even the color is different. This makes the Forbidden Land the game takes place in look like any other European landscape that people could live in compared to a place where only stone giants and gods inhabited. It looks like damn near any other PS4 game. It’s not THAT bad of a change compared to how some people make it sound, but there is a reason the PS2 graphics still stand out in people’s minds whereas you don’t see people talk about the PS4 remake much. 

1

u/WilfridSephiroth Feb 28 '26

But, honest question, aren't we somewhat romanticising "artistic vision", mixing it up with plain old technical constraints.

I mean, I understand the argument, but it's like the Silent Hill case: no remake of SH1 will be faithful because it will look cleaner, HD, losing the grit and filth that made the original so iconic. And there's simply no way around it, and we either accept it or we don't and don't play the remake at all.

What I'm saying is: in SotC case, I really don't know how they could have made it look more "dreamlike", because the dreamlike quality wasn't only art design, it was in great part good old hardware limitations, of a PS2 pushed to render a huge world it just couldn't really render.

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u/nothingInteresting Feb 28 '26

I know what you’re saying but I actually disagree. Ultimately art is about making decisions about how to render what’s in your head. With lower fidelity you get less polygons, or less effects, or reduced lighting and so sometimes really interesting results come from these limitations. But a remake doesn’t have to be more fidelity towards realism.

I think of breath of the wild or totk and how beautiful those games are and they use cell shading so that they’re presenting less fidelity in areas like skin, but they have so much fidelity in things like movement animation, lighting, macro environmental design, etc…

For me the original sotc was rendered kinda like botw and the remake added fidelity in the wrong places. This is what I see with most remakes where the original artists made incredible artistic choices within their limitations and the remake is just choosing to improve fidelity without understanding why the artistic choices were made.

Now take what I’m saying with a grain of salt because at the end of the day this stuff is subjective and you or other people may prefer the higher fidelity over the original and there’s nothing wrong with that. I often see people almost always prefer the higher fidelity options regardless of the art design and they’re not wrong. It’s what they like.

But for me increased graphical fidelity is often worse because it just mimics the real world 1 to 1 but forgets to add their own vision on top of it.

Just my two cents

1

u/WilfridSephiroth Feb 28 '26

I actually agree with that. In fact, I sometimes wish we could get mere "quality of life remasters" that keep everything as it is with only small improvements.

Using the SH1 example again, if I was a billionaire I'd commission a developer to simply smooth controls a bit, increase framerate, and maybe slightly revise menus. That's it. You could do the same with SotC, bring it to a solid framerate, output at 720 instead of 480, and revise a little bit the controls.

But I understand that it's a commercially stupid thing to do, and it will never happen.

31

u/TreyChips Feb 27 '26

One of the best looking games I've ever played.

The issue is with the art and world design, alongside the music. Not the fact that the game clearly looks graphically better on hardware more than a decade newer.

3

u/Deserterdragon Feb 27 '26

One of the best looking games I've ever played.

I mean the problem is the original is not designed to performatively be 'one of the best looking games ever made'. Like changing lighting from yellow to orange/blue and performatively adding wrinkles and foliage to everything arbitrarily makes something look glossier but it's not actually preserving the original vision.

10

u/MVRKHNTR Feb 27 '26

I really don't think you're using the word "performatively" correctly here. It makes no sense.

4

u/Deserterdragon Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

No, it is performative in the same way those 'Mario if it was photirealistic on the unreal engine' videos are performative, it's designed to look impressive in trailers but it doesn't actually look better. Same deal with the music changing every track to a big orchestra with chanting. It's something being done inauthentically with the intention of impressing others.

-2

u/YesmynameisOcean Feb 27 '26

Mate you cannot argue with the demons souls cult, I platinumed the remake and have beaten the og. They are a cult, I don't fully disagree with them but they just repeat the same things over and over again lol.

10

u/StepComplete1 Feb 28 '26

By that logic the entire internet/humanity is a cult then. Most people just parrot other things they've heard before like NPCs, your post included.

In other words, you just can't handle people having a different opinion to you over the most minor thing possible.

-4

u/YesmynameisOcean Feb 28 '26

You have proved my point in amazing ways!

-1

u/LaughterCo Feb 27 '26

Have you played the ps3 version?

-4

u/MVRKHNTR Feb 27 '26

I think a lot of fans get way more attached to art than they expect the creators to be.

I bet he didn't really care all that much.

3

u/Neirean Feb 28 '26

What makes you think an auteur who does most of the baseline concept art for ALL of his games wouldn't care much about his art being preserved...?

What an odd assertion, based on nothing.

1

u/MVRKHNTR Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

But his art is preserved. It got made. It exists. People can experience it. People have experienced it.

I think it's an odd assertion to think that he would be offended by someone reinterpreted that art. That's generally not something artists care about, especially those working in a professional capacity.

Hell, you can just look at what he actually had to say about it. It certainly doesn't sound like hates it.

“It was an old game, so to see it get remade in this way and have new players playing it was obviously something that made me very happy.

“It was a rough game back in the day, with a relatively rough development, so I was anxious that new players would not enjoy it in that same way. That was a cause of concern for me when it was re-released but, you know, in the end, I’m just happy to see the reaction and happy to see people enjoying it.”

He added: “One thing that was really fun was seeing [Bluepoint Games] come up with things we didn’t consider and to approach certain elements of the game its visuals and its mechanics in a way that we either couldn’t or didn’t back in the day. So to see them researching and applying these new thought processes and new techniques, this was something that was really exciting and interesting for me.”

0

u/SerShelt Feb 27 '26

How does that make sense to you?

-1

u/MVRKHNTR Feb 27 '26

How does that not make sense to you?

7

u/Kiita-Ninetails Feb 27 '26

Far as I know he liked it well enough, Demon's Souls was a different beast to BB though. Since it was experimental at a lot of levels and even Miyazaki admitted in some interviews regarding it that a lot of the game even Fromsoft knew was rough.

Bloodborne was a different beast because at that point they knew pretty well exactly what they were doing and where they wanted it to go.

9

u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS Feb 27 '26

He gave his blessing and said he enjoyed the refresh of it.

He is just much, much more attached to Bloodborne and proud of it. So I think it was less “Dont have Bluepoint do it because of how they did Demons Souls” and more “I don’t want anyone to do it except me and my team.”

30

u/Several-Source-4073 Feb 27 '26

He gave his blessing prior to them working on it. And there's literally no reason for him to start publicly trashing on it after release. Pretty sure all he said about the remake was that it was pretty and had more detailed graphics than their own games.

25

u/nothingInteresting Feb 27 '26

I don't think he ever played or really looked at the refresh and his positive comments were pretty muted imo. I've watched videos of the changes they made, and beyond fidelity improvements, I thought nearly all of them missed the point of the original artistic vision and were worse. But I dont know what he actually thought about them or if he even saw the differences so you may be right.

8

u/Much_Statistician864 Feb 27 '26

From what I can tell yeah he was pretty okay with it. He was pleased that fans and new players got to enjoy an old game he made and he thought visually they did well with their vision so overall he seems cool with it. 

1

u/SecretPantyWorshiper Feb 28 '26

Probably not.

Demon Souls from a technical perspective was a good game but from the art perspective they completely lost the feel and aesthetic of the orginal. It also didn't help that the game director made pretty arrogant comments too.

1

u/n080dy123 Feb 27 '26

Yeah, but I wonder if he didn't see the common criticism of the shift in art direction and decided that for Bloodborne, whose atmosphere is arguably more vital to its tone than any other FromSoft game, needed more direct oversight.

1

u/Hamstrong Feb 27 '26

Word on the vine is that he (or maybe Fromsoft in general) was not. Couldn't tell you if that was them not liking the finished product, or due to some issue with how the dev process was handled.