Sony has announced an animated film based on developer FromSoftware’s beloved action game, Bloodborne.
Few details were revealed, but at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Sony confirmed that it will be R-rated and “very true” to the original 2015 PS4 game. In that seminal experience, players had to survive in a gory and nightmarish Lovecraftian world, so it remains to be seen how that will translate into a film. Lyrical Animation, a recently formed division from Lyrical Media (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) is producing the film in partnership with PlayStation Productions and Seán McLoughlin, the Irish YouTuber better known as JackSepticEye.
What’s especially notable about the Bloodborne movie is that it comes amid years of fan requests to do more with the property. In particular, many have been hoping for some sort of re-release, be that a straightforward port or remaster or even a more elaborate remake for PS5. After all, FromSoftware’s action masterpiece had some technical limitations, including long load times and a capped 30fps frame rate. Therefore, there have been plenty of calls for publisher PlayStation to put forth some sort of improved version on more modern hardware, even if it was just a free update on PS5.
All of that is to say that an animated movie probably isn’t what many people would have expected or hoped for, but if nothing else, perhaps it will pave the way for some sort of new Bloodborne game project. It’s worth noting that Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier recently reported that Bluepoint, the remaster/remake studio that Sony shuttered a few weeks ago, had actually pitched a Bloodborne remake, but FromSoftware vetoed it.
Schreier admitted he wasn’t sure why the developer was against this, but he speculated that it likely wanted to prioritize working on its own IPs, like Elden Ring, instead of one owned by Sony. (With that said, it’s unclear why FromSoftware wouldn’t have allowed a third-party to fully handle a remake, especially since Bluepoint did that with the developer’s very own Demon’s Souls).
For now, though, we’ll at least have the movie, although a release window wasn’t confirmed. It’s part of PlayStation’s ever-expanding multimedia push, turning the likes of The Last of Us, Uncharted, Gran Turismo, and Twisted Metal into TV series and films. Other adaptations in the company’s pipeline include Amazon’s God of War series and the third season of The Last of Us (both of which are currently in production in Vancouver), a Helldivers movie from Fast & Furious director Justin Lin and a Ghost of Tsushima movie from John Wick director Chad Stahelski.
Image credit: PlayStation
Via: Variety
