The standard debug menu for Bloodborne can double the framerate, but this also doubles the gameplay speed. McDonald had to study the PS4 Pro update for Dark Souls 3, which uses the same engine as Bloodborne, to work out how to hack and modify the game.
I patched Bloodborne to run at 60fps. It works alright (about as good as the Dark Souls 3 PS4 Pro patch does) except for the fact that the game doesn’t have proper timing and the entire game basically runs in fast-forward. This is running on a base PS4. pic.twitter.com/vfdjjWxpp5
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) April 28, 2020
“A vast array of features, such as cloth physics, particle and special effects, environmental wind, enemy patrol pathing, motion blur sampling rate, and elevator movement speed all require manual patching,” said McDonald in the video detailing his process. “This way, gameplay logic is correctly adjusted based on the amount of time that has passed between each frame rather than being locked to a fixed timestamp.”
Sony has revealed that almost every PS4 game will be playable on PS5 thanks to backwards compatibility, with some enhanced by a Boost Mode. It’s not clear, however, if Boost Mode enhancements are tailored to the specific games by Sony/the developer, akin to many Xbox backwards compatibility projects, or if Boost Mode is an automatic process. Without any developer input, it seems like Bloodborne may need McDonald’s patch to hit that golden 60 fps.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer.