Bloodborne, the unforgettable FromSoftware-developed PlayStation 4-exclusive soulslike that publisher Sony has seemingly forgotten about, can finally run at 120 FPS on PlayStation hardware, but with one caveat: you’ll need a modded PlayStation 5 to pull it off.
For those who own relatively beefy PCs, running Bloodborne at 120 FPS has been possible for a while now through the use of the PlayStation 4 emulator ShadPS4. However, the dream for many has always been to play Bloodborne at something higher than 30 FPS on native hardware. Well, maybe that’s less of a dream and more of a necessity, considering that PCs aren’t exactly cheap to build these days.
Officially, running Bloodborne at anything higher than the 30 FPS it’s locked to isn’t possible on PlayStation hardware. Unofficially, however, running it at 60 FPS on a PlayStation 4 has been possible for several years through the use of jailbreaking. It would seem that 120 FPS is a bridge too far for the almost 13-year-old console, though, which is where the PlayStation 5’s backwards compatibility comes into play.
According to a report by Digital Foundry, an upcoming mod for Bloodborne by a modder simply known as Christina allows for a consistent 120 FPS on jailbroken PlayStation 5s. Through the use of a frame-rate unlock patch, Bloodborne can take advantage of the PS5’s 120Hz mode at 1080p resolution. Digital Foundry also states that it’s possible to increase Bloodborne’s “native rendering resolution to full 4K,” but this comes at the cost of being locked to 30 FPS.
Digital Foundry noted that while Christina’s Bloodborne mod isn’t available quite yet, they “understand that these mods will be released shortly.” But, again, I should reiterate that this isn’t possible if you don’t own a modded PlayStation 5 or an unpatched PS5 that’s running firmware from pre-circa 2022. Still, it’s interesting that it’s possible at all on PlayStation hardware, and, once again, raises the question as to why Sony hasn’t released 60 FPS support (let alone 120 FPS) for the title on PlayStation 5 hardware.