Whenever Sony gets mentioned, there’s somehow always an excuse to bring up Bloodborne, especially since a remake or remaster just doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. Following the closure of Bluepoint Games, though, an indie developer has revealed that Sony allegedly stepped in to pull the plug on the Diablo-like Bloodborne project he revealed in November 2024.
Developer Maxime Foulquier began showcasing Bloodborne: Top Down Arena in November 2024. The unofficial project–an isometric brawler inspired by Diablo and Vampire Survivors gameplay while set within the Bloodborne universe–was a long way off, but the game looked like a promising amalgam of systems that Foulquier believed would make it different enough to escape the Eye of Sauron. (That is, Sony’s lawyers.)
Unfortunately, when it comes to Bloodborne, no one can escape Sony’s eye. With the company announcing its imminent plan to shutter remake maestros Bluepoint Games, Foulquier took it upon himself to reveal that Sony forced him to stop development on his Top Down Arena.
“Sony sent me a cease and desist letter regarding my second Bloodborne remake project that I posted about in November 2024,” Foulquier said in an X post on February 18. “I was incredibly excited about this project and worked on it a lot in my spare time. Then I received the letter you can see here.”
With the closure of Bluepoint Studio, now feels like the right time to share something.
Sony sent me a cease and desist letter regarding my second Bloodborne remake project that I posted about in November 2024.
I was incredibly excited about this project and worked on it a lot… pic.twitter.com/E1U12fxaWK— Maxime Foulquier (@MaximFoulquier) February 19, 2026
The letter, which was dated March 2025 and delivered by the law firm DLA Piper, cited his Bloodborne project as “infringement of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC’s intellectual property rights.” Some information is blacked out, and it only appears to be one page of a cease and desist, but DLA Piper stated in the document that Sony is not only the owner of Bloodborne but also owns an “incontestable trademark registration” for the license in the US, the EU, the UK, and “a number of other countries.” Despite the letter acknowledging the “different perspective” that Top Down Arena has when compared to Bloodborne, because it shares the same name, that connection was enough to draw Sony’s eye.
“I didn’t say anything in March 2025 because I decided to repurpose all the assets I had created for that project into a new game set in my own universe, inspired by Bloodborne,” Foulquier said. “My plan was to reveal the letter once the game was ready to communicate. Unfortunately, plans have changed. I’d rather speak about it now, as my disappointment is immense. The disappearance of Bluepoint is a tremendous loss for the industry and for the dream of a Bloodborne remake. Why are you making such absurd decisions, Sony?”
This isn’t the first Bloodborne fan project Sony has come after. If you remember Bloodborne Kart, a kart racer inspired by the horror adventure game, the developer of that game had to change the title after Sony demanded that they do so. The launched for free in July 2024 under its new name, Nightmare Kart.
Released in March 2015, Bloodborne is a critically acclaimed, Lovecraftian souls-like with a rabid fan base. Unfortunately, the game has been locked to PlayStation 4 hardware with no sign of a remake or remaster in sight, particularly because From Software boss Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team are presumably too busy with Elden Ring Nightreign and The Duskbloods. Because of this, many people believe Bloodborne will probably remain in its ice-cold coffin for a long time to come.
Sony has also decided to close up Bluepoint Games, with PlayStation exec Herman Hulst citing “rising development costs” and “changing player behavior” as the justification for shutting down the Texas-based studio. This closure has really demonstrated Sony’s biggest failures during the PS5 console generation.
