Sony bullies Bloodborne 60fps mod off the internet with DMCA takedown as it continues to let the FromSoft classic gather dust on PS4
First reported by Eurogamer, FromSoftware dataminer and modder Lance McDonald has revealed on Bluesky that his 60fps hack for Bloodborne has been DMCA'd by Sony. It remains possible to remove Bloodborne's original 30fps cap via the ShadPS4 emulator on PC, but the decision remains a heavy-handed attempt at intimidating the modding and emulation community.
«On February 21st, 2021, I created and released a patch for Bloodborne which makes the game run at 60fps,» McDonald wrote on Bluesky. «Today I received a DMCA takedown notification on behalf of Sony Interactive Entertainment asking that I remove links to the patch I posted on the internet, so now I've done so.»
The patch in question removes Bloodborne's 30fps cap on original hardware. As discussed in a May 2020 Digital Foundry interview with McDonald, this doesn't produce particularly desirable results on the base PS4, but the PS4 Pro is capable of running Bloodborne at 720p 60fps using its «Boost Mode.» McDonald characterized his work as a proof of concept whose general release he was holding back in anticipation of an official PS5 update to Bloodborne from Sony. Such an update still hasn't materialized five years later, and McDonald made his own workaround available for download in 2021.
The legal basis for the mod's removal strikes me as highly questionable: The consumer right to modify software for noncommercial use has a strong precedent. But, as is the case with many DMCA'd mod projects, the asymmetry between a global corporation and an individual hobbyist makes fending off these attacks unrealistic. This tactic of intimidation is something Nintendo has long used to a chilling effect, and I find it ominous to see Sony ape that behavior here. But the move is also as baffling as it is risible: Not only has this mod just been out in the wild for four years, it's still much more a proof of concept than anything else. I simply can't believe there's a significant number of people out there jailbreaking their PS4
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