Anticipation is a potent spell. This magic is known well to any marketing executive across the planet- it's their very reason for being- to deftly place the pellets that lead an audience to "ohh" and "ahh", ideally over a promise not spoken. Otherwise I consider marketers little more than glorified showgirls, putting up lavish displays of actual achievements. No, it's those that conjure tapestries from mist and rumour from direction which earn my respect. Anyone can make a great looking game shine if they have enough pool, only a talented marketer can sell the essence of a game on whispers and hype. Of course at some point the world become receptive to their techniques and then the conversation changes. No longer do we assume the unspoken is unbidden- because now what is unsaid must be charged! Why not speak of a much requested product. Because you make it in secret of course!
And this way of thinking doesn't stem from nothing, mind you- we have precedent. Hollow Knight Silksong fans have been led by the neck for years on the promise of a sequel that seemingly will never be made. Each passing day expanding the gulf between anticipation and deliverance. Then we have the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Remake which entered horrific production troubles but all behind the scenes away from any official word. Just recently we heard that whoever caught the hot-potato of development responsibilities promises with their pinky out that it's still being worked on- trust! And let us not forget about Beyond Good and Evil 2- a game delayed so horrifically long that every interesting idea it once presented has been outstripped by various other titles across the two console generators since. We used to dangled promises from the abyss.
Which is why I can presume there is an inexplicably movement out there utterly convinced of the single most unbelievable production ever- the secret development of a Bloodborne Remake/Remaster from the Sony devs. Now of course, Bloodborne is a much beloved Souls game that is considered to be among the best by those who had the fortune enough to play it during that original release for the PS4. But seeing as the game has never once been ported to newer platforms, nor to PC, nor patched to run above 30 frames per second- it might seem as though the franchise has been abandoned by any and all. But don't tell that to the faithful. They'll call you a liar and forge forward with the belief of madmen- emboldened by the viscous, saccharine syrup called 'Anticipation'.
It doesn't matter that Sony have rather aggressively avoided maintaining anything related to Bloodborne as part of their image unless they're really pulling for scraps, such as for Astrobot. It doesn't matter that the literal creators of the game themselves, FromSoft, claim to not have any control over the franchise and what happens to it. It doesn't matter that Sony's goto remake developing studio, Bluepoint Games, are currently wrapped up on what they insist is an original title; (and they aren't really of the size to be multi-tasking) people will accuse them of making Bloodborne 2 if it'll aid the anticipation! (Which is utter nonsense; who would be insane enough to make a sequel to a FromSoft game without Fromsoft? Madness!)
At this point people are willing to conjure any reality imaginable, just so long as within that fantasy space they have a semi-modern release of Bloodborne to keep them busy- but Playstation's hold of the franchise in a limbo state seems less like 'playing with anticipation' and more like 'fumbling the bag.' What I think truly has Playstation's nuts in a vice is their simply insatiable thirst to ruin the playability of their ports in order to squeeze out pointless subscriber numbers that they can flaunt for investors. So why haven't we got a Bloodborne port yet? Because Playstation are on a totally different wave than we think they are right now.
You'd think this is all a business and it's about making money- so just give us our port and make that bread- but whilst that makes sense to literally anyone else within this spinning globe of ours- Sony want something else. They're not just putting out games to make a buck, they're putting out investments on PC to spruce up their numbers. Forcing players to sign up to PSN for literally no benefit- sometimes even lying about 'moderation' or 'user experience' to secure their bag and then making off with your information. In some places that makes these products straight up impossible to buy because of no PSN coverage- in England that means that Sony are literally scoping for our damn Passports so that for their next hack our country can see a handy spike in identity thefts- thanks for that one! And for everyone else this adds an 'always online' functionality to otherwise entirely single player games that Sony have no right messing with.
Bloodborne, on the otherhand, is this antiquated little niche title that didn't even sell gangbusters when it originally released and would struggle under the weight of forced online requirements. (Even though all FromSoft games have some form of optional online anyway.) It just doesn't slide in neatly enough with Sony's image to warrant doing. Does it matter that they've been hassled about it forever at this point? How about the fact that Souls-Like's have ballooned into big business? Well... maybe they would have considered changing their view if the Demon Souls remake had taken off- but whether due to poor PS5 sales or just general disinterest; that didn't pan out too well either. More and more, as they rise, the bottom line is really starting to form the heart of Sony.
It's just a shame how Sony grew from this allusion to player first attitudes into this voracious beast that everyone has to struggle against in order to get the basic most morsel of food. That's what happens when you give a studio no competitors, allowing their greed instincts to take over. And Bloodborne fans join the ranks of us Silksong clowns, beating our head against our computer screens every big event praying for an impossibility out of the cold husks we call companies. It's a self defeating circle of embarrassment.
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