Why did Bloodborne never go above 30 FPS?
Have you ever wondered why Bloodborne, an absolute masterpiece of the last generation, still suffers from frame rate drops and questionable performance even in 2026? In this Spar Retro video, we perform a complete technical autopsy of FromSoftware's PS4 exclusive to understand why it never exceeded the official 30 FPS.
Sources used: All the technical information condensed in this script comes from sources specializing in performance analysis and the modding community itself:
Digital Foundry (Eurogamer): Their numerous performance analyses of Bloodborne over the years. Specifically, their videos documenting the chronic frame pacing issues of FromSoftware's engine in the original PS4 version, and their subsequent backward compatibility tests on PS4 Pro (Boost Mode) and PlayStation 5.
Lance McDonald: Console modder and code researcher. The entire section on how the game links its physics and logic (delta time) to the frame rate, and the necessary graphical compromises (dropping to 720p) to achieve a stable 60 fps on a PS4 Pro, is taken directly from their development logs, their YouTube demo videos, and their posts documenting the creation of their unofficial patch.
Hardware documentation (Sony/AMD): Technical specifications of the Jaguar (PS4) and Zen 2 (PS5) architectures, used to explain the CPU bottleneck when processing the physics middleware (Havok) and volumetric particle effects (alpha).