Over a Decade Later, Bloodborne Remains So Popular It Reportedly Sold a Quarter Million Copies This Year Alone

Bloodborne, FromSoftware’s singular Lovecraftian action-RPG, has reportedly sold more than 251,000 copies this year alone.

That’s according to Alinea Analytics head of market analyst Rhys Elliott, who revealed the figure in a post on X, noting this brings Bloodborne’s total sales up to an estimated 10.4m copies, generating $317m (around £236m) in revenue. Elliot also claimed more than half a million people played Bloodborne in October through PlayStation Plus.

Additionally, 12 percent of those are said to have played Elden Ring during the month, while 6 percent played Sötét Souls 3, and 5 percent played Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. There’s a cohort of gamers who are always bouncing between different From[Software] games,” Elliott pointed out. “Can’t blame them, especially with this one.”

Bloodborne is a PlayStation exclusive that sadly never left the PS4, despite consistent calls from fans for ports and remasters. While the game is playable on PS5 through backwards compatibility, Bloodborne barely benefits from the console’s advanced hardware, only seeing smoother frame pacing. In other words, it’s the same game with barely any perceptible upgrades.

Before Sony closed down Demon’s Souls remake developer Bluepoint Játékok earlier this year, the studio reportedly pitched a Bloodborne remake, but original developer FromSoftware didn’t want it to happen. When news of the pitch came to light, former Sony Interactive Entertainment Shuhei Yoshida said Bloodborne has a special place in director Hidetaka Miyazaki’s heart and speculated the reason it hasn’t had a remake is because Miyazaki would prefer to do it himself but doesn’t have the time.

“Miyazaki-san really, really loved Bloodborne, what he created,” Yoshida said at the time. “So I think he is interested but he’s so successful and he’s so busy, so he cannot do it himself, and he doesn’t want anyone else to touch it.”

Mentioned in this article

Remedy, the developer behind the recently released Control Resonant, has published a striking quarterly financial report. It reveals that following Resonant’s release in September, the company’s revenue jumped by 226 percent, generating €39.6m in Q3.

This performance was described by CEO Jean-Charles Gaudechon as “a defining milestone for the company.” The firm reported a €0.6m operating profit this quarter, a notable rise from the €16.4m loss recorded during the same period last year.

Several interesting highlights stand out from this sudden surge. For one, the US accounted for nearly half of Control Resonant’s players across PC and console, followed by Chinese-speaking regions and then the UK.

Perhaps most crucially, nearly half of Control Resonant’s players were entirely new to the franchise, with the company stating: “Reaching new players was a key goal for this game, and these early results indicate a growing audience for the franchise and for Remedy.”

Control (2019) also saw a bump in sales thanks to the release of Control Resonant, outperforming both the previous two quarters of this year and its comparison period from the same quarter last year.

Remedy’s CEO now believes the studio’s focus should be to “get Resonant into the hands of more players.” He adds that the game has laid a solid foundation for growth as other projects, including the Max Payne 1 & 2 remake, are in development. In short, things appear to be looking rather well for Remedy.

Control Resonant was an artistically impressive but critically divisive game. While many praised the series’ venture into third-person action, some felt it lacked the narrative punch of its predecessor. Nonetheless, the game quickly surpassed one million in sales after launch.

Mentioned in this article

+ 3 more ›