Across all the glowing reviews of Bloodborne, only the poor loading times were regularly criticised, as players would be forced to sit and wait upwards of 45 seconds, just staring at the game’s logo until they could respawn at their most recent lamp. It was an annoyance to the extent that From Software and Sony quickly announced that they were to be improved in an upcoming patch.
Less than a month after release, that update is now live, and quite dramatically cuts load times to under 15 seconds. Not only that, but loading screens have been replaced with item descriptions, so you’ve got something other than Twitter to read while you wait.
One minor downside to the patch is that From were unable to address the issues with online matchmaking when using the PS4’s new Suspend/Resume feature. Sadly their only work around to maintain online features is equivalent to what the community were doing in the first place, and putting your PS4 into Rest Mode while playing online will see you booted back out to the main menu. Hopefully they can remedy this better in future, but if you demand that you’re instantly right back where you left off, playing offline is unaffected.
The full patch notes read as follows:
Thank you for playing Bloodborne.
An update is available.Main points of UPDATE　1.03
-Reduced loading times (approx. 5-15 seconds; may vary by circumstance)
-Fixed bug that left certain lifts and elevators inoperable
-Fixed bug that resulted in bosses becoming immobilized
-Fixed bug that left players unable to advance NPC events during multi-play
-When the PS4 is put into Rest Mode during online play, the game will now return to the main title screen upon resuming play
This will resolve matchmaking issues related to Suspend/Resume.
-Other various bug fixesWe will continue to make improvements to better the play experience.
Source: PlayStation Japan, via Digital Spy
TSBonyman
The loading times are only an issue when you die.. ;-P
Sounds like a great reduction though and i’m looking forward to getting back to it this eve. 2nd boss down now (thanks to some co-op help) and i’m currently exploring new areas which means a higher death frequency as i learn my way around so the loading reductions will be most welcome.
Now i would just like a photo-mode because i keep forgetting to re-enable the HUD after taking some photos and it’s been my downfall a few times already .. :)
Kennykazey
No, you’ve got it all wrong!
They used to be 45-55 seconds, now they’re 5-15 seconds quicker. So they’re still 35-50 seconds or something.
TSBonyman
I’m seeing mixed reports on this, some saying reduced By 5-15 secs and others saying it’s reduced TO 5-15 secs. Any reduction is good but i guess i’ll have to wait and test it out myself later.
Kennykazey
I’ve now looked it up, loads that took 20-30 seconds are supposedly down to 10-15. Those that took 45-60 are down to 30-ish.
It varies depending on location (in the game) and users HDD. But it’s reduced “by”, not “to”.
Frame pacing is not fixed.
Forrest_01
Strangely, the patch notes don’t actually say whether the load times have been reduced to 5-15 seconds, or whether they have been reduced by 5-15 seconds.
My first assumption would actually be the latter, but if it is in fact the former then that is pretty impressive.
TSBonyman
I played for a bit last night and although i didn’t time it there was a noticable improvement in loading times. Also the patch seems to have sorted out the visual error i had been having where anything Bloodborne-related wasn’t showing up in my What’s New or recent activities Log.