Dev behind Bloodborne fan remake flees from potential Sony cease and desist, but returns a year later with something arguably better – a top-down Diablo-style Bloodborne ARPG

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The original remake project was "too risky"

Bloodborne
(Image credit: FromSoftware)

One of the developers behind a fan-made Bloodborne remake admits that they "haven't touched" their project in a year partially because the threat of a cease and desist is "too risky," but they're now back with something delightfully different – a Diablo-style Bloodborne action RPG. 

It was last February that developer Maxime Foulquier initially announced the Bloodborne remake project: "I decided to remake Bloodborne from scratch on Unreal Engine 5 since Sony doesn't want to do it," the dev wrote at the time. However, the situation has clearly changed a fair bit since then. 

"HUNTERS! I haven't touched Bloodborne Remake for a year for 50 reasons (too big, too risky to finally be C&D)," Foulquier writes on Twitter. "But last week I decided to start a new project from scratch, Bloodborne Top Down Arena. Maybe you won't like it, but I'm enjoying developing it and playing it."

Foulquier has only shared a short gameplay clip so far, but it genuinely looks like a lot of fun – it's clearly still got plenty of Bloodborne DNA, even if the playstyle looks a lot more akin to Diablo. Will that distinction be enough to stop the project from getting a cease and desist, though? Obviously, Foulquier hopes so, noting in the Twitter thread that it's "less ambitious and different from a true remake! The Demake and the Minecraft Project didn't receive CnD so I cross the fingers."

Of course, there's no guarantee that that will be the case. You need only cast your mind back to Bloodborne Nightmare Kart, a free, fan-made racing game that definitely doesn't play like FromSoftware's Soulslike at all, but still prompted Sony to get in touch with its developers, who had to "scrub the branding off" before being able to release the project under the new name of Nightmare Kart. 

The fan-made racing game still had a very successful release, quickly hitting 130,000 downloads on PC, as well as securing an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' overall review rating on Steam even without 'Bloodborne' in its name, but could Bloodborne Top Down Arena meet a similar fate? Foulquier says "I don't want to release this on Steam," so perhaps that could have an impact, but only time will tell. Either way, the project looks very promising so far. 

If you're looking for a new Soulslike to dive into, be sure to check out our roundup of the best games like Dark Souls. 

Catherine Lewis
Catherine Lewis
Deputy News Editor

I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.