Bloodborne loading times are long, but a fix is coming

Do you think Bloodborne's loading times are kind of long? You're not alone as it can take over 30 seconds on average for the game to load. Thankfully, there's a fix coming soon.

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If you picked up your copy of Bloodborne overnight, or if you plan on picking the game up later on today, we feel it would be in your best interest to know its loading times aren’t the greatest right now.

We first noticed the issues with loading times well after the grace period of pointing the blame squarely at the possibility of Bloodborne installing itself in the background. We’ve been playing it for review around 20 hours, and we can confidently tell you the loading times don’t get any better.

Just how bad are the loading times? Well - in total, it takes approximately 35 seconds for the game to load from the main menu to actual gameplay. Then another 35 seconds if you die and you respawn. Then another 35 if decide to make a pitstop at the Hunter’s Dream. You get the point.

In a game this difficult, you’re going to die a lot. So having to sit at your loading screen for 35 seconds a pop definitely adds up. We can say during our review process, we easily died at least 50 times. So in total, we sat around for at least 30 minutes just waiting for the game to load.

Thankfully, Sony has acknowledged the long load times and has said it's currently exploring another patch for Bloodborne that will hopefully seek “ways to improve load time duration, in addition to other performance optimizations and miscellaneous bug fixes.” So there’s at least some kind of relief coming down the pipeline, but hopefully the wait won’t be too long because we would prefer to be spending the time spent waiting for the game to load to actually play the game.

In the meantime, if you find yourself waiting for Bloodborne to load as you're reading this story, why not check out our latest impressions piece as well as our strategy guide for boss fights?

Senior Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 24, 2015 1:00 PM

    Daniel Perez posted a new article, Bloodborne loading times are long, but a fix is coming

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      March 24, 2015 1:26 PM

      Be cool if they could fix those crazy frame dips in co-op.

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      March 24, 2015 2:02 PM

      I was thinking about buying a PS4 just for this at the end of the month but the load times in Demon Souls drove me nuts so the news that the load times were slow in Bloodborne was putting me off.. Disappointed that slow load times are still an issue with the newest gen consoles.

      I'm sure I'd have ended up buying it anyway but if this is resolved I'll be buying it sooner rather than later!

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        March 24, 2015 3:44 PM

        I think it was during one of the developer tracks on one of the old Pixar movies when they talked about render times, the time it takes to render a final frame of a movie. They said that at the beginning, when they first started, it would take two hours on their old antiquated render-farm. But as the computers improved, the requirements changed too, eventually to the point they were at, at the time, and they found that it still took two hours to render a frame. So, it doesn't really matter how fast the machines are, or how new the game is. Unless they change their process, the load times will be what they are, and always have been. I'd like to blame Sony for adding requirements, or pressuring them to release sooner than they wanted. But I really don't think that's the case, or at least not entirely so.

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      March 24, 2015 2:25 PM

      The load times would be bearable if I had something more to stare at than the game's logo. Come on, From. Both Dark Souls games kept your attention on loading screens by showing items and sharing lore. Yet all we get on BB's load screens is a logo.

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        March 24, 2015 2:28 PM

        you know you have made an amazing game when most complaints don't go beyond loading screens. lol

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          March 24, 2015 2:41 PM

          Haha, for sure! I really did like reading item descriptions and lore, though. It just seems obvious: whether your game loads in 10 seconds or a minute, use text and graphics to keep their attention.

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        March 24, 2015 2:35 PM

        This was something that I noticed during that alpha or beta release. I thought that might have just been something in the alpha/beta that would have changed in the final release.

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        March 24, 2015 4:07 PM

        35 sec of you having to relive your mistakes in your mind.

        Hahaha suffer, it's part of the experience.

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        March 24, 2015 8:34 PM

        Some tidbits of lore and some character pics or profies would be cool...

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      March 24, 2015 5:36 PM

      I must be getting old, because I don't see why 35 seconds is worth whining about.

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        March 24, 2015 6:10 PM

        If it was only a 35 second wait that you had to endure for a few times, you might have a point. But this is a game where you're forced to load another area to level up your character, and have it happen every time that you die. Which in these games, usually happens a lot during a first playthrough.

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          March 24, 2015 6:12 PM

          Areas are huge though. So there is no need to reload a small section over and over. The only way this could possibly be a big deal is if you are constantly dying. So stop!

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        March 24, 2015 8:35 PM

        you will see the loading screen... a lot.

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      March 24, 2015 8:19 PM

      DS2 on the PC spoiled me. I'm kinda disappointed in the load times and framerate of BB.

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        March 24, 2015 8:48 PM

        Dark 2 had the best technical pedigree of the series. Not that anyone else will admit that.

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      March 25, 2015 7:03 AM

      Joe was streaming this the other night. He definitely did mention the long load times early in the stream.

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