PlayStation 4 emulation has improved immensely over the past year. Digital Foundry experimented with the ShadPS4 emulator and Bloodborne. The improvements to both PlayStation 4 emulation and Bloodborne are astounding.
As shared to Twitter by Okami13. Digital Foundry tested the Bloodborne emulation experience as well as mod-ability using the ShadPS4 emulator. Bloodborne has not been ported to any other consoles or had any releases, so it seems that at the time of writing this truly is the best way to play.
Digital Foundry noted that players could experience a much-improved 60fps almost constantly. It is possible to run at higher resolutions. As well as make use of community mods offered on Nexus Mods. This allows fans of the Bloodborne series to have a “remastered” experience by taking advantage of the “Bloodborne Remaster Project” by fromsoftserve. The Bloodborne Remaster Project offers the following updates:
- Dynamic shadow casting
- Improved textures
- Better shadows and lighting
- Improved anti-aliasing
- Reshade profiles
Playing Bloodborne in this fashion would not be made possible without ShadPS4 and the developments the project has made. Naturally, as a PlayStation 4 emulator, ShadPS4 can play a variety of PlayStation 4 games. They may not all have the same support for modifications and improvements as Bloodborne, but playability is likely to keep improving across the board as the ShadPS4 team continues to iterate. As mentioned in the Digital Foundry video, the differences between the last version and the current version of ShadPS4 have seen huge improvements in both framerate and framerate consistency.
If you’d like to find out more about playing Bloodborne or other PS4 titles using emulation, we covered ShadPS4 on the Steam Deck here.