Seán ‘Jacksepticeye’ McLoughlin, the producer behind the animated Bloodborne movie, says the project now has a writer and a director attached. The update is the first real sign of movement on a project that has been largely quiet since it was announced more than six months ago.

McLoughlin shared the news while promoting his new role as the latest elusive target in Hitman, which is out today. When asked about Bloodborne, he confirmed that the film is progressing, and he made clear that the situation is very different from when the project was first revealed.

’Things are obviously much more along the pipeline than they were back then,’ he said. For fans who have waited years for a Bloodborne adaptation, that is the first concrete news in a long time.

The team is keeping the names of the writer and director under wraps for now. McLoughlin did not say when they would be revealed, but he pointed to a few likely windows. The Game Awards this December is one possibility, and another gaming event next year could also serve as a stage for announcements.

He was careful about how much he would say. He said he would love to reveal everything as a fan, but that the process needs some surprises. The team has a lot of the story mapped out, and he said there are people in place to make the film happen. He hopes to share announcements soon that cover who is involved, where the story is heading, and small teases about the plot.

McLoughlin also described the job as both rewarding and stressful. He is taking on what he called a monumental intellectual property, and his role is to push the team toward something that feels right. Asked whether the film will ever be perfect, he admitted he does not know. He said it is probably impossible to meet everyone’s expectations at once, but he feels he is in the right place and that the team is ready to deliver something strong.

Why animation, and why not live action

The most revealing part of the conversation came when McLoughlin compared Bloodborne with Alex Garland’s upcoming Elden Ring project, which will be live action. He was blunt about the cost of that approach. He said that adapting Elden Ring in live action would cost $600 million, and he doubted the studio was attempting to film the entire game.

That kind of scale is exactly why he thinks animation suits Bloodborne. He argued that the amount of time, effort, financing, and moving parts required for a live-action version raises the question of whether it is even a smart decision. Animation, in his view, can handle the game’s otherworldly elements in ways that live action may not manage well.

’I don’t want to adapt something if we’re just going to tell the same stories with the same characters over and over and over again.’

He described the goal in terms of creative freedom. Instead of putting actors in front of a green screen and hoping for the best, he said the team can lean into the strange, otherworldly details that define the Bloodborne world. He framed it as a chance to push the material further and cut it down into something he considers cool and focused.

Lessons from Elden Ring

McLoughlin said his team will probably take a bit from the Elden Ring film, mainly because it will arrive first. He said the team will look at what that production does and ask whether they are making similar choices. But he was quick to point out the differences. Bloodborne is set in Victorian England, while Elden Ring centers on gods and a mountain. He said the structure might be similar, but the stories are very far apart.

He also said he does not want to copy too much. Repeating the same ideas would be a mistake, and he expects the reaction to Elden Ring to be mixed, with some people upset, some happy, and others indifferent. His goal for Bloodborne is to give audiences something they do not expect, and something that feels interesting on its own terms.

The question every adaptation has to answer

For McLoughlin, the central issue is simple. Why adapt the game at all? He said he would not move forward with an adaptation if it did not feel like there was a story worth telling or a good idea behind it. Movies, he argued, are a completely different medium from video games. The difference between a passive audience and an interactive one matters, and he wants to find the right way to play with that gap.

He said this is not his first attempt at a video game adaptation. He previously tried to bring Soma to life as well. Across those projects, he has never been interested in simply retelling a game’s story in a new format. He is more drawn to new stories that expand a universe.

He pointed to Fallout and the recent Resident Evil film as examples of that approach. In his view, those projects work because they feel like the same world while shifting the lens to reveal something new. He said that leeway within a story is what makes adaptations most interesting, and he criticized the habit of taking an existing IP and simply redoing the game plot. He noted that many people already have their own version of an adaptation in their heads, and those versions rarely match what studios deliver.

McLoughlin also brought up a moment from the BAFTA games event, where Ben Starr discussed adaptations and argued that they should not exist. McLoughlin said fans then began asking him whether he and Starr were now at odds. He joked that they were mortal enemies, but he said Starr had a point about the core question. For McLoughlin, the first thing to ask about any adaptation is why it needs to exist.

That question will shape how the Bloodborne movie is judged when it finally shows its hand. For now, the production has offered a clearer picture than it has in months: a writer and a director are in place, a finished story is taking shape, and the team says it is ready to show more when the time is right.