Arguably Sony’s biggest exclusive IP slated to hit the PS4 in 2015, Bloodborne has been raking in excitement and anticipation the last few months, but Wednesday, developer From Software announced that the upcoming action RPG will be pushed over a month from its original February 6, 2015 release date to March 24.

From Software will use the additional seven weeks to push the game even harder, and producer Masaaki Yamagiwa promises that the final product will benefit from the feedback of their alpha gameplay experiment that took place in October:

Dear community,
It is with regret that I must inform you that Bloodborne will be slightly delayed.
While development continues unabated, we would like our team to deliver the best possible final experience. We were gratified by the feedback and data we received from those who participated in our limited Alpha test. The extra production time will also allow us to better integrate these learnings.
Bloodborne is now set to launch in North America exclusively on PS4 on March 24th, 2015.
Please look forward to some exciting Bloodborne news in early December. Thank you very much for your continued support.

It seems to us that reception to the alpha was generally positive, with Demon’s/Dark Souls vets praising the new setting of Yarnham and some of the IP’s newest refinements to the combat system. We were not able to take part in the alpha, but the footage we’ve seen of the demo shows a very polished-looking game – Even in this early stage, the game looks like it performs better than all three Souls games, which, despite glowing reviews, are burdened with frame rate issues of varying proportions.

Our guess is that From Software is focusing this extra time on Bloodborne‘s online gameplay, which is still relatively under wraps. Alpha testers got to test out co-op, which operates seemingly exactly the same as it does in the Dark Souls series, but player-vs-player combat was noticeably absent from the demo. The online aspect of Bloodborne‘s sister titles is one of their most unique elements, and veterans of the previous games will certainly want to dive headlong into PVP once the game hits store shelves. Network issues and online balancing is a nefarious thing to calibrate, and usually doesn’t get tweaked and perfected until launch (and these days, frequently not until after then), so it would make sense that From Software’s looking at user data from the alpha to tighten their infrastructure before launch.

All signs point to Bloodborne being a major success for the PS4, and both Sony and From Software are going to do everything in their power to make sure the game is as good as possible. If that takes seven extra weeks of development, so be it – Yarnham is still one of the most enticing new worlds to explore (and die in) in the coming year.

Bloodborne launches March 24, 2015 on PS4.

Images: From Software