Bloodborne on PC may remain the dominion of dreamers and madmen, but in lieu of FromSoftware’s gothic action-RPG finally discovering our eldritch realm, we always have Nightmare Kart. The tongue-in-cheek kart racer (which was originally titled Bloodborne Kart before Sony performed a legal visceral attack on its nomenclature) arrived on PC last year, wowing players with its comprehensive blend of Lovecraftian horror and steampunk racing contraptions. Featuring 15 tracks and 21 racers, all for the low, low price of free, it quickly garnered an ‘overwhelmingly positive’ rating on Steam.
Now, developer LWMedia has formally announced an expansion to Nightmare Kart, playfully titled “The Old Karts”. This addon, which like the base game will be available for free, is set to add a whole new ‘mini campaign’ to the game, alongside new tracks, racers, karts, powerups, and game modes.
There’s a trailer for the expansion you can view above, which plays on Provost Willem’s ‘Fear the old blood’ speech from the original game. In addition, the DLC trailer places a heavy thematic emphasis on sniper rifles. This relates to one of the new powerups, a scoped hunting rifle players can use to shoot at racers or NPC enemies that litter Nightmare Kart’s tracks (such as harpies, which will also be introduced with the DLC).
Although the announcement doesn’t detail specific new features coming to The Old Karts, LWMedia has been tracking development progress regularly over on their Patreon, which also provides a lot of insight into what’s coming with the DLC. Alongside the harpies, new hazard enemies include a creepy ghost lady wearing a bloody nightgown. One post provides a neat time-lapse of Nightmare Kart’s designer, Lilith Walther, modelling one of the new vehicles, a bike inspired by the Victorian penny farthing.
For what started as a joke, Nightmare Kart is a hugely impressive creation, more so considering it’s free. LWMedia doesn’t specify a release date for The Old Karts, simply stating it’ll be available “When it’s ready.”
Nonetheless, Nightmare Kart is still the closest you can get to playing Bloodborne on PC, short of going to the effort of emulating it. The reason Sony hasn’t ported its most wanted exclusive to PC remains a mystery, although a retired Sony exec recently suggested it’s because Miyazaki would prefer to do it himself but can’t. In the meantime, Sony’s efforts appear to be geared more toward frustrating efforts to play Bloodborne on PC, such as striking down a Bloodborne 60 fps mod, though some users have since reuploaded it.