The silver disc sat in the tray, a pristine copy of Bloodborne: Game of the Year Edition

Load Times (The Game Changer): On release, Bloodborne had excruciating load times—upwards of 40–60 seconds between deaths. In V1.09, load times are reduced to approximately 5–15 seconds. Furthermore, the original "Bloodborne" logo loading screen (which took forever) was replaced with item description lore cards. This alone made V1.09 essential.

Weapon Rebalancing: The patch adjusted the strength and stamina costs for several weapons, refining the combat experience to be as balanced as it ever was on the PlayStation 4. Standard vs. GOTY Edition

The "Holy Moonlight Sword" Scaling

V1.09 is the patch that finally made Ludwig’s Holy Moonlight Sword (arguably the best weapon in the game) function correctly. Before V1.09, the untransformed R1 attacks didn’t properly benefit from Arcane scaling. Now, a 50/50 Strength/Arcane build wielding +10 Holy Moonlight Sword on V1.09 is the benchmark for "NG+7 viability."