After almost giving up on the prospect, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 should finally be released next year, a solid four years after its initial release date.
To try and save the game and bring it to the finish line, Paradox Interactive got another developer, The Chinese Room, known for Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, to rebuild the game and get it ready to launch quietly.
Everything bad that could happen to a game in development happened to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. The first knock the sequel to 2004’s cult classic received was when the lead writer, known for his work on the previous game, and the creative director, Ka’ai Cluney, were fired.
Not long after this blow, developer Hardsuit Labs was taken off the project entirely, and the game was delayed indefinitely in 2021.
However, it’s now been revealed that unbeknownst to everyone, The Chinese Room was brought in shortly after the previous developers were removed. Since then, they’ve been quietly rebuilding the game.
While we don’t know much about the rebuild, we do know that The Chinese Room has kept Bloodlines 2’s initial planned setting of Seattle and is using a new code base with different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems.
The game will also have a different protagonist than Hardsuit Labs had planned. The original protagonist was posed to be a “thin blood” vampire. In World of Darkness rules, older is better, and the legendary bloodlines of Antediluvian vampire patriarchs have diluted over the millennia; players would take on one of these diluted.
Now, players will control an Elder vampire, awoken from a lengthy sleep. Speaking about the change in protagonist, The Chinese Room had this to say:
“We don’t want it to be just a sort of poor homage or pastiche of Bloodlines 1. We want it to be its own thing. We’re not doing what Bloodlines 1 did, which is a traditional RPG game start: the very first day you’re a vampire. The actual character you are has been a vampire for quite a while. And that was to create something different from Bloodlines to give a different experience.”
A new trailer for the rebuilt game has also been released, and you can watch it here:
What do you think about The Chinese Room taking over? Is there finally hope for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2? Let us know in the comments.