This Long-Awaited Game Sequel Finally Has an Update—But Is It Good News?

Video games are weird things to wait for, largely because of the unpredictability of development cycles. With movies, you can generally bet on there being a set finish line for production. With albums, you don’t really hear much about the finished product until it’s ready to start poking its head out. But with games, so much rides on fan anticipation that they’ll let you in on the concept way in advance, sometimes even before the concept is fully fleshed-out.

Such was the case with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, which first debuted a teaser trailer in 2018.

It’s been 5 years, and a lot has changed since then. The game has gone through a few different teams (including its original developers, Hardsuit Labs), fired former lead writer Brian Mitsoda (one of the biggest reasons why the first game was such a narrative success), and was even forced to provide refunds as it canceled pre-orders and went dark. From time to time, they’d drop little hints that they were still working on the game, but most of us weren’t holding out hope.

Now, however, they’ve finally reemerged from the darkness—and with pretty thrilling news, in my opinion. Paradox Interactive, the game’s publisher, revealed that the new developer is none other than The Chinese Room—the same developers behind the oft-praised titles Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

I myself have never played these games, but only because they’re not the genre I typically I play. I’ve only heard and seen good things about them from sources I trust, namely that this is a studio that knows how to build compelling yet subtle narratives.

Of course, the argument sometimes swings in the other direction, holding that The Chinese Room makes great conceptual titles whose gameplay isn’t strong enough to back them up. Yet all the same, everyone’s main concern regarding Bloodlines 2 was whether or not it would live up to the original’s strong storytelling panache. So, it sounds more likely that we’ll get something akin to the first game: a phenomenal story, with so-so gameplay, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can live with that.

New and old

There are some familiar faces, such as Slug the Nosferatu, but for the most part, a lot has changed. There’s a more somber undertone to this new trailer, as well as new characters and abilities—I’m particularly curious about what seems to be a floating ability.

Per their official description:

Fight your way through a modern-day Seattle on the brink of an open war as an elder Vampire. Meet the power-players, ally yourself and decide who will rule and what the city will become.

A three-front siege on Seattle, a power vacuum in the vampire court and an awakened elder at odds with the voice in her head, realized by BAFTA award winning studio, The Chinese Room.

Blood sustains you and powers your vampiric Disciplines. You’ll stalk and feed on the city’s population by night. Use your supernatural powers or raw persuasion on civilians and lure them into deep, dark alleys to sate your Hunger. Beware of breaking the Masquerade though: do not reveal what you are or you risk reprisals – at first from law enforcement and then, well, remember you are not all that goes bump in this night.

Explore visceral, immersive combat rewarding entirely different playstyles and approaches based on your choice of vampire clan. Will you wade into the fray with supernatural fists, harangue from afar or rebalance your odds by thinning the herd like the apex predator you are? Clan choice supports these playstyles and more.

Enter the World of Darkness and rise through vampire society or rail against it. Experience Seattle – a city full of alluring, dangerous characters and factions, not to mention the mortals at stake in the clash of powers beyond their knowing. In this sequel to the cult classic, your choices, plots and schemes will determine the balance of power and what becomes of the city and its people.

So, yeah, very different from the original concept, which had you struggling your way through the ranks of vampiric Seattle as a “thin-blood.” In that version of the game, you would have been the weakest kind of new vampire and would have to be savvy in order to survive.

The decision to make you an elder, instead, is certainly causing some polarized reactions within the fanbase. Elders are, predictably, incredibly powerful vampires, who have lived at least 200 years and accrued enough status to ensure they add a few more centuries to that number. Some players are worried that forcing us to play as an elder will narrow our roleplaying opportunities, and we won’t have the freedom of choice that we would have as thin-bloods.

I, however, am of the opposite opinion. For one, I think some of the best games are the ones that give you a defined role and then let you figure out who you are within that role. In many ways, a game’s narrative potential is only magnified through a few specific fixed choices, rather than leaving too many open variables to work with. Disco Elysium comes to mind in that regard: normally, I don’t relish the thought of playing as a cop, but within the framework the game forces upon itself and the player, you’re able to have one of the most memorable experiences in gaming to date (Sorry Commie Cop forever).

For another, I actually think playing as a thin-blood would be so tedious gameplay-wise. I mean, how many games are already out there that force you to start from the very bottom and grind to make your way to the top? That shit’s boring at this point, not to mention a recipe for repetitive gameplay, with fetch-quests and meaningless fights for XP galore. By giving us an established past at the start, the devs are freeing us for a more interesting experience.

And all of that is well and good, but after all this time, I wouldn’t be surprised if people were still apprehensive about this game. It’s not often you hear about a game that’s traded studios and gotten rebuilt from the ground up, so at this point, it would be something of a miracle if the game turned out to be as brilliant as the original.

That said, I still have hope. I think they messed up massively during the early half of Bloodlines 2′s development, but going dark until they had a release window was a shrewd decision, and I think The Chinese Room will ultimately prove to be a smart decision, as well. Only time will tell, sure, but I like what I’ve heard and seen thus far, and I’m already getting a little excited about the finished product. Plus, they’re being very open about their future plans: On their website, they promise to show us all playable clans up to the end of 2023, then show us gameplay beginning in 2024.

I’m willing to give them a shot here, more so than some other studios that are currently trying to come out of a rut. I mean, come on, you’re telling me I get to be a bitchy Gangrel again, and a powerful one at that? Hell yes.

(featured image: Paradox Interactive)