World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[Sykar]

I am surprised this thread exploded like that in the past few days. Still not anything of substance out about the game and they want to release it next year. They do not even have a gameplay trailer, just that garbage no-show with horrible music.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I'm not going to buy it if it's full of homosexual and queer stuff. Who do they think their target audience is?

maybe jojo fans

 

[Dexter]

We won't know till we play it.
Do not hope for anything about it. It could be a shit game... as much as it could be a masterpiece. Just analize it when it is released. So far we cannot tell. We have not even seen any gameplay yet!

Just give them one opportunity instead of accepting failure as only option. We could be surprised.
If the game turns out to be shit... do not worry because RPG codex will write thousands of books criticizing it.

Let's assume that Cara will be a one-off and leave any sort of concern about politics aside, let's assume it's just a group of people trying to make the best game they possibly can and the best possible sequel to a cult-classic.

I'd just like to point out the studio's history again in greater detail for all the fabulously optimistic people out there, since I think they aren't paying near anywhere enough attention to that.

Here's some of their latest output:
Blacklight: Retribution (2012)

Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition (2012)

Special Forces: Team X (2013)

Daylight (2014)

Phantom Army (2014)


They've apparently also worked on porting some games like "Shadow Complex: Remastered" to PC or "Chivalry: Medieval Warfare" to consoles under their new name, but have otherwise done no Original work since then.

Blacklight: Retribution is also the only other title they also feature majorly on their website after the transition from Zombie Studios to Hardsuit Labs: https://www.hardsuitlabs.com/blacklight/
For which they recently announced an end of life in preparation to the reveal of Bloodlines 2: https://twitter.com/HardsuitLabs/status/1093934661917597697

 

[Black]

You're the whining usual suspects he was talking about.

Boo hoo, call me when it's the Codex that campaigns for banning of video games.

You mean like no one we're talking about does?

Weird, could've sworn HM 2 got banned in Straya due to "journalists" whining about its offensive content. And it so happens that one of these "journalists" is now a senior writer for BL2.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

She's just a fucking games journalist. What the actual fuck.

having sex with someone is a good way to get a job

 

[Yosharian]

So one of the greatest games in videogame history is having a sequel made by a company best known for F2P multiplayer shovelware, and the senior writer is a woke games journalist.

Kill me now.

 

[Reinhardt]

After they said malkavians are problematic i give no fucks about their game.

 

[Zombra]

Boo hoo, call me when it's the Codex that campaigns for banning of video games.

You mean like no one we're talking about does?

Weird, could've sworn HM 2 got banned in Straya due to "journalists" whining about its offensive content. And it so happens that one of these "journalists" is now a senior writer for BL2.

So no one should ever say "I found such and such disturbing"? That's all she did. Nowhere was there any hint of "this game should be banned!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Now who's advocating censorship?

 

[Steezus]

Now who's advocating censorship?

How is "I don't like her" = censorship???

 

[d1nolore]

Game journalists are a waste of oxygen.

 

[Perkel]

Interesting note. Hardsuit labs were formelly known as zombie studios before they went bankrupt.
Obviously there was some people reshuffle but...

List of games they made:

https://www.metacritic.com/company/zombie-studios

 

[Zombra]

Now who's advocating censorship?

How is "I don't like her" = censorship???

It isn't, I was deliberately blowing something out of proportion to show what it looks like, glad you caught it

 

[Cael]

Game journalists are a waste of oxygen.

Yes, but do they make good fertiliser?

 

[Saerain]

So one of the greatest games in videogame history is having a sequel made by a company best known for F2P multiplayer shovelware, and the senior writer is a woke games journalist.

Kill me now.

Laughter eases the pain. At least we know one character is an unironic intersectional caricature that's sure to produce delightfully hot takes for many memes to come.

 

[Herumor]

I don't understand the whole "we have to tiptoe around mental illness" angle that's been brought up. Are mentally ill people their primary audience?

 

[Storyfag]

So one of the greatest games in videogame history is having a sequel made by a company best known for F2P multiplayer shovelware, and the senior writer is a woke games journalist.

Kill me now.

Laughter eases the pain. At least we know one character is an unironic intersectional caricature that's sure to produce delightfully hot takes for many memes to come.

This is a PnP character, no telling if xir will make it into the game.

 

[Steezus]

It isn't, I was deliberately blowing something out of proportion to show what it looks like, glad you caught it

The game was banned in Australia because of an implied rape scene. Of course that's not Ellison's fault, she didn't ask for a ban (afaik). I agree with you there. But I just skimmed through her HM2 article and she did drone on about her safe space in a game where everybody gets horribly murdered (where one of the muderers is female, but she might not have been aware of that). What is even weirder is that she recognizes that the rape scene was part of a movie shoot and that framing made it apparently semi-alright, even though she wished the game could've provided that framing earlier.
So fictional rape, regardless of the artistic intent, is only okay if it's two virtual layers deep? Is only fake rape allowed and actual rape is tabu? What? I'm not automatically counting her out as a writer for video games since this is apparently her first major contribution, but this type of arbitrariness for the sake of being gender woke is just yikes to me and doesn't exactly instill confidence when Bloodlines is full of horrible shit that happens to both genders.

 

[Dreed]

We lost our Paradox insider, what have you leaked again Infinitron

 

[Vincente]

(where one of the muderers is female, but she might not have been aware of that)

Excuse you, The Fans have two female murderers.

 

[Infinitron]

I think Codexers shouldn't be so quick to dismiss studios because they worked in other genres previously. It's a pretty sensible business strategy in the age of digital distribution. Find a low-barrier-to-entry cash cow genre like what F2P shooters were back in 2012, make your initial fortune, and then do what you really want. If Obsidian as a company had launched in the 2010s instead of the 2000s, I could totally see them doing the same thing.

We lost our Paradox insider, what have you leaked again Infinitron

Wasn't me, the last time I was awake he was still here.

 

[Saerain]

Yeah, it's not that past products suggest to me a bad sign so much as they fail to offer a good one, thus one more source of despair.

So one of the greatest games in videogame history is having a sequel made by a company best known for F2P multiplayer shovelware, and the senior writer is a woke games journalist.

Kill me now.

Laughter eases the pain. At least we know one character is an unironic intersectional caricature that's sure to produce delightfully hot takes for many memes to come.

This is a PnP character, no telling if xir will make it into the game.

Apologies for the fake news.

In that case, all is lost.

 

[fantadomat]

Now who's advocating censorship?

Your mum!

 

[fantadomat]

We lost our Paradox insider, what have you leaked again Infinitron

Well he did his job and got fired... press F for Space Nugget.

 

[Infinitron]

Also, can I just say re: Brian Mitsoda - what a testament to the power of connections. The man gets thrown out of Obsidian on his ass, spends years and years out of the loop working on an indie project that turns out to be a humiliating disaster, but with one phone call from an old buddy he's back in the AAA saddle again.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Also, can I just say re: Brian Mitsoda - what a testament to the power of connections. The man spends years and years out of the loop working on an indie RPG that turns out to be a humiliating disaster, but with one phone call from an old buddy he's back in the AAA saddle again.

the word you're looking for is cronyism.
As in, "cronyism is largely responsible for the current situation of washed up hacks destroying the videogame industry"