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

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I’m thinking about the relationship between game journalism and isometric cRPGs. You would expect them to cover and discuss these games out of passion, because you would assume that they were avid gamers in the past, nobody know these games or that these smaller studios can’t buy them of. But the reality is that most of them never played cRPGs, let alone obscure games such as PS:T or VtM:B. For some bizarre reason, some of them will shill for free and create this bizarre make believe reality where there is a fake buzz about games that nobody care about. They name drop games they never heard before and these long awaited spiritual successors flop. It’s bizarre. The saving grace of VtM:B2 in comparison with T:ToN is that FPS games are popular and people enjoy vampires. Otherwise I could ascertain it’s a commercial fail already in inception.
 
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Goral

Goral

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:D :D :D https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03...e-masquerade-sequel-has-dishonored-potential/
‘Vampire: The Masquerade’ sequel has ‘Dishonored’ potential
By Gieson Cacho - The Mercury News (TNS)
074533.jpg

Players are subdued so they can be interviewed by other vampires in "Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines 2." (Paradox Interactive/TNS)
Paradox Interactive has unusual codenames for its projects. The publisher names their upcoming projects after TV shows.

When the company bought White Wolf publishing and the rights to the World of Darkness universe, the publisher began assembling a team to work on the cult classic “Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines.” Initially, the developers wanted to call it Project Buffy for obvious reasons, but Paradox Interactive wanted something more obtuse and settled on Project Frasier.

The codename is reference to Seattle, which is the location of “Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2.” The game begins at Pioneer Square. Players are called to the area when vampires begin attacking bystanders. A vampire is siring the victims and the player becomes a fledgling nosferatu albeit an illegal one.

That’s the set up. Players find themselves being interrogated by vampire society and facing certain death when both factions are firebombed. That enables players to escape amid the flames and chaos. After fleeing into the sewers, they have to choose among three abilities: Chiropteran (batlike abilities), Mentalism (telekinesis) and Nebulation (turning into mist).

These are the first powers — other than players superhuman strength and senses — that players have. They’re used for traversal, and players have the opportunity to test them out early on. Players have to get a keycard to open the door. The problem has solutions geared toward the abilities. As a bat, players can fly short distances and reach pipes that lead players to a hole in the room’s ceiling. If they have mentalism, they can open locked doors by removing the chairs blocking them. As mist, they can go through the vents and into a room.

The different solutions for one problem is reminiscent of immersive simulations such as “Dishonored” or “Deus Ex.” Although that’s a good starting point to describe the game, the ambition behind “Bloodlines 2” is broad than those two titles. It expands that concept to a world governed by vampire clan politics and societal rules.

The Masquerade is the concept of keeping the existence of bloodsuckers secret from the greater public. If players break that basic law and say murder people outside a club, it angers vampire society, and they can go after the protagonist.

What’s more interesting is how the developer, Hardsuit Labs, incorporates player choice from the beginning and how that is reflected in the world. It starts from the beginning as players choose the background of their avatar. The fledgling vampire could be a barista, cop or someone else in their previous life. Depending on that background, characters will treat the protagonist differently.

As players go further in the campaign and choose a clan, their other actions such as indiscriminately killing others or carefully doing it in the shadows impacts the environment. If players tap into the Beast within them, and go in a berserk rage leaving evidence of their rampages, it could scare off Seattle residents.

Fewer people would be out in the streets and that would make the hunt for blood more difficult. Players need that blood to function nominally.

Players are notified how their actions impact the world by updates that appear after each interaction. For example, if the protagonist sucks a person dry, the vampire loses humanity. Gamers can get by feeding on humans but sucking them enough so that they stay alive. They can also tap into the power of the Beast, and violently kill enemies, but that again has repercussions. The struggle for players and their avatar is balancing the use of the vampiric power to achieve their goals.

Aside from using their bare hands and abilities to kill, players in combat also can defeat enemies with shotguns and other firearms. They can also solve problems nonviolently, but don’t think that “Bloodlines 2” offers a choice between good and bad. The developers say vampires are evil creatures and it’s up to players to figure out the scope and manner of that ruthlessness.

“Bloodlines 2” sounds like a game in which player choice matters, but it’s done in a way that’s subtle. Players will have few blatant and binary decisions. Even the way side quests are discovered takes work and asks players to immerse themselves into the World of Darkness. The developers said there won’t be many icons showing players a person has a mission for them. Instead, they’ll have to listen for tips on the radio and investigate or they can explore the clues of another vampire that was sired on the same night as the protagonist was.

The central mystery behind “Bloodlines 2” appears to be discovering who sired the protagonist and the reason behind it. That will take players around hubs based on neighborhoods in Seattle, and players operate out of there.

When the original “Bloodlines” was released in 2004, it was a game that also had a lot of ambition. In some ways, it was ahead of its time but unfortunately didn’t have the systems or technology to translate the World of Darkness universe in a convincing way. The sequel has similar aspirations, but 15 years of game development and hardware evolution has made the ideas behind the original more of reality.

It’s up to Hardsuit to see if the studio can see that vision through when the game comes out as scheduled in the first quarter of 2020 on PC and consoles
Click to expand...
 
hivemind

hivemind

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vampires were always landed gentry caricatures

kikes dont own land and thus it doesnt really apply to them

also kill yourself you retard
 
Lacrymas

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Vampires represent a lot of things, I haven't noticed it's against Jews specifically, though. One of the interpretations of Dracula is that he's a foreigner trying to steal land and women from the Englishmen. Given the rampant nationalism going on during the Romanticism, I'm inclined to agree. Carmilla, however, doesn't have this nationalistic angle, but it does have the corruption of women. If there's a unifying theme of the early vampire literature, it is that of corruption - Lord Ruthven, Carmilla, Dracula, Geraldine (from Coleridge's Christabel), etc, are all unholy influences, trying to slowly turn their victims from the light. Some other sources describe them as vengeful and destructive, Goethe's die Braut von Korinth features a vampire woman (she's more of a spectre) returned from the grave to hunt her betrothed and drink the blood from his heart; I vaguely remember Byron having a poem about vampires coming to destroy everything.

Soooo, yeah, not everything bad is a jab at the Jews. At least I don't see a connection, unless you think "bloodthirsty monsters" = Jews. Which is weird. Don't.
 
Lacrymas

Lacrymas

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I looked it up, it's about an infidel (from the Islamic point of view) whose punishment for killing a Muslim will be to return from the grave as a vampire and destroy his own family. It's not about Jews, he's Christian.
 
Herumor

Herumor

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HansDampf said:
Gameplay footage please. I can't take any more articles.
Click to expand...

Some people are speculating we're only going to get footage at this year's E3 during the PC Gaming show. That's 3 months away. I'm not sure I can stand to be buried in articles talking about gameplay footage that I haven't been allowed to see for myself. I didn't like it when it happened with Cyberpunk 2077 and I'm not going to like it now either. I'm not familiar with how game development works, but being a year from its release date should mean they have some viable build of the game to show off that's not entirely bare-bones, yes? I suppose some could argue they want to avoid their stuff being dissected and nitpicked over minor things, but some people will do that regardless of how the game is like, either now or at release.
 
Theldaran

Theldaran

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Well, development spans until the very release date. That's why a lot of games ask for extra months, even just one.
 
alyvain

alyvain

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Lacrymas said:
One of the interpretations of Dracula is that he's a foreigner trying to steal land and women from the Englishmen.
Click to expand...

And he was quite exotic and Eastern European in Bram Stoker's book, which now seems silly. As well as eastern parts of the Danube River in Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" which were depicted as some parallel universe. Now this depiction of Eastern Europe as some magic Wakanda where mystic staff happens aren't relevant. Cultural and geographical tropes can get old.

Latro said:
they are obviously jewish caricatures. shadowy group of ancient bloodsuckers using minority mixed race minions to prey on the average man?
Click to expand...

Nice bait, m8, but why not gypsies? Not redpilled enough?

BTW, I'm waiting for a racist reimagination of Syrian refugees as thirsty bloodsuckers welfaring the crap out of some degradian European economy and turning the urban landscape into a rathole, while honest, hard-working white people are scared to be on the street after it gets dark.

Yeah, that would be fun. And it would be a nice way to explore some actual social conflicts, as horrors ocassionally do, not to chew some sugary revolt of gender kerfuffle, which not a single SJW seems to be able to pull of.
 
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