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

[Delterius]

Next you're gonna tell me that Patrick Stewart doesn't have a French accent.

I don't want to be like well actually, but French in Picard's timeline is a dead language.

Jean-Luc Picard was born to Maurice and Yvette Picard in La Barre, France, on 13 July 2305, and he dreamed of joining Starfleet. He and the rest of his family speak English, with English accents—the French language having become obscure by the 24th century, as mentioned in the Next Generation episode “Code of Honor“.

• season 1 (post pilot episode) is not canon
• this is just cope because roddenberry wanted some 'hot belgian chad with a head full of hair' (not my words) to play the captain and the gay overtones was weirding everyone out on set
• everybody knows the prophecy that when the french languages comes close to dying off then the quebecois shall form a francophile taliban that will bathe the world in blood, cheese, and wine

 

[Cricket McBangle]

the chinese room

a company best known for

*checks notes*

a mod for half life 2 and dlc for amnesia

urban fantasy is a cursed genre. every day seems like the 9/11.

The Chinese Room behind Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is very different from The Chinese Room of today. They’re an entirely different studio and they have aims to be the “Naughty Dog of the UK”

 

[Delterius]

the chinese room

a company best known for

*checks notes*

a mod for half life 2 and dlc for amnesia

urban fantasy is a cursed genre. every day seems like the 9/11.

The Chinese Room behind Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is very different from The Chinese Room of today. They’re an entirely different studio and they have aims to be the “Naughty Dog of the UK”

all the more power to them. but, you know, not that confident on their stuff.

plus i kinda hope the game won't become an uncharted esque corridor movie.

 

[Roguey]

plus i kinda hope the game won't become an uncharted esque corridor movie.

Paradox said they were cutting the budgets of all their externally-developed games in their last financial report. It's going to have a significantly lowered scope (not only because of that but because Paradox wants to ship something that isn't a dumpsterfire of code). I'd expect a 10-20 hour game with Bioware-style reactivity, likely with fewer clan choices/abilities than BL2 was going to have.

 

[Hobo Elf]

No, I want to rubberneck just what kind of corner-cutting mediocrity/disaster they're gonna put out.

Be honest.. You just want them to release something so Wesp5 can start the real development of Bloodlines 2.

 

[whydoibother]

plus i kinda hope the game won't become an uncharted esque corridor movie.

Paradox said they were cutting the budgets of all their externally-developed games in their last financial report. It's going to have a significantly lowered scope (not only because of that but because Paradox wants to ship something that isn't a dumpsterfire of code). I'd expect a 10-20 hour game with Bioware-style reactivity, likely with fewer clan choices/abilities than BL2 was going to have.

Imagine if a new Bloodlines games ends up as a bargain bin Vampyr.

 

[Wesp5]

Be honest.. You just want them to release something so Wesp5 can start the real development of Bloodlines 2.

Apart that I know nothing about modding an Unreal Engine game and this is supposed to be harder than modding Source anyway, it really needs to be as good as Bloodlines for me to care! I wouldn't lift a finger for something like Vampyr or Bloodhunt .

 

[EvilWolf]

Well, there is a moment when he says 'You've been trying to wipe them out for weeks. He did it [wipe out the LA sabbat] in a night!'. So that's not the problem. The Sheriff just never had the opportunity you had. Or he was simply canonically too weak to do a frontal assault on Hallowbrook

That makes sense, but then again you never see Sheriff in combat against actual Sabbat, minus that one small cutscene in the tutorial. Makes you wonder about his power level. Is he on Andrei's level or not?

Abbrams, Therese, Nines are all younger than him and competent at what they are trying to do.

Eh, Abrams couldn't get rid of that gargoyle. Nines feels like someones Sonic OC in terms of "look how badass and noble he is, he has no bad qualities!", barely feels like an actual character, and Therese is actually older than LaCroix if we're going by 5e rules, she's the childe of a Malkavian methuselah or something.

Im pretty sure that's a fanfic tier retcon I doubt a 4th generation vampire would just be out embracing people as late as whenever "silly clown wallpaper" was a thing. Also if that was true I'm pretty sure Strauss would know and she would be the Malkavian primogen and not someone as young, in comparison, as Grout. Before you say "B-b-but Auspex can't do that!" then how the fuck does Andrei know near the end of bloodlines.

So which studio is working on VTMB2 right now?

Roguey and others are saying it might be The Chinese Room, but there is no official statement yet.

They are owned by Sumo Digital, who recently suffered a big fail with a Robin Hood game. And they laid off staff a few years ago, they are small now. And they've only made "walking simulator" narrative games, no action games.
So I doubt they would be working on this. And I hope they wouldn't be working on it, at least not alone.

I am confident that it’s The Chinese Room and they got approval to overhaul much of Hardsuit’s version. The game is aiming for a late 2023/early 2024 release.

I don’t really know what they’re doing and I’m not an AAA game dev so I can only speculate about Paradox trusting Sumo and The Chinese Room enough to get it out in approximately 2 years against 5 years of Hardsuit’s dev time

Dev time for something like what Bloodlines 2 should be is going to be closer to 4-5 years. Considering they apparently started from scratch. I wouldn't even expect an update until 2024 unless they're forced to do some "We're working on it we swear!" nothing burger update earlier than that.

 

[whydoibother]

Dev time for something like what Bloodlines 2 should be is going to be closer to 4-5 years. Considering they apparently started from scratch.

Pretty sure they kept the video and audio assets. And even if they heavily revise the plot and dialogues, they can use some of the existing infrastructure for that too.
A time consuming aspect of game development is prototyping the systems, but this game already has some basic stuff done - the spells, animations attached to them, jumping, shooting, dialogue UI and branching paths and so on. This is already done and connected, we know the game was somewhat playable.

 

[BlackheartXIII]

The Chinese Room ltd initially was a game study lab/project of the university of Portsmouth (called thechineseroom) founded/headed by Dan Pinchbeck a game study lecturer in Portsmouth's school of creative technologies that apparently have a PhD in content and gameplay in FPSs with that picture in mind imagine that type of person that achieve a PhD in such field. moreover as game study lab/project of the university of Portsmouth all their projects from 2008 to 2012 were mods and were funded by the AHRC (the art and humanities research council), except from amnesia which produce by a indie publisher (frictional games). in 2017 dan and his wife fired the entire staff and they stared looking for funding, in 2018 they got the sumo digital deal.

 

[Tacgnol]

As Roguey suggests, they'll likely significantly decrease the scope of the game. I doubt they'll want to fund another 5 years+ development on this turkey.

Paradox probably wants to get something serviceable out and wash their hands of this debacle asap.

 

[Häyhä]

A PhD in "FPS content and gameplay", lol how the universities of the West have fallen.

 

[Herumor]

Imagine if a new Bloodlines games ends up as a bargain bin Vampyr.

Oh man, I just can't wait to play another vampire game that punishes the player for playing as a vampire!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Imagine if a new Bloodlines games ends up as a bargain bin Vampyr.

Oh man, I just can't wait to play another vampire game that punishes the player for playing as a vampire!

Being a vampire is a punishment anyway.

 

[Herumor]

Being a vampire is a punishment anyway.

Shitting on the player is not conducive to people enjoying the game.

 

[Caim]

the chinese room

a company best known for

*checks notes*

a mod for half life 2 and dlc for amnesia

urban fantasy is a cursed genre. every day seems like the 9/11.

The Chinese Room behind Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is very different from The Chinese Room of today. They’re an entirely different studio and they have aims to be the “Naughty Dog of the UK”

Being compared to Naughty Dog isn't exactly something positive...

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Being compared to Naughty Dog isn't exactly something positive...

It is in general gaming. Yes their most games are cinematic almost linear corridor like Uncharted and TLOU but for all intent and purpose they are reputable game dev developing decent quality games, even if their genre in particular interest not most of the Codex

There are worse studio to be compared too, even if we are talking about cinematic linear corridor stuff. And as ambition, being able to become such reputable studio with good sales is pretty normal. No one is going to put target that they want to be I dunno, Obsidian or Piranha Bytes.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

the chinese room

a company best known for

*checks notes*

a mod for half life 2 and dlc for amnesia

urban fantasy is a cursed genre. every day seems like the 9/11.

The Chinese Room behind Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is very different from The Chinese Room of today. They’re an entirely different studio and they have aims to be the “Naughty Dog of the UK”

Being compared to Naughty Dog isn't exactly something positive...

I didn’t really mean it as a positive or a negative. Just trying to point out that this new studio called The Chinese Room are not the Walking Sim devs from before and have ambitions from their studio head to be something else.

Getting yet mostly rookie staff with some experienced leadership, presumably, with Sumo’s support and experience in handling other studios’ project may deliver a game that checks off the requirement for scoring a 7 or 8 on IGN.

 

[Wesp5]

Im pretty sure that's a fanfic tier retcon I doubt a 4th generation vampire would just be out embracing people as late as whenever "silly clown wallpaper" was a thing.

I agree. Even if this is mentioned somewhere in V5, remember that they gave us Rudi too! Probably somebody noticed that fans love Jeanette and Therese so they invented some non-Troika background.

 

[Roguey]

Dev time for something like what Bloodlines 2 should be is going to be closer to 4-5 years.

What it "should" be and what it will be are two different things. Hardsuit was given five years and failed. They're not going to spend another five on it (if they had that kind of money to spare they'd just pay Hardsuit to finish their damn game). They have costs to recoup. The best they/one can hope for is a Dead Man's Switch of Vampire: the Masquerade, which is funny considering all the people who wished HBS got it.

 

[Storyfag]

Well, there is a moment when he says 'You've been trying to wipe them out for weeks. He did it [wipe out the LA sabbat] in a night!'. So that's not the problem. The Sheriff just never had the opportunity you had. Or he was simply canonically too weak to do a frontal assault on Hallowbrook

That makes sense, but then again you never see Sheriff in combat against actual Sabbat, minus that one small cutscene in the tutorial. Makes you wonder about his power level. Is he on Andrei's level or not?

Abbrams, Therese, Nines are all younger than him and competent at what they are trying to do.

Eh, Abrams couldn't get rid of that gargoyle. Nines feels like someones Sonic OC in terms of "look how badass and noble he is, he has no bad qualities!", barely feels like an actual character, and Therese is actually older than LaCroix if we're going by 5e rules, she's the childe of a Malkavian methuselah or something.

Im pretty sure that's a fanfic tier retcon I doubt a 4th generation vampire would just be out embracing people as late as whenever "silly clown wallpaper" was a thing.

No reason not to.

Also if that was true I'm pretty sure Strauss would know and she would be the Malkavian primogen and not someone as young, in comparison, as Grout.

Technically, the qualifying factor for a Primogen is age as opposed to generation, and Grout could very well be older than Therese. Not to mention, she's technically an Anarch still in the process of negotiating her entry to the Camarilla.

 

[Delterius]

Im pretty sure that's a fanfic tier retcon I doubt a 4th generation vampire would just be out embracing people as late as whenever "silly clown wallpaper" was a thing.

I agree. Even if this is mentioned somewhere in V5, remember that they gave us Rudi too! Probably somebody noticed that fans love Jeanette and Therese so they invented some non-Troika background.

A lot of people just make the assumption that Therese is higher gen than you because you can't dominate her. And you'd be higher gen than LaCroix because he ultimately can't dominate you. And the reason why it's not a mid game power up that does it is because you always have a big blood pool.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

So I've been a Bloodlines fan since I played back in the 2000s and now I've written off the IP as cursed. Are there any other urban fantasy crpgs worth playing that have been released or are upcoming?

 

[ColaWerewolf]

Ho boy, I can't wait until BL2 comes around and it turns out you're the childe of Lilith sent to test how vampire society reacts to getting wantonly slaughtered and put to shame by a freshly embraced thin-blood (but it doesn't matter because Lilith uses her McGuffins to up your blood potency). Oh man, it'll be so funny when they reveal that the Uber driver you've been calling up was actually Lilith the whole time! Haha, what an awesome, creative, and not at all grossly-exceptional experience.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So I've been a Bloodlines fan since I played back in the 2000s and now I've written off the IP as cursed. Are there any other urban fantasy crpgs worth playing that have been released or are upcoming?

shadowrun dragonfall director's cut & shadowrun hong kong