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

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

Anne Westfall, programmer of Archon:

 

[RaggleFraggle]

CCP and Paradox revived what is a finished IP, bought out and dissolved WW multiple times, because they wanted to cash in on the cult success of Bloodlines. The constant repackages and rehashes don’t add anything new and don’t boost sales, no matter whether they make fans happy or upset.

But these companies have consistently been unable to make WOD profitable in the video game market.

tbf neither ccp nor paradox actually released something to the videogame market. oh nevermind there was that euro vapourware werewolf game.

maybe a bloodlines 2 or the wod mmo would have been successful. but its not like either team beat the 'content pipeline' boss on their first try

Paradox approved multiple official licensed games on Steam under the “world of darkness” franchise. They may not have been developed or published in-house, but they have the official stamp of approval. And they all suck.

The problem with these games is that they try too hard to be grimderp neo-mall goth lorefag circlejerk shit rather than 1) acknowledging how inherently ridiculous their own premise is and having fun with it, and 2) making the characters colorful and interesting.

 

[The President]

I am kind of surprised Paradox bought the IP and then didn't develop a single game in house. Though I think Hardsuit's fuckup might have been a big factor of why they didn't do more. Hardsuit did start working on this around 2015 IIRC, maybe they were hoping a big release would reignite the series. This game was supposed to be out three years ago now, even my own friend who contracted on this is out five years already.

I'm curious of what the last build looked like right before Hardsuit was fired. I do wonder if we'll end up with a RE1.5 situation with this game. I would love to see what sense I could make out of the old assets if I had time to look through them.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I am kind of surprised Paradox bought the IP and then didn't develop a single game in house. Though I think Hardsuit's fuckup might have been a big factor of why they didn't do more. Hardsuit did start working on this around 2015 IIRC, maybe they were hoping a big release would reignite the series. This game was supposed to be out three years ago now, even my own friend who contracted on this is out five years already.

I'm curious of what the last build looked like right before Hardsuit was fired. I do wonder if we'll end up with a RE1.5 situation with this game. I would love to see what sense I could make out of the old assets if I had time to look through them.

Didn’t they buy the IP because their CEO at the time was on a spending spree? There are old articles saying they wanted to develop a multimedia franchise with a television spin-off. It’s hilarious how their plans to expand the IP into other mediums exploded so spectacularly for the third or fourth time in a row after Aaron Spelling, Activision, and CCP all tried and failed. I get the impression this IP is cursed.

 

[The President]

A quick search says they bought it in October 2015 for what apparently amounted to $1.2million in cash. I mean damn, they practically stole it. This also means Hardsuit's game started very closely after the acquisition.

I've never been a player of the tabletop game VTM or any of the other games in the series, but that series had a long and detailed lore, in the right hands they really could have done something with it. They really should have taken their time and done their due diligence when picking a studio and taking a pitch. With the price they paid it's not like they had long term liabilities sneaking up on them.

 

[deuxhero]

Absolutely a steal. Even with only 2015's rate of sales, I think World of Darkness game PDF sales on their own could make 1.2 million USD in a year or two without any new content, and that's assuming Bloodlines and Requiem don't generate royalties in any way.

 

[Roguey]

A quick search says they bought it in October 2015 for what apparently amounted to $1.2million in cash. I mean damn, they practically stole it. This also means Hardsuit's game started very closely after the acquisition.

I've never been a player of the tabletop game VTM or any of the other games in the series, but that series had a long and detailed lore, in the right hands they really could have done something with it. They really should have taken their time and done their due diligence when picking a studio and taking a pitch. With the price they paid it's not like they had long term liabilities sneaking up on them.

As Avellone noted in his medium post, he helped Mitsoda pull a con on Paradox because they were delusionally optimistic and really wanted to be the ones to do it despite it being very obvious that Hardsuit didn't have the capability to make the game they wanted to make. "Mitsoda and Avellone," that's extremely difficult to say no to.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

As Avellone noted in his medium post, he helped Mitsoda pull a con on Paradox because they were delusionally optimistic and really wanted to be the ones to do it despite it being very obvious that Hardsuit didn't have the capability to make the game they wanted to make. "Mitsoda and Avellone," that's extremely difficult to say no to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mitsoda was a contractor for Hardsuit rather than an employee - right? So if that's the case, why did they need Hardsuit in the first place rather than just convincing Paradox to buy the license (which was a steal in itself) and then leave it to Paradox to find a properly sized & experienced studio to make the game? Mitsoda (+/- MCA) could still be brought along as contractor(s) for the narrative design and Paradox as holder of the license could force any prospective studio to bring them onto the project.

 

[Roguey]

As Avellone noted in his medium post, he helped Mitsoda pull a con on Paradox because they were delusionally optimistic and really wanted to be the ones to do it despite it being very obvious that Hardsuit didn't have the capability to make the game they wanted to make. "Mitsoda and Avellone," that's extremely difficult to say no to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mitsoda was a contractor for Hardsuit rather than an employee - right? So if that's the case, why did they need Hardsuit in the first place rather than just convincing Paradox to buy the license (which was a steal in itself) and then leave it to Paradox to find a properly sized & experienced studio to make the game? Mitsoda (+/- MCA) could still be brought along as contractors for the narrative design and Paradox as holder of the license could force any prospective studio to bring them onto the project.

Mitsoda was friends with Cluney who worked for Hardsuit. It was convenient for him to work with a studio in the same city he lived in and it's not like he had connections to other studios that could do it. Two jerks (or just one jerk if it was Brian by himself since he's not friends with Avellone) saying "Hey go find me/us a studio to make a game for me/us" isn't a convincing pitch, they could have easily laughed him out. I suppose the honorable thing to do would be for Mitsoda to have called them up and say he was available for any Bloodlines 2 game they wanted to make, but there's no guarantee he would have received a follow-up on that or that they would allow him to be the creative lead (which is what he really wanted).

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I've never been a player of the tabletop game VTM or any of the other games in the series, but that series had a long and detailed lore, in the right hands they really could have done something with it. They really should have taken their time and done their due diligence when picking a studio and taking a pitch. With the price they paid it's not like they had long term liabilities sneaking up on them.

Yeah, I got the impression that most people in this thread haven’t actually read those books written thirty years ago. Fortunately, I’ve done a fair amount of dumpster diving in my time.

In the tabletop scene at the time in the 90s, WoD was seen as pretentious self-important garbage by gamers outside of its own cultish and fanatical mall goth fandom. The lore is pretty short (99% was developed and solidified from 1991-1995 or so and everything since was just repackaging that repeatedly because they cargo cult nostalgia) and ridiculous/terrible (the books have stuff like gay furry sex rituals, depicting Hiroshima as being a perpetually radioactive wasteland, Bangladesh being literally wiped off the map by multiple nukes and an orbital laser canon being dismissed as “saber rattling by Pakistan”, a cult of serial killers is presented as heroic, the Christian God is actually a false god named “The Patriarch” that serves a cosmic spider, Captain Planet-style pollution villains, etc) and doesn’t have anything worth buying the company for if you want to make urban fantasy video games. They’re in no position to sue you if you rip them off, like Nations of Darkness is doing right now. But Bloodlines is a cult classic so CCP and Paradox both thought they could make it work.

The text games and visual novels were supposedly written by diehard lorefags and they’re shovelware quality. I don’t think you can write anything with a mass market appeal using this IP unless you use an irreverent tone like Mitsoda did, and he wrote it that way because he wasn’t a fan of the IP before he was hired to write the game.

All this talk of “lore” is a waste of time. No matter how many lorefags tell you otherwise, lore is worth shit. We’ve seen that time and time again. Any competent writer can write a good story on its own merits, with or without lore. Any wannabe writer can come up with pages and pages of lore on a wiki, but it’s always irrelevant trivia. CRPGs live and die by their stories and gameplay, not irrelevant trivia that has nothing to do with that.

Nobody would give a flying fuck about lore if it didn’t piggyback off an engaging story. Nobody would give a fuck about Arda or Westeros if we weren’t already invested in Sean Bean and co. Failing to understand that basic fact of storytelling is why all these would-be franchises spectacularly abort.

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

This deranged obsession with “lore” by nerds and companies alike misses the forest for the leaves and contributes to the general degradation of modern media. Stop thinking in terms of “how can we exploit this list of irrelevant trivia?” and start thinking in terms of “how can I tell a good story on its own merits?”

 

[The President]

Absolutely a steal. Even with only 2015's rate of sales, I think World of Darkness game PDF sales on their own could make 1.2 million USD in a year or two without any new content, and that's assuming Bloodlines and Requiem don't generate royalties in any way.

I'm going to assume you mean Redemption here? I don't know who currently gets the Bloodlines and Redemption royalties, Activision? Though from everything I've read the game sold more on Steam than on initial release, like MANY times more. Honestly Wesp you should get some of the money for those sales. Get a lawyer and try to sue for a Quasi-Contract.

A quick search says they bought it in October 2015 for what apparently amounted to $1.2million in cash. I mean damn, they practically stole it. This also means Hardsuit's game started very closely after the acquisition.

I've never been a player of the tabletop game VTM or any of the other games in the series, but that series had a long and detailed lore, in the right hands they really could have done something with it. They really should have taken their time and done their due diligence when picking a studio and taking a pitch. With the price they paid it's not like they had long term liabilities sneaking up on them.

As Avellone noted in his medium post, he helped Mitsoda pull a con on Paradox because they were delusionally optimistic and really wanted to be the ones to do it despite it being very obvious that Hardsuit didn't have the capability to make the game they wanted to make. "Mitsoda and Avellone," that's extremely difficult to say no to.

In retrospect and looking at the timeline, they got on Paradox quite early. I might have made the deal myself, though I would have wanted to know a lot more about a studio before I purchased a sizable share in it. I mean they paid pennies on the dollar for the IP compared to what they paid to buy into Hardsuit. As I've posted earlier I was told by someone whose opinion I trust that Hardsuit didn't have the in house talent to handle the heavy lifting on the technical side, so that makes sense. It's Paradox's own fault though. I mean Avellone by himself would have been hard to say no to, but they didn't see the red flags when Avellone left after his contract expired in 2018 and his work wasn't used (assuming what he writes is true.) I mean how negligent can you get, it took three more years for that train to derail.

As Avellone noted in his medium post, he helped Mitsoda pull a con on Paradox because they were delusionally optimistic and really wanted to be the ones to do it despite it being very obvious that Hardsuit didn't have the capability to make the game they wanted to make. "Mitsoda and Avellone," that's extremely difficult to say no to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mitsoda was a contractor for Hardsuit rather than an employee - right? So if that's the case, why did they need Hardsuit in the first place rather than just convincing Paradox to buy the license (which was a steal in itself) and then leave it to Paradox to find a properly sized & experienced studio to make the game? Mitsoda (+/- MCA) could still be brought along as contractor(s) for the narrative design and Paradox as holder of the license could force any prospective studio to bring them onto the project.

Mitsoda was a narrative lead for Hardsuit IIRC, and Paradox bought a giant share of the studio after the big pitch I believe. Technically nothing is stopping Paradox from hiring Mitsoda personally as a writer for the IP but I would imagine that would be quite an awkward conversation. Regardless of how much fault he has, that was a pretty public humiliation firing in the industry. Though it's unknown whether Hardsuit fired him on orders from Paradox or if he was a fall guy. I heard the latter, but Paradox does I suppose have some degree of deniability if they wanted him, but I would imagine they said fuck it.

 

[NecroLord]

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

You are right.
Bloodlines was also an original story with original characters. Beckett is a WOD character, however, but he is inserted well into the story as a smug, loner and venerable Gangrel scholar. Compared to other vampires he is a saint though.
The "lore" as you said is pretty simple in VTMB, but the game succeeds in immersing you in it.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I'm not getting the impression that Mitsoda's firing was the "unintended consequence of Hardsuit's failure", anyway.
Looking at the timeline of events from the outside, it seems that at some point even before the project was shut down/passed to another studio someone made the deliberate choice to get rid of him and (shortly after) the other lead writer (Cara Ellison).

 

[FritzedProcess]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

Roberta Williams, of Sierra On-line and King's Quest fame?

 

[Delterius]

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original

I think it's also important to note that this is basically what happens in every story involving WoD. On a very high level the place is an insane clownworld but we are never on that level. Playing world ending abominations would get old pretty fast. And playing the foot soldiers in a vampire city makes things so much more grounded that it's almost like the high level doesn't really exist.

 

[Wesp5]

Honestly Wesp you should get some of the money for those sales. Get a lawyer and try to sue for a Quasi-Contract.

I get some pennies for everybody downloading the patch from Nexus Mods ! Also the old HSL team around Mitsoda was quite aware of my possible impact on Bloodlines sales, so they contacted me about betatesting Bloodlines 2. Of course after the layoffs, the new studio and producers never even decided to talk with me again...

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

roberta motherfucking williams.

I get some pennies for everybody downloading the patch from Nexus Mods

shit, you could had said that earlier, i always downloaded the latest patch from (what i assume it is) your site.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

A quick search says they bought it in October 2015 for what apparently amounted to $1.2million in cash. I mean damn, they practically stole it. This also means Hardsuit's game started very closely after the acquisition.

I've never been a player of the tabletop game VTM or any of the other games in the series, but that series had a long and detailed lore, in the right hands they really could have done something with it. They really should have taken their time and done their due diligence when picking a studio and taking a pitch. With the price they paid it's not like they had long term liabilities sneaking up on them.

Defending Hardsuit a bit here, one of the key factors that led to HSL's struggles was how Paradox structured how they were funding Bloodlines 2.

Essentially, HSL doesn't get most of what they were offered until the game was released. Engineers being pulled to other projects was trying to keep this game alive and placed a lot of problems that potentially could have been avoided. This is probably part of what Wester was talking about when he said Paradox changed the way they do deals with third-party studios working on their IPs

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original

I think it's also important to note that this is basically what happens in every story involving WoD. On a very high level the place is an insane clownworld but we are never on that level. Playing world ending abominations would get old pretty fast. And playing the foot soldiers in a vampire city makes things so much more grounded that it's almost like the high level doesn't really exist.

Yeah, you can tell the ttrpg writers didn’t know shit about game design because the IP is full of stupid shit that is completely irrelevant to how the games are actually played. Heck, most of the fans even in the 90s just bought the books to follow the lore rather than actually play the game. No surprise it got outcompeted by video games and collectible card games. In the age of wikis there’s no reason to buy the books anymore unless you want a more accurate and unabridged picture compared to the tiny window the wikis give you. I only know about all the stupid shit by actually reading the books rather than relying on the wikis. The contributors hugely self-censor those and without citations you can’t be sure of the accuracy.

But the text games still suck entirely on their own merits. Lore isn’t a substitute for storytelling. The highest rated text game is the one where you play a courier who goes on various adventures. The quality of the prose isn’t really any better than the other text games, but somehow the premise resulted in a more enjoyable experience for players. Gee, I wonder why?

Anyway, my point is that this IP is worthless if you want to make video games. You could easily make your own IP from scratch with a modicum of creativity. Companies refusing to invest in anything other than dying dinosaur IPs from decades ago is ridiculous. Brand name recognition won’t compensate for crappy products.

I don’t understand why we’re not seeing more indie urban fantasy when Hogwarts is breaking records. The only ones I can name are Nighthawks and Moonfall, both in development.

 

[Tyranicon]

I don’t understand why we’re not seeing more indie urban fantasy when Hogwarts is breaking records. The only ones I can name are Nighthawks and Moonfall, both in development.

Is that my MoonFall or something else? I'd be curious if there's another urban fantasy game under a similar name.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

In the age of wikis there’s no reason to buy the books anymore unless you want a more accurate and unabridged picture compared to the tiny window the wikis give you.

One big advantage of good sourcebooks is that they don't suffer from the same sort of sterile neutral tone that their wiki counterparts go for. Pair that with some good art (& other aesthetic blemishes, unlike the aforementioned bland wikis) and these sourcebooks become an enjoyable experience in themselves.

 

[lightbane]

Yeah, you can tell the ttrpg writers didn’t know shit about game design because the IP is full of stupid shit that is completely irrelevant to how the games are actually played.

And they still don't! Demon the Descent was a weird edgy techno-horror spiritual sequel of the Demon pnp of OWod, but it's unplayable from the start as one of the player classes gets bonuses from betraying your fucking party. How is this going to fly? Add to the fact that paranoia is a constant in that game and demons are able to lie so perfectly that no-one can tell otherwise... Including other demons, I suppose, which means that adventures are going to implode.
Lastly, abilities are all over the place. You could start the pnp with stuff from "can open locks easily" to "my gun shoots fireballs that disintegrate matter".
Changeling the Lost had awesome lore, but it's also borderline unplayable (dunno about the second edition), especially because it was quite easy to game the system, such as for example having your party make a magical pledge to each other to help the team and never break it under the penalty of death, for awesome bonuses. At turn 0. If your playing team is trustworthy, that's an instant power-up.
Old World of Darkness vamps were also hax.

Anyway, my point is that this IP is worthless if you want to make video games.

It would make for cool videogames. Playing as the Technocracy, Created from the Prometheans game, Changelings (the Lost ones, not the Dreaming ones unless you're crazy), regular Mages, Hunters, etc.

 

[Harthwain]

I don’t think you can write anything with a mass market appeal using this IP unless you use an irreverent tone like Mitsoda did, and he wrote it that way because he wasn’t a fan of the IP before he was hired to write the game.

The IP as such is not really the problem. Having vampires alone would suffice and you can throw extra details from the IP as (and if) needed. And I would argue you don't need to very deep into details. Broad strokes should suffice to paint good enough picture and offer the kind of flexibility you need for pretty much any story you have in mind.

All this talk of “lore” is a waste of time. No matter how many lorefags tell you otherwise, lore is worth shit. We’ve seen that time and time again. Any competent writer can write a good story on its own merits, with or without lore. Any wannabe writer can come up with pages and pages of lore on a wiki, but it’s always irrelevant trivia. CRPGs live and die by their stories and gameplay, not irrelevant trivia that has nothing to do with that.

Yes and no. Yes, lore isn't really needed as much as a good story. But get extra points from people who are into World of Darkness and you can use lore as building blocks for your story. But it needs to be dosed properly. Like you said - having "pages and pages of lore" and "irrelevant trivia" is a crime (which is true for writing in general, not just video games). Give out only as much information as needed and when needed in the context of what's going on.

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

I never thought Bloodlines story was good. More like serviceable (and that could be said about the game as a whole). Some characters in the game were well executed, but without that execution - and reading them on paper - I have my doubts if they would have been nearly as good. In my opinion Bloodlines is a cult classic, because there are very few cRPG vampire games (and in this setting, as much as you disdain its lore Vampire the Masquerade is a fairly well known tabletop RPG system. Brand recognition is useful at least in this context).

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Bloodlines is a cult classic because it had a story with characters that was good. You could strip away the lore and replace it with something original (as Troika intended before Activision told them to use the license), and Mitsoda’s skill as a writer would still show through.

I never thought Bloodlines story was good. More like serviceable (and that could be said about the game as a whole). Some characters in the game were well executed, but without that execution - and reading them on paper - I have my doubt if they would have been nearly as good. In my opinion Bloodlines is a cult classic, because there are very few cRPG vampire games (and in this setting, as much as you disdain its lore Vampire the Masquerade is a fairly well known tabletop RPG system. Brand recognition is useful at least in this context).

Eh. I'd say that it's neither the story nor even the vampire theme (nor the VtM brand, although I agree that the latter might've helped in its subsequent popularization), but the sort of night (& often low) life atmosphere that it manages to consistently evoke throughout combined with the setting's pastiche style of 1990s pop cultural elements that give flavor and soul to the various NPCs & the hubs that they inhabit. And that's something that could, in theory, be just as well captured by a purely mundane setting if done hyperrealistically a la Kill Bill, John Wick or what have you. (Or alternatively by something like a cyberpunk setting, whether played straight or mixed with fantasy elements akin to Shadowrun.)

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I don’t understand why we’re not seeing more indie urban fantasy when Hogwarts is breaking records. The only ones I can name are Nighthawks and Moonfall, both in development.

Is that my MoonFall or something else? I'd be curious if there's another urban fantasy game under a similar name.

Your game.

good sourcebooks

The writing in this IP is infamous among the tabletop community for being the opposite. Pretentious, self-important, generally terrible. It’s difficult to understand without reading the books, but jeez louise…

Mitsoda’s writing is the polar opposite of that and his style is what Paradox has been banking on despite making zero attempt to replicate his style.

It would make for cool videogames. Playing as the Technocracy, Created from the Prometheans game, Changelings (the Lost ones, not the Dreaming ones unless you're crazy), regular Mages, Hunters, etc.

Again, you don’t need this specific IP to do that. Nations of Darkness is a shallow ripoff and it’s currently #98 RPG on the Apple Store.

None of the video game companies that bought this IP have shown they have any idea how to make good video games out of it. Paradox is retconning the fuck out of it, which defeats the point of brand name recognition unless they’re banking on the shallowest recognition possible. Which seems to be the case, and that reinforces my viewpoint that brand name recognition is worth shit.

Also, yeah, it would be nice to have urban fantasy about other magical beings… that aren’t Hogwarts, anyhow. There’s a plethora of fiction and folklore to draw from to keep things fresh and interesting.

Brand recognition is useful at least in this context

Brand recognition is worth shit. It doesn’t make up for the generally awful quality of the games Paradox approved. They’re retconning the IP to the point where the brand name recognition is false advertising anyway. Worse, it strangles and stagnates the market by scaring other companies away from dipping their toes in the genre because they don’t have decades old IPs to exploit.

Except for mobile games like Nations of Darkness, which are garbage anyway and only exist to trick whales into wasting money. I have no clue why they decided to ripoff WoD when it probably has no effect on their success.

WoD as an IP is on its last legs as it is. It’s a pale shadow of its 90s heyday and there’s no way you can fix that without rebooting the damn thing and completely changing it into something actually marketable outside of its remaining shrinking mall goth fandom. Paradox is trying to do that and still failing. Like all these other stupid corpos, they’re thinking in terms “how can I exploit this rotting corpse of an IP and market it to a “modern” audience?” rather than “how can I make a good game that appeals to actually profitable demographics?”
“Why bother making anything if we can’t exploit some IP that was written decades ago regardless of its actual quality or longevity?” is a fucking stupid line of thought that explains the current cultural wasteland. Urban fantasy right now is either Hogwarts or paranormal romance. The genre could easily support video games with more general appeal but nobody is interested. That really frustrates me. Bloodlines really showed me the promise this genre has.

nor the VtM brand, although I agree that the latter might've helped in its subsequent popularization)

If Google trends is any indication, then Bloodlines is responsible for something like 99% of this brand’s recognition. Not the other way around. Maybe it’s not a great story all things considered, but it entertained enough players to keep this IP alive when otherwise it would probably have died out by now like literally every other urban fantasy ttrpg ever made.

That fact should be a big red flag as to the overall poor health of the ttrpg market. It’s not a growth sector and it doesn’t have viable brand recognition. Good video game adaptations give ttrpgs name recognition, not the other way around.

It’s really sad. Ttrpgs have the benefit of human imagination, but customers prefer the ease and expedience of video games.