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World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 - VTMB sequel from The Chinese Room - coming early 2025

Roguey

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In a strange irony Paradox has actually licensed more games than the IP’s old owners. The very public drama of this game, I hope will inspire some developer to feel they can get it right and try.

CCP were retards who refused to greenlight any game until their MMO was released. Helped destroy the brand's value.

"But mainly we want to clarify that we're making a spiritual successor, not an actual same blueprint type of game, so people don't get disappointed and feel cheated," Lilja went on. "We really don't want that."

This was fairly obvious.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/bl...ently-good-game-by-2004-standards-say-paradox

"Bloodlines 2 isn't a sequel, it's a spiritual successor."

Raises the question why you're calling it Bloodlines 2, doesn't it? :lol:

Anyone who wants to make a VtM has to pay to license it and fund it themselves.
Are there even enough fans out there for World of Darkness stuff to make this viable, seems like the setting has been down in the dumps for a long time

You're better off making up your own vampire setting
Draw Distance and Choice of Games seem to have done pretty well for themselves with their visual novels and interactive fiction. Anything with greater scope than that probably isn't going to happen.
 

Harthwain

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"Bloodlines 2 isn't a sequel, it's a spiritual successor."

Raises the question why you're calling it Bloodlines 2, doesn't it? :lol:
The project was started by the man who made Bloodlines 1 and wanted to create a sequel. It may have changed hands, but Paradox promised Bloodlines 2 so people will get Bloodlines 2, even if it will be Bloodlines 2 in name only. It is also a recognizable brand name. No reason to not use at this point.
 

Pink Eye

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Heh. This comment is funny:

AJ7keYK.png


Poor bastard thinks they're talking about game design and not the "problematic" elements.
 

Vulpes

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Really now ?:nocountryforshitposters:

Like what? The original game already was leaning towards the left side of the political spectrum, which to be fair would be considered the centre nowadays. It painted the Anarchs as the most morally righteous faction and pushed you towards joining them. The only thing I remember from the original Bloodlines that could be construed as "problematic" today would be one of the radio commercials that makes fun of sex change.
 

S.torch

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Heh. This comment is funny:

AJ7keYK.png


Poor bastard thinks they're talking about game design and not the "problematic" elements.
That line goes to show that they're not admitting they're wrong. What they're doing now is what's commonly known in Internet vernacular as "damage control". They're preparing themselves for the blow that is coming their way. Constructing a narrative with which to deflect any criticism and fault, especially to the investors. Who might start raising questions after seeing the money wasted in a project that took half a decade.

And you can already see what narrative is going to be spin. They will blame the players for their high expectations and the chuds for not understanding "times have changed", unable to see the benevolent corporate hand trying to modernize their favourite game. Which they painstakingly tried to take out of the archaic, outdated mentality that represented the original game but failing to do so at the end.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
"But mainly we want to clarify that we're making a spiritual successor, not an actual same blueprint type of game, so people don't get disappointed and feel cheated," Lilja went on. "We really don't want that."

This was fairly obvious.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/bl...ently-good-game-by-2004-standards-say-paradox

Paste everything:

Bloodlines 2 is more "spiritual successor" than sequel to "a competently good game by 2004 standards", say Paradox​

The Chinese Room's version isn't an "open sim", cautions Paradox deputy CEO

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 won't be an "open sim" like the 2004 original game, according to Paradox Interactive. Now in development at The Chinese Room, it'll be an action-RPG with a relatively linear story set in the World Of Darkness universe. This obviously plays to The Chinese Room's strengths - they're better known for melancholy or horrifying strolls through broken spaces than the Dishonorable massaging of intricate systems. But it also reflects Paradox's view that the original Bloodlines has been "mythologised" a bit: people love the memory of it more than the reality, and there are aspects of the 2004 game, according to Paradox's deputy chief executive officer Mattias Lilja, that simply "wouldn't fly today".

All this comes from my interview with Lilja at Paradox's Media Day - unofficial working title, Please Stop Poking Us - last week. To recap my previous article about Life By You, Paradox have spent much of the past two years pushing back release dates, cancelling things, publishing other things in a less-than-satisfactory state, and closing or parting ways with developers - a regular conga line of mishaps that have contributed to a 90% drop in operating profit for the second quarter of 2024.

Bloodlines 2 in particular has long travelled under a cloud of bats. It was announced in 2019 with Hardsuit Labs at the wheel and the original game's lead writer Brian Mitsoda as narrative director. "This is the sequel you have been waiting for," he said at the time. "It is going to be Bloodlines, as you remember it. But better." Alice B (RPS in peace) thought the preview build she saw in 2019 looked ace, offering a familiar morass of factions and approaches but slathered in high-end visuals, with spruced-up combat. I liked what I saw of it myself at the company's PDXCON expo. But then came delays, Mitsoda's abrupt firing, a change of studio in 2021 that led to layoffs, and more delays. So how confident are Paradox that Bloodlines 2 will stick the landing, at this point? The answer, more or less, is "quietly", but it won't be the "same but better" sequel elder Nosferatus are hankering for.

"With Hardsuit Labs, we agreed on a vision of what they were gonna make, [and] they had a problem delivering on that," Lilja told me. "We were in agreement, we moved [development] to The Chinese Room and we said, this is the vision and this is what Hardsuit Labs have made. And of course, we gave them quite a lot of freedom to interpret the vision, based on what Hardsuit Labs had made, or change or remove whatever they didn't like.

"We have a high trust in The Chinese Room, given what they've done," he went on. "We've announced again a delay, into the first half of next year. I would stand by that. I'm pretty confident that that's going to work. I've seen the game now. The Chinese Room is really invested in it. They're taking a lot of initiatives. They like some things that Hardsuit did, they're changing some other things, and they're making their own game, that's still the vision that we had.

"So it's going to be an action-RPG in the World Of Darkness. If you've seen Still Wakes The Deep, they know how to do story-driven action games with good voice-acting, all of that, which is basically what we're looking for in this game. I hope and feel that we will be able to deliver a game that puts you in the World Of Darkness."

Those gifted with preternatural vision may detect a careful qualification there. Not "a sequel to Bloodlines" but "a game that puts you in the World Of Darkness". And indeed, Lilja downplayed associations with the original game when I asked whether Bloodlines 2 would still be some kind of immersive sim (piggybacking on a comment made to TheGamer in 2023). He also suggested that Bloodlines hasn't aged all that well, and that taking inspiration from it too zealously could be counter-productive.

"It's about setting the right expectations," he said. "The first Bloodlines game - it is what it is, and people who've played it recently will see that it's a game from 2004, that is now patched so that it works. But there's also a lot of ideas about what that game was, that are more, not to offend anyone, mythical.

"I like the first game as well a lot, but we want to clarify what this game is, so people have a clear understanding of what they're buying, so they don't come in with weird expectations - because we don't want that, we want them to understand that this is an action RPG with a storyline that is more fixed. It's not the open sim it maybe shouldn't be compared to. Again, we want people to understand what they're getting into."

I'm sympathetic to the idea that older games tend to disappear beneath a cloud of nostalgic make-believe - we're seeing it right now, with certain chunderhead reactions to Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake. So which aspects of the original Bloodlines does Lilja think people are mythologising? Sadly, he didn't go into much detail.

"I actually played Bloodlines 1 quite recently, and it is a good game, but it is also an old game, and there are many things that would not fly today," Lilja said. "But I understand why people were super psyched by it in 2004, because it had a lot of cool [elements], and the feeling of being a vampire is really strong, regardless of other features. But I think people, they remember their feelings about it. And if they replayed it, I think they would see that it's a competently good game by 2004 standards, now that it's patched.

"But mainly we want to clarify that we're making a spiritual successor, not an actual same blueprint type of game, so people don't get disappointed and feel cheated," Lilja went on. "We really don't want that."

If Paradox have learned anything from the past few years of delays and cancellations, it's that making or publishing games outside their traditional grand strategy dominions is a risky business. During our chat, Lilja spoke at length about the need to refocus and make smaller bets on projects in future. With regard to Bloodlines 2, we shouldn't expect another action-RPG from Paradox in the near future, though Paradox do expect the game to at least break even.

"We do expect it to recover its investment," Lilja said, somewhat to my surprise. "But also saying that, it has changed studios, been in production a long time. My expectation is we will release a good game." He added, however, that "the continuation of this type of games for Paradox should probably be done in a different setup - again, going back to taking risks, how to invest when we're not sure that we exactly know what we're doing."

Fingers crossed that Bloodlines 2's most recent delay is the final delay, and that it doesn't immediately turn to dust on arrival. I'm disappointed that it won't be the frothing cauldron of vampire variables we were promised in 2019, but The Chinese Room do fine work - if nothing else, Bloodlines 2 should have atmosphere and sense-of-place in spades.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/parad...e-could-do-but-maybe-not-with-the-team-we-had

Paradox on Bloodlines 2: "We had a game we could do, but maybe not with the team we had"​

Mattias Lilja on the "high risk manoeuvre" of changing dev

In September last year, Paradox Interactive announced that it handed the development of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 to The Chinese Room, marking an umpteenth twist in the title's storied journey.

Originally meant to release in 2020, the sequel to 2004's Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is now on course to release during the first half of 2025. Paradox deputy CEO Mattias Lilja tells GamesIndustry.biz that the change of direction was the only way to avoid the project shutting down altogether, he explains.

"Changing developers is a pretty drastic measure, it is the step before you stop," he tells us. "And you need to find a good developer to continue, otherwise you probably don't continue. The game had already struggled a bit when this happened, [and] we [didn't] do it lightly. It is a high risk manoeuvre. But we thought we had a game we could do, but maybe not with the team we had. And we knew the Chinese Room, we'd seen some of what they'd done... So we thought this could be a good fit. So we're really happy that we changed, I think."

Development picked up where previous developer Hardsuit Labs left it after being dropped from the project in 2021, with Lilja clarifying that "like with any new studio coming in and having their own idea," Paradox let The Chinese Room decide what to carry over and out.

"Generally, it's a continuation of the same vision but they had to make it theirs," he says, adding that Paradox is looking at "the first half of 2025" as the release window and that the team is tracking well against that.

"When a game has been going this long with a sizable team in Seattle for a number of years before we moved it... It might have commercial challenges, but we liked the direction," he continues. "I'm a huge World of Darkness fan myself. So, when I play it, I'm starting to see that actually you're in that world, which is the experience we're going for."

He adds that players are probably going to compare it to Bloodlines 1 and, in terms of how it's going to play, "people who have seen it talk about Dishonored."

"So it's a bit more of an action RPG, but very steeped in the lore in the sense that you're a vampire in World of Darkness," he adds.

We ask him exactly what The Chinese Room provides that Hardsuit did not, and what the new developer brings to the table.

"Hardsuit Labs has many qualities – [but] they've never done something on this scale," Lilja says. "So that was basically building the team as they were building the game and that turned out to be very tough. And they were not shy to say so. Chinese Room is a more stable developer, so they could attack this with more confidence I'd say. And we had more confidence that they could deliver what we saw, the early work that they did.

"So it's the experience with this type of game. I mean, if you look at the Chinese Room… Crafting a game with this very tight story and a tight setting is very much what they do."

To read more from Mattias Lilja, you can find our full interview here, addressing Paradox's recent rough patch and how the firm intends to course correct by refocusing on its core expertise. The interview also covers Life by You's cancellation, the firm's indie publishing efforts, and more.
 
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"Bloodlines 2 is more "spiritual successor" than sequel to "a competently good game by 2004 standards", say Paradox"​


these people truly know how to instill trust.
 

Roguey

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Like what? The original game already was leaning towards the left side of the political spectrum, which to be fair would be considered the centre nowadays. It painted the Anarchs as the most morally righteous faction and pushed you towards joining them. The only thing I remember from the original Bloodlines that could be construed as "problematic" today would be one of the radio commercials that makes fun of sex change.
Sexy women, sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism.
 

Zombra

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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
There's a lot of talk here about how TCR is getting it wrong, justifiably ... but maybe a separate discussion is in order, leaving aside this game they're making, about what we would actually want to see in a Bloodlines successor. Maybe a new thread.
 

Vincente

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jungl

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paradox is correct. Bloodlines game design is outdated by todays standards. 3D shooter action games with B movie plots gamers go through it once and forget about it. Psi-ops mindgate conspiracy, true crime streets of LA, bloodlines, etc. Like the days of movie rentals you experience it once and forget these are not returning cash cow games. A small handful of dedicated autists exists for every game doesn't change this reality.

Paradox can't make shit anyways besides shallow map games so they realized they are fucked. They should go make children action figures or something else other then video games.
 

Pink Eye

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Like what?
Well for starters these kinds of character designs wouldn't exist in today's western gaming market:

VZGVAid.png

jfR7sZW.jpeg


They'd be heavily covered up, censored, and overall toned down for "western" sensibilities. I mean, Stellar Blade had a whole witch hunt campaign from these radicals because it dared to feature a sexy women that threw some fun fan service. Let's also not forget that whole debacle with Dragon Quest too where the developers censored their female designs in order to appease the west.

That's before we even begin to talk about Fat Larry, the Chinese Hitmen questline, Ji Wen Ja, Tseng, and a few other characters that will be considered "offensive" in today's world. This kind of character would cause an outrage by the twitter mob (guess who currently has a stranglehold over the western gaming industry right now, the very same twitter mob):



Remember, the entire apparatus of DEI, Sweet Baby Inc, isn't really about actual diversity. It's all about control, power, and influence over the industry; these people don't care about making fun games, they just want more and more power on top of punishing people for stepping out line. They're autocratic douches who'd sooner see the western gaming industry burn then lose their power.
 
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