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

[Alienman]

Lol that third video when you blow someone up and the NPC reactions.

The floating UI kills me.

 

[Bakir]

The map being small is hugely incline.

It looks promising all things considered.
Atmosphere is 10/10
Hopefully the story will be good as well

The YT comments stink. I'm not claiming to be a loremaster but 90% of them haven't played Bloodlines, don't know shit about WoD and yet whine to appear cool. VTMB2 is going to be flawed but good.

 

[Sweeper]

It'd be kinda hilarious if VtmB2 ended up being good after all the bullshit.
I ain't follow up on the game since Mitsoda left though.

 

[jackofshadows]

The map being small is hugely incline.

If it's highly detailed a la nu Deus Ex and there's a bunch of dungeons aside from it then fine. If not then it's too fucking small.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Is it a single small map tho or hub-based with several small maps like with the original game?

 

[NecroLord]

It'd be kinda hilarious if VtmB2 ended up being good after all the bullshit.
I ain't follow up on the game since Mitsoda left though.

Not having most of the main clans as playable choices is already a red flag.

 

[Wesp5]

Is it a single small map tho or hub-based with several small maps like with the original game?

It's supposed to be one big map with several districts but no loading screens as in the original.

 

[Sweeper]

It'd be kinda hilarious if VtmB2 ended up being good after all the bullshit.
I ain't follow up on the game since Mitsoda left though.

Not having most of the main clans as playable choices is already a red flag.

• Banu Haqim
• Brujah
• Tremere
• Ventrue

Yup, it's gonna be shit.

 

[Nano]

Brujah are dumbasses, Tremere are smartasses, Ventrue are cunts who need to have sewer rats shoved down their throats. Idk the fourth one. Really couldn't even bother to do Toreador?

 

[Storyfag]

NPCs reactions are sluggish in the videos. The video were you blow someone up with magic the NPCs around it turn slowly, then watch for a few seconds, then starting running. Sluggish reactions.

Imagine you're one of the devs. Your mind is addled with constant use of weed. In such conditions, the reactions would seem lightning fast to you!

 

[Storyfag]

Is that a euphemism for "streetwalker"?

If prostitutes got labelled as "skinwalker" in the game that would have been actual It would have made the loreheads go apeshit while also covering their asses against anyone who wanted to protest the prostitute inclusion. Would have been actually funny, on par with some of the gags in Bloodlines 1 (like the insufferable chinese hostess).

Skinwalker?

 

[Vulpes]

The map being small is hugely incline.

That's only the Downtown area. As far as I'm aware, they still haven't showed the other four districts.

 

[The President]

Then are there actually different maps? They did say the game is one big world with no loading screens no? The Chinatown area is shown in the mini videos.

 

[Wesp5]

As far as I remember there is a video in the interview with the developers that marks the area below the park as the financial district so this is the whole map.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

These films look the best of all they have shown, but everything smells of low budget and underdevelopment

Of course it will look low budget, because they weren't given a big check by Paradox to do this game. That was the sole reason they got the job: they said they'll be able to finish it on their own resources.

I don't mind games being low-budget, outdated and generally janky. I can swallow it as long as there is something to attract me, usually the atmosphere. And the atmosphere of The Chinese Room games since Dear Esther has always seemed low-energy to me. I know they were cheap and all, but there are so many studios in Europe and they chose them...

And one more thing, personal preference - where did the idea come from that a game about vampires would take place during Christmas? Snow, lights, sentimentality, chicks showing no skin... I know it was in the Mitsoda build, but I'm still not convinced.

It probably has something to do with the snow storm and general cold being a convenient excuse to not have to do large crowds of people suiting a big city. Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) did the same thing and it worked well enough.

When I think of Fahrenheit, I think of emotional coldness, even oppression. This was probably about the juxtaposition of the American belief in the "innocence" of Christmas and the vampire macabre, as in this trailer from the previous team:

And one more thing, personal preference - where did the idea come from that a game about vampires would take place during Christmas? Snow, lights, sentimentality, chicks showing no skin... I know it was in the Mitsoda build, but I'm still not convinced.

The mindset for those decisions is articled in Pinchbeck's blog (https://www.danpinchbeck.co.uk/vampire):

VTM is special even for an RPG. It’s incredibly rich and deep, it’s morally and ethically complex, it combines modern politics with ancient supernatural evil, it’s biblical, it’s personal, it’s queer. It just screams TCR and everything we’d always tried to embed in our games. When the opportunity to pitch for it came up, it was Dan Pinchbeck catnip. I was confident we could deliver - we’d been scaling up and bringing on more and more people with serious development chops and history. I knew I wanted to write the story too, we’d never been a studio that were going to finish someone else’s work.

This is the entry of someone who convinces himself that he realizes himself by performing a not very creative task on request :D

 

[Tyranicon]

It's crazy how much more energy that old trailer had. Yeah, the models were ugly as sin and the animation wasn't particularly good, but it had sovl. Good vibes.

I'm so tired of corporate mediocrity. Thank god I'm too busy to play video games anymore.

 

[Wesp5]

And the atmosphere of The Chinese Room games since Dear Esther has always seemed low-energy to me. I know they were cheap and all, but there are so many studios in Europe and they chose them...

The atmosphere of their latest game "Still wakes the deep" is fantastic, but there is almost no gameplay, it being a walking simulator with the occassional quick time and stealth sections.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

And the atmosphere of The Chinese Room games since Dear Esther has always seemed low-energy to me. I know they were cheap and all, but there are so many studios in Europe and they chose them...

The atmosphere of their latest game "Still wakes the deep" is fantastic, but there is almost no gameplay, it being a walking simulator with the occassional quick time and stealth sections.

Well, I haven't played the game and I gather from the videos that it has a better, more realistic and less overexposed visual style, but I'm still not convinced. Instead of The Chinese Room, I would rather see Red Barrels, they also make a living from walking simulators, but they have a better sense of the macabre and intentional kitsch, which is necessary for a game about vampires

 

[Bakir]

The map being small is hugely incline.

That's only the Downtown area. As far as I'm aware, they still haven't showed the other four districts.

Nope. That’s the whole map.

From one of the devs:

It's the whole map. What you can't see from the image is the countless alleys to sneak around in and the rooftops to watch over the city from on high.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

The map being small is hugely incline.

That's only the Downtown area. As far as I'm aware, they still haven't showed the other four districts.

Nope. That’s the whole map.

From one of the devs:

It's the whole map. What you can't see from the image is the countless alleys to sneak around in and the rooftops to watch over the city from on high.

I think this world is ridiculously small. I'm sure climbing walls and channels will spice it up a bit... but still.

 

[The President]

It could and hopefully is content dense, but it does seem quite small.

 

[NecroLord]

NPCs reactions are sluggish in the videos. The video were you blow someone up with magic the NPCs around it turn slowly, then watch for a few seconds, then starting running. Sluggish reactions.

Sucks not having Celerity.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

I think VtmB 2 will be remembered as the bad game that was somehow better than Avowed. For that reason alone it'll garner a small but vocal cult following.

 

[Roguey]

It could and hopefully is content dense, but it does seem quite small.

Do you guys really want to have to spend long amounts of time running here and there?

The hubs areas in Bloodlines were also pretty small, just a few blocks for each zone.

 

[Sweeper]

Part of not following up on dead in the water, piece of shit games like this is that you miss out on absolute bangers such as this one.

Paradox says Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is more of "a spiritual successor" than a sequel, and it "maybe shouldn't be compared to" the original RPG

Speaking in a recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Lilja explains that the developers didn't look to the first action RPG for too much inspiration but drew from it rather cautiously as, despite it being "a good game," it's also "an old game" with an air of nostalgia surrounding it. "It's about setting the right expectations," he says. "The first Bloodlines game […] it's a game from 2004, that is now patched so that it works."

Due to its age, Lilja states "there's also a lot of ideas about what that game was, that are more, not to offend anyone, mythical." Paradox wants to "clarify" what Bloodlines 2 is "so people have a clear understanding of what they're buying" and so they "don't come in with weird expectations." The new game, with its differences, "maybe shouldn't be compared to" the original, as fans need to "understand what they're getting into."

Lilja stresses this point once more: "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. We really don't want that." As a dedicated fan of the tabletop RPG and original Bloodlines game myself, I'm just hopeful that we'll get anything at all at this point - and that the second entry's recent delay actually proves to be its final one.

>Old news
Fuck you, a clusterfuck of an interview like this one deserves to never be forgotten.

>We want you, the fans of the established IP to play our currentyearslop sequel of your beloved franchise
>But it's nothing like that game you like
>And also the game you like is garbage fueled by nostalgia
>Now please buy our game, 'k, thanks
Is there a single marketing department in this world that isn't filled to the brim with absolute mongoloids?