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

[OttoQuitmarck]

What the fuck are those shitty spaghetti arm anime punches in the trailer? What the hell?

 

[SpoonFULL]

Big mistake to give to a business focused and oriented studio (take the money and deliver a poor product at the end), and this shows in the trailer which just focuses on combat rather than characters, atmosphere, and story like the original trailers for VTBL2 (which made the original distinct and special).

 

[Roguey]

Big mistake to give to a business focused and oriented studio (take the money and deliver a poor product at the end), and this shows in the trailer which just focuses on combat rather than characters, atmosphere, and story like the original trailers for VTBL2 (which made the original distinct and special).

They had to show off combat so people wouldn't think of it as yet another Chinese Room walking sim.

 

[Vincente]

The concept art they showed looked very atmospheric in my opinion. I love the snow setting.

 

[Child of Malkav]

What generation is an Elder usually at?

 

[Ismaul]

The idea of starting as an Elder kinda hints at the big difference between Troika's approach and theirs.

BL1 was about bringing the player into a dark and twisted world. Shock, horror, self-transformation were at the core. It was about becoming.

BL2 starts you at the top, already part of the world, ego-stroking you from the start. It looks like it's about the fantasy of being an aristocrat who can judge others, even the Inquisition. It's about always having been.

First impression anyways.

 

[Vincente]

What generation is an Elder usually at?

8? 13 Fledgling, 12-11 Neonate, 10-9 Ancillae I believe...

already part of the world

Are you really a part of the world if you join it hundreds of centuries later, awoken from torpor?

 

[Herumor]

Bloodlines 2 is also still set at yuletide, but is now in the grips of a historic snowstorm, and Bloodlines 2's new trailer and concept art remind me of the OG Max Payne's grimy, modern NYC Ragnarök.

I bet they did this part to justify why you won't find regular people out on the streets.

Anyway, anyone know what's the song playing in the trailer? Tried googling the lyrics, but can't find anything.

 

[whydoibother]

First impression anyways.

Maybe they pull a Gothic 3, start you off as a complete late game monster to tease the powers, then revert you to a lvl 1 bum.

 

[santino27]

I wonder how they handle character progression if the MC is already an Elder. Are there provisions/rules for the gaining of talents or abilities in a rush after waking from torpor?

 

[notpl]

Long torpors cause skill loss, don't they? I have no idea how things work in the newest editions but an elder waking up from a 300-year nap and being a bit amnesiac and incompetent physically is not at all lore-unfriendly for RPG purposes.

 

[Roguey]

Another interview https://screenrant.com/vampire-masquerade-bloodlines-2-interview/

They confirm that yes that's Lou at the end of the trailer, she survived the great culling.

In the trailer, there's three characters in there, but there's one lady with a veil, and she's based on an actual person who lived, who died I think in 1901. And for us it's like, "Well, what if she's a vampire?" So we've taken that person; you can look up on Wikipedia Lou Grand, she was a famous madam. And in our story, she's a very powerful and intriguing figure. So that's a great thing about new places that's untapped, to bring all these news stories from it.

For clarity, when The Chinese Room started on the project in 2021, we're building our own vision; it's our own narrative, our own sort of world and gameplay and everything. So things you would have heard before, now it's a new thing. As I said, instead of starting as Thin Blood, it's a game about being an elder and exploring that side of VTM. Because elders are quite rare, so that for us in a really, really cool thing to do, and also a nice contrast to the first Bloodlines game as well, where literally the start of the game was the scream as you became a vampire. And we went, "Okay, that's kind of done. What if we did an elder vampire?" So very much our own vision, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so when we were looking at the class, we were looking at the sort of play styles that people would want to have, right? Do you want to be a sort of high-action play style who rely more on their skills with a controller or do you want to be a more strategic vampire that stalks their prey and et cetera? So we try to offer all these different play styles through the clans to allow audiences to come in and go, "This is the way I like to play in these kind of games."

So there's some things that have really evolved, there's some things that have remained the same. And TCR has been able to use some degree of the art assets, the level design, etc, but the vision for the game, as Alex says, the story and narrative behind the game, that's TCR's.

It's very much our vision. I've been on the project a year, but when The Chinese Room took it over in 2021, we did for our vision sort of start from scratch. So it is a new codebase, a new world, a new story, because we're a different developer, and we're building to our strengths and what we see as that fateful translation of VTM. But the things that have continued over from the Hardsuit Labs version is quite a lot of character art and environment art, especially since we chose to also base it in Seattle, because that gave us a big leg up. We thought it's a really cool place to explore, and to explore a city that's dominated by the Camarilla compared to Los Angeles and Bloodlines 1.

 

[Herumor]

As I said, instead of starting as Thin Blood, it's a game about being an elder and exploring that side of VTM. Because elders are quite rare, so that for us in a really, really cool thing to do, and also a nice contrast to the first Bloodlines game as well, where literally the start of the game was the scream as you became a vampire. And we went, "Okay, that's kind of done. What if we did an elder vampire?" So very much our own vision, if that makes sense.

On the one hand, I'm intrigued. I'm curious what level of Disciplines we'll be seeing here. On the other, I'm worried we'll be nerfed from the start. Do any of the interviews mention if we'll get to pick the Clan of our player character?

 

[Wesp5]

What the fuck are those shitty spaghetti arm anime punches in the trailer? What the hell?

Was this supposed to be their version of Potence or Celerity used in a fist fight?

 

[Vincente]

Do any of the interviews mention if we'll get to pick the Clan of our player character?

They will reveal all the playable clans ''between today and end of 2023''

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Bloodlines was irreverential in both its looks, themes and music, this looks and sounds operatic, some self-indulgent posh larp bullshit.

Bloodlines was Punk

 

[ferratilis]

In that studio reveal video, they don't acknowledge the first game in any way, and they mostly talk about cinematic aspects of WoD. Decline.

 

[Anonymous Ranger]

In that studio reveal video, they don't acknowledge the first game in any way, and they mostly talk about cinematic aspects of WoD. Decline.

Why would they acknowledge the first game at all? I'm willing to bet only a handful of people working on the sequel was apart of Troika when the first VTMB was made and they don't have the rights to sell it so they don't care about it.

 

[Tyranicon]

Hopefully no more thinblood nonsense?

If so,

 

[Ismaul]

Are you really a part of the world if you join it hundreds of centuries later, awoken from torpor?

Let me explain my point better.

What RPG designers often do is try to make it so that when you see something for the first time as a player, it's also the first time for your character. It allows for a lesser disconnect between player knowledge and character knowledge. That's one reason why Troika went with a newly made vampire.

Another is that the game was about you as the underdog. Street level guy getting into a game with bigger stakes, fighting the odds against you. But in the end, you realize you never figured out the full picture, and were still a pawn. The world was bigger than you, still mysterious. Both reasons are probably reasons why they went even further by casting you as a thinblood in BL2.

Now, it could still be done by casting you as an Elder. Wake up in a world that has changed so much you don't recognize it, it no longer is your world. The rules, the values, the way of life is alien to you. Life moved on from you, you lost all status you had. No one respects the Elders anymore. That would make you an underdog, a jaded old curmudgeon of the old world against the new. That would be interesting, despite having a disconnect between player and character knowledge. The character would come with a lot of baggage, and melancholy would be a strong theme.

But do you think they'll do that? Or are they just casting you as a Mary Sue, a Captain Marvel-type, an aristocrat in a playground without earning it? A progressive here to judge the "old order" in which you wake up in?

 

[Cricket McBangle]

I'm sure it won't be a great game but even with all that anime punching shit and head smashing, it looks like it'll be way better than Hardsuit and less cringe-inducing than what Mitsoda and his team cooked up

 

[Jenkem]

GOTY.

I fucking told you guys.

 

[Caim]

Are you really a part of the world if you join it hundreds of centuries later, awoken from torpor?

Let me explain my point better.

What RPG designers often do is try to make it so that when you see something for the first time as a player, it's also the first time for your character. It allows for a lesser disconnect between player knowledge and character knowledge. That's one reason why Troika went with a newly made vampire.

Another is that the game was about you as the underdog. Street level guy getting into a game with bigger stakes, fighting the odds against you. But in the end, you realize you never figured out the full picture, and were still a pawn. The world was bigger than you, still mysterious. Both reasons are probably reasons why they went even further by casting you as a thinblood in BL2.

Now, it could still be done by casting you as an Elder. Wake up in a world that has changed so much you don't recognize it, it no longer is your world. The rules, the values, the way of life is alien to you. Life moved on from you, you lost all status you had. No one respects the Elders anymore. That would make you an underdog, a jaded old curmudgeon of the old world against the new. That would be interesting, despite having a disconnect between player and character knowledge. The character would come with a lot of baggage, and melancholy would be a strong theme.

But do you think they'll do that? Or are they just casting you as a Mary Sue, a Captain Marvel-type, an aristocrat in a playground without earning it? A progressive here to judge the "old order" in which you wake up in?

A former radical with whom time has caught up with can be an interesting character, but why have that when lmao blood magic.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The trailer isn't exactly thrilling visually, but then again technical prowess and good combat were never strong points of the original.
I guess hoping for something that would aim to improve on the predecessor, rather than striving for the goal of barely matching it (technological gap considered) was foolish to begin with.
At least I hope they put decent effort in animating those close-ups during dialogues, since they were a defining feature of what gave Bloodlines its vibe.

For the rest, very little to say about the game itself (story, progression, etc), since we simply were not given enough material to form anything more than a superficial impression.

 

[Jenkem]

Seems to be to be the same result in the end. What I have seen from the Thinbloods of HSL BL2 they were more powerful than normal vampires too! Also don't forget how overpowered the player ends up in Bloodlines. Is this really a good thing to already start off that strong? Also how would an Elder react to the modern world?

Maybe you have to "re-learn" your powers since you've been sleeping too long, or maybe you were awoken using some non-standard method that fucked with your abilities, like how Samus loses all her shit at the start of every game or a PB game

Big mistake to give to a business focused and oriented studio (take the money and deliver a poor product at the end

but they took it away from hardsuit labs... are you really calling the chinese room a "business focused" studio? have you seen the games they have released? when I think of a business focused studio I don't think of people who have made mostly artsy walking simulators, unless you think those are a huge cash cow or something.