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

[Delterius]

Amnesia this, blood-starved that, they are gonna have a fledgling/thinblood diablerize our elder in a botched attempt, we will play with said fledgling's weak powers, we will lend him our own power, and take over his mind/body/soul by midgame.

I originally speculated that they'd fall back into some sort of quasi amnesia plot to justify your elder status. After all, why would an Elder go around doing quests, levelling up, or, more recently, how would one explain the world of Seattle to someone who's an Elder? Sure, some things must have changed but stuff like Elysium and Primogen is forever.

For what it's worth the original 2020 stream was rather instructive in how none of that has to happen. The plot of LA by Night revolves around the players being told by a Camarilla bigshot to reawaken an old prince from torpor. The ensuing civil struggle in the city (which is not actually Seattle, it's Tacoma) involves favors being called, alliances shifting, and contingencies being called upon. The old prince is powerful and brutal, but on his own he's still only one monster. So he does fuck around a lot in the background, taking care of business, looking for intel, getting a feel for the city's politics. Furthermore, since he has a backstory, the old prince also has favors and stuff he's bound to.

If I'm right and TCR was heavily inspired by the plot of LA by Night then they do have the ingredients to do something interesting. They did go out of their way to make the game like this, and said on that interview they didn't want to just replay Bloodlines 1. My questions are now less about how to integrate a powerful Elder in the plot, and more about how defined they are as a protagonist. They seem to have a history as well as prior relations in Seattle. But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality? The Elder won't be a blankslate, but there's an abyss between the extremes of Geraldo from the Witcher and V from 'the game that gave us a cool anime at least'.

 

[J1M]

If you play as an Elder, how will they balance this shit? 300 year old vampire, won't you be able to wipe out everyone in the city?

"Torpor made you weak. It will take 2 days to remember your powers."

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.

I can guarantee you that this character has had a double mammoplasty.

 

[skaraher]

I really liked the fact that Bloodlines was a gritty urban fantasy in a modern day setting and never really cared about WOD. I think that's the case for most players. The only people I knew who played tabletop Vampire were emos, goths, and women. Most were also into LARP.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Masquerade is definitely a "that phase" RPG that slots into the awkward period when you discover RPGs can be more than just dice rolling, but can't yet make them so yourself.

You grow out of it eventually. Sometimes you start playing Kult. Shit happens.

 

[Storyfag]

The plot of LA by Night revolves around the players being told by a Camarilla bigshot to reawaken an old prince from torpor. The ensuing civil struggle in the city (which is not actually LA, it's Tacoma)

Seattle, not LA. But yes.

 

[Storyfag]

But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality?

There are always outliers. What is "typically Gangrel" about Beckett?

 

[J1M]

'An awakened elder at odds with the voice in her head.' - I hope it's voiced by the guy who voiced Darkness.

Last minute addition after the success of the Baldur's Gate 3 tadpole.

 

[Zombra]

I really liked the fact that Bloodlines was a gritty urban fantasy in a modern day setting and never really cared about WOD.

I feel seen.

 

[skaraher]

Masquerade is definitely a "that phase" RPG that slots into the awkward period when you discover RPGs can be more than just dice rolling, but can't yet make them so yourself.

You grow out of it eventually. Sometimes you start playing Kult. Shit happens.

I played L5R when I got to "that phase" but I quickly grew out of it and went back to DnD and 40k.

Some people I knew went deeper and fell into Nephilim, a French-WOD/Exalted rip off, but less angsty and more pseudo-intellectual.

 

[Delterius]

But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality?

There are always outliers. What is "typically Gangrel" about Beckett?

Hmmm I didn't really talk about that. Which is it's own issue, I think. If anything it's the reverse problem. Where someone is enough of a blank slate that they end up being defined by their clan. You can play a Ventrue in BL1 who sucks LaCroix's balls up until the very end, dying along with him. That makes you 'typical'. Or you can play that same Ventrue who chooses to go Anarch in the end. That makes you an upset, which also defines you according to bloodline. And before one points out that the neonate's embrace is less than standard, do remember how the game implies that you are at least akin to your sire since they use same clan / different genre models. You were still chosen with an image in mind, the same way everybody else was.

What I'm talking about there is about the Elder's backstory and how it needs to strike a balance. On one hand, having the Elder have past in Seattle means that there's favors to pull, there's assets, friendships and so on that bind them to the city and explains their behavior. On the other you probably don't want to make it so that, say, every Elder is an used car sales magnate. Can see a Ventrue embracing such a person, but why a Tremere? Why a Toreador? Sure there are outliers, but go to far and every clan is an outlier the same way, which does suck.

Optimistic scenario the backstory is vague enough that it's up to interpretation. Oh, I owe X a favor? I wonder how my Malk got into that. Ideal scenario, the game goes so far as to have your reputation precede you depending on 'what sort of vampire you are'. Let's say you used to be Sheriff of Seattle. Well, people should remember a Ventrue sheriff much differently from a Tremere sheriff.

 

[J1M]

Why are they even bothering?

I think it's just Paradox being desperate for a new IP, preferably one with a wide market appeal.

The first Bloodlines sold less than Arcanum and ToEE, I am not sure how this IP has a "wide market appeal".

It was released directly opposite half life 2. The sales are not a good metric of the brand value.

 

[J1M]

Someone sent me this, from Bloodlines 2 website.

Now this more than a little weird. This liveplay is from 2020. It was clearly made to be a promo tie in. You have Jason Carl doing his stuff with a bunch of goofs and they all detail the world around them. And yet the Hardsuit BL2 ads seem more focused on Hardsuits'/Mitsoda's additions to the setting. So far the only commonality is Lou herself. Meanwhile the second episode of the liveplay involve them waking up an elder for some unknown use. Sound familiar?

I actually never watched the old liveplay. They all mentioned this stuff in today and yesterday's PAX panel.

I am watching it right now. Ok more like listening to it while I do stuff. The elder thing was a surprise to me. The very first plot point mirrors the premise behind TCR's protagonist. What.

We had heard about creative differences and Mitsoda sending Paradox updates about a game they didn't want made anymore. i used to think maybe Paradox changed the project scope or even the genre. What are the odds that actually the clash was over world building, and Mitsoda/Hardsuit wanting to have more ownership of the main characters? That would put a whole new light over the removal of the vampire known as Mr Gloves. Roguey what do you say of this.

There is (I was certain PK would be an irrelevant flop too), but at the time they were specific about the genre! These guys are rather vague. Hope I am wrong, but their description as I understand it, is more reminiscent to a, most likely linear, action/adventure game.

Well, depending on how you see it Bloodlines was linear. And not that far off from being action/adventure. Sure the action part sucked, and there were skillchecks. But it wasn't Age of Decadence. It wasn't built around creating different experiences via those skill checks, and passing all of them was a trivial thing.

The real C&C was clan choice. It was all about having to walk through the sewers as a Nosferatu, having voices and special dialogue options as a Malkavian, having special Tremere Chantry content as Tremere, and some minor clan reactions here and there. It was about being able to stealth around easily as a Nossie, and using the sleep spell as Tremere. That sort of reactivity is not really at odds with an action/adventure game.

The trailer has shown us that there will be combat, so it's not a walking sim. If the TCR pictures teasing the in-game UI can still be believed, then the very straightforward character building of this kind of tabletop game is still in. So I'm not wary of the game's genre. At least not yet.

The only surprise here is that people found evidence so quickly.

It was always obvious to me that whatever studio was tasked with finishing the game would reuse as much as possible. Art assets. Levels. Plot. Switching the character to an elder seems like a calculated move to address some of the fan criticism and ramp up the power fantasy selling point. And it worked. People are hardly talking about anything else.

To be fair, they did coat the city in snow so it will be less obvious they are hiding older assets and performance issues with pixel shaders and upscaling.

The next domino to fall (possibly a year from now if an old build leaks) will be showing that, no, they didn't throw out all of the code either.

Agree that we have no idea what genre this game will be, and that is a problem for the consumer, but not for the people selling preorders.

 

[J1M]

BL1 was linear enough and it was a technical disaster.

I believe Bloodlines found exactly the right balance between linear gameplay, which is important to get good stories, and a bit of open world, by using the hub design.

Maybe we could just use the term exploration or talk about the freedom multiple ways to complete objectives provides instead of overloading the term open world.

Also, maybe people could speculate on the three sides of the conflict instead of being fixated on how level 1 elder plays out.

 

[notpl]

The usage of her instead of something gender neutral is a modern ploy to pretend that they’re pro women.

Very weird and confusing to non English speaking people. I always thought that "they" is the correct term.

Technically you are supposed to use the masculine singular ("he") when unsure of gender, or when referring to a singular within mixed genders. A correct example would be a teacher asking "Does everyone have his #2 pencil ready?" before passing out an exam to a class of boys and girls. This is of course totally forgotten knowledge in 2023, even among native speakers.

 

[deuxhero]

Amnesia this, blood-starved that, they are gonna have a fledgling/thinblood diablerize our elder in a botched attempt, we will play with said fledgling's weak powers, we will lend him our own power, and take over his mind/body/soul by midgame.

But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality? The Elder won't be a blankslate, but there's an abyss between the extremes of Geraldo from the Witcher and V from 'the game that gave us a cool anime at least'.

The real question here is how they give the elder PC a background that allows for any race, because there's no way a publisher is going to allow restricted race in character creation outside of a historical setting (which even then they're not keen on). I can't see any way that can be done earlier than ~1869. That's only ~155 years of unlife, half that needed to be an elder in VtM, though enough to count as one in NWoD. 150 years does have the story telling advantage that enough modern tech has clear enough predecessors it won't take absurd effort to make someone understand it: That humans now carry around cameras in the pocket which can "telegraph" pictures to a place they can be "printed" for the world to see within minutes and that the cities are filled with cars is a lot easier to explain to someone who knows what a camera, speed of sound communications, and an engine are than someone who doesn't know how to avoid scurvy.

 

[Roguey]

The next domino to fall (possibly a year from now if an old build leaks) will be showing that, no, they didn't throw out all of the code either.

Why would they use HSL's trash code that they couldn't even understand themselves?

They both use Unreal so, that's being reused obviously.

Agree that we have no idea what genre this game will be, and that is a problem for the consumer, but not for the people selling preorders.

Action-RPG of course?

I don't really see how this trailer was any more opaque than the first Bloodlines 2 trailer. The big difference between the two is that HSL's had a lot more voice-over and more focus on directly showing you character models. No one makes teaser trailers like the first Bloodlines anymore.

 

[skaraher]

 

[Semiurge]

But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality?

There are always outliers. What is "typically Gangrel" about Beckett?

He's Indiana Jones of the kindred and his interests lie in the vampire mythos and archaeology. This would mean that he'd be more knowledgeable about the vampiric condition than the average bloodsucker. That's what's said about gangrels, that they're closer to The Beast than any other clan.

 

[Herumor]

I prefer:

 

[NecroLord]

But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality?

There are always outliers. What is "typically Gangrel" about Beckett?

He's Indiana Jones of the kindred and his interests lie in the vampire mythos and archaeology. This would mean that he'd be more knowledgeable about the vampiric condition than the average bloodsucker. That's what's said about gangrels, that they're closer to The Beast than any other clan.

Clans also give Kindred a sense of identity and belonging.
Beckett breaks the stereotype of the brutal, animalistic Gangrel by being a scholar, but he is still a loner. Gangrel value independence.
I guess you could say he is a LONE WOLF.....

 

[La vie sexuelle]

But how defined can you really be when already the choice of Clan represents so much of the character's personality?

There are always outliers. What is "typically Gangrel" about Beckett?

He's Indiana Jones of the kindred and his interests lie in the vampire mythos and archaeology. This would mean that he'd be more knowledgeable about the vampiric condition than the average bloodsucker. That's what's said about gangrels, that they're closer to The Beast than any other clan.

Clans also give Kindred a sense of identity and belonging.
Beckett breaks the stereotype of the brutal, animalistic Gangrel by being a scholar, but he is still a loner. Gangrel value independence.
I guess you could say he is a LONE WOLF.....

The inversion of a stereotype still carries the nature of the original stereotype.

 

[Delterius]

The real question here is how they give the elder PC a background that allows for any race

easy. they are american

 

[Delterius]

It was always obvious to me that whatever studio was tasked with finishing the game would reuse as much as possible. Art assets. Levels. Plot. Switching the character to an elder seems like a calculated move to address some of the fan criticism and ramp up the power fantasy selling point. And it worked. People are hardly talking about anything else.

As you said they'll try to re-use as much as they can. But I don't think they can skip the exploratory phase of the game's development because a) they aren't even american so they need to study up on Seattle and such and b) it seems HS BL2 was too unfinished so this can't just be a hackjob. They still need to come up with new tech, assets and maps. Enter a plot premise they've lifted from White Wolf themselves. Being an Elder is good for marketing, but it also means they don't have to try and tell someone else's story. It's not like they can ring up Mitsoda and ask what he wanted for this third act.

 

[The President]

I’m also going to assume this elder isn’t from Seattle, so they’ll need an explanation for that. Seattle isn’t even 200 years old.

 

[d1r]

I prefer:

Please post the correct version: