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

[La vie sexuelle]

There will be no Malkavians. The concept of this clan denies neurodiversity.

DLC, obviously.

Heh. There be no DLC. DLC need sales first.

 

[Xelocix]

There will be no Malkavians. The concept of this clan denies neurodiversity.

DLC, obviously.

Heh. There be no DLC. DLC need sales first.

Andromeda 2.0 baby

 

[Storyfag]

There will be no Malkavians. The concept of this clan denies neurodiversity.

DLC, obviously.

Heh. There be no DLC. DLC need sales first.

It's Paradox...

 

[Child of Malkav]

Hello, I come from the future and I give it a solid 3/10 - great audiovisuals, boring gameplay, terrible writing and generic quests. Better than Starfield though.

So exciting.
Hey, how is vtmb 3? You also mentioned Starfield. How is the second part. Just as revolutionary as the first?
Hey another one: do we still exist in that future?
Asking for a friend, thanks.

 

[sosmoflux]

Had a quick look at the Project Creative Director & Studio Design Director @ TGR - Since at the start of that dev diary he casually mentions he has a lot of background in working on Action RPGs in a manner that rubbed me the wrong way

That background seems to be;

• Fable Legends (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhEn5q93z-A)
• Gears of War Tactics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKRz3WjZTu8)
• Transformers Reactivate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0)
• And some scripting/junior work on Fable 2 & 3 which was over a decade ago and not really direct game design experience

The game industry is weird, and the projects people get the opportunity to work on don't necessarily reveal their character or skills
But how is this "a lot of background in Action RPGs"?
This all but confirms this is a another blunder in the making

Also those "Design Pillars" suck absolute ass, incredibly basic stuff that isn't really informing anything, nor reflect the strengths of VTMB
He said;

• Feel like a Vampire
• Visceral Combat
• Explore the World of Darkness

They should've been something like;

• Immersion is Paramount (Grounded & responsive game world, stay in first person, embody your own character, characters talk directly to you, etc)
• Blood, Sex, & Danger (Vampires, sex appeal, edge of society type shit. Lean into the freaks and geeks and murder and sociopath nature of immortal beings & their conflicts)
• Power & Play (Grow the player's power, allow for varied options to encounters and problems, allow & respond to the player's quizzical exploration & creativity)

 

[The President]

The HSL version of the game is the next Resident Evil 1.5, people will be trying to get their hands on the build just to see what was there.

 

[HansDampf]

Had a quick look at Alex Skidmore - the Project Creative Director & Studio Design Director @ TGR
Since at the start of that dev diary he casually mentions he has a lot of background in working on Action RPGs in a manner that rubbed me the wrong way
That background seems to be;

• Fable Legends (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhEn5q93z-A)
• Gears of War Tactics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKRz3WjZTu8)
• Transformers Reactivate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBK2ZpYY_0)
• And some scripting/junior work on Fable 2 & 3 which was over a decade ago and not really direct game design experience

The game industry is weird, and the projects people get the opportunity to work on don't necessarily reveal their character or skills
But how is this "a lot of background in Action RPGs"?
This all but confirms this is a another blunder in the making

Also those "Design Pillars" suck absolute ass, incredibly basic stuff that isn't really informing anything, nor reflect the strengths of VTMB
He said;

• Feel like a Vampire
• Visceral Combat
• Explore the World of Darkness

They should've been something like;

• Immersion is Paramount (Grounded & responsive game world, stay in first person, embody your own character, characters talk directly to you, etc)
• Blood, Sex, & Danger (Vampires, sex appeal, edge of society type shit. Lean into the freaks and geeks and murder and sociopath nature of immortal beings & their conflicts)
• Power & Play (Grow the player's power, allow for varied options to encounters and problems, allow & respond to the player's quizzical exploration & creativity)

It's almost funny watching all of this unfold again. It looks like yet another case of some wannabes abusing an existing franchise/name/fictional universe to tell their own pet story, hence the predefined protagonist. If you looked at the footage and artwork released so far, you'd never guess this is supposed to be a sequel to Bloodlines. It's the most generic AA Action RPG with currentday trends, deadly serious plot, stoic, emotionless, no fun allowed protagonist, and facial animations worse than in a 20 year old game. Their design pillars are laughable, role-playing apparently not being one of them. Fun and loud characters? First person dialogue? Gothified architecture? Dark humor mixed with horror? Over the top, sexy night clubs? HSL's version was at least an attempt at a Bloodlines game, even if it was amateurish.

 

[Roguey]

It looks like yet another case of some wannabes abusing an existing franchise/name/fictional universe to tell their own pet story, hence the predefined protagonist.

This is what Paradox wants.

"The work that Hardsuit Labs had done got us to a certain point in the project, and while the goals were reasonably aligned, we ultimately had a different vision for the project," said Greaney. "That is why we eventually moved the project to a new team—that's the best way to put it."

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-new-developer-interview/

“Hardsuit Labs is a great studio, and they did a lot of good work on this project. We just had a very different vision for the final product, and we couldn’t align on that vision,” Greaney tells Digital Trends. “And so the right thing to do was to end the collaboration and find a studio that shared that vision.”

Because that clash in vision was big enough to cause Paradox Interactive to change development partners and delay the game’s release by several years, it begs the question of what Paradox’s overarching vision is for Bloodlines 2. According to Greaney, it’s a Bloodlines 2 that “nails the player fantasy [of] being a vampire in a video game and also brought Vampire the Masquerade V5 [a role-playing game] to a video game and showed us what that feels like.”

Greaney was adamant that Bloodlines 2 faithfully represents Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition during our conversation, and it seemed he wanted a studio that felt the same way.

You can't faithfully represent Bloodlines and 5th edition at the same time. Just using the name to get eyeballs on it.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

There will be no Malkavians. The concept of this clan denies neurodiversity.

DLC, obviously.

Heh. There be no DLC. DLC need sales first.

It's Paradox...

VtM Imperator))

 

[Joyvankek]

So yeah turns out the vampire schutzstaffel was the tremere look as I had guessed:

The outfit isn't that bad, but the PC(female?) model is fucking disgusting.
Elder vampire looking like modern lesbian 3/10 female.
That alone shows that we can pretty much forget about the dark atmosphere and fucked up themes the first one had.
I doubt we will see any homeless, or prostitutes, blood dolls will also be done in "respectful" manner.

 

[negator2vc]

The funny thing is that they will manage to make an even crapper VtM game than
Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York
At least that game had nice art

 

[Skinwalker]

If this has a female-only protagonist, it guarantees that I will never play this game. In a way, it feels like a liberation.

 

[negator2vc]

If this has a female-only protagonist, it guarantees that I will never play this game. In a way, it feels like a liberation.

Judging but what the released and said, it seems to be much worse.
The game with have an androgynous protagonist and they will allow you to choose the protagonist gender (aka in modern terms the pronouns)

 

[Gahbreeil]

Is this game militantly against making femvamp look good?

Seems so, what the fuck do they have against hot goth girls?

Ah, it's an European's dream of how Americans look. At least it looked that way during the Hardsuit era.

 

[Skinwalker]

If this has a female-only protagonist, it guarantees that I will never play this game. In a way, it feels like a liberation.

Judging but what the released and said, it seems to be much worse.
The game with have an androgynous protagonist and they will allow you to choose the protagonist gender (aka in modern terms the pronouns)

Are there games like that already? Where the protagonist's body/face shape does not change, but you merely designate it as he/she/xe/chirp/etc? Or is this rapequel gunning to become the hymen-breaker in the field of transogyny?

 

[Storyfag]

If this has a female-only protagonist, it guarantees that I will never play this game. In a way, it feels like a liberation.

Judging but what the released and said, it seems to be much worse.
The game with have an androgynous protagonist and they will allow you to choose the protagonist gender (aka in modern terms the pronouns)

This is untrue. The devs refer to the female Phyrre as "female Phyrre", which implies there will be a "male Phyrre". They have also released concept art for every Clan they will allow us to play, and some of these are definitely male.

 

[Tyranicon]

The funny thing is that they will manage to make an even crapper VtM game than
Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York
At least that game had nice art

Speaking of, are any of the VtM branded CYOAs or visual novels worth the time? I only attempted Night Road and to be honest, it was quite bad.

If this has a female-only protagonist, it guarantees that I will never play this game. In a way, it feels like a liberation.

Judging but what the released and said, it seems to be much worse.
The game with have an androgynous protagonist and they will allow you to choose the protagonist gender (aka in modern terms the pronouns)

This is untrue. The devs refer to the female Phyrre as "female Phyrre", which implies there will be a "male Phyrre". They have also released concept art for every Clan they will allow us to play, and some of these are definitely male.

I'm predicting the release of the male model to be peak ragebait.

 

[Storyfag]

I'm predicting the release of the male model to be peak ragebait.

Is that the prophetic blood of Malkav speaking?

 

[Roguey]

Speaking of, are any of the VtM branded CYOAs or visual novels worth the time? I only attempted Night Road and to be honest, it was quite bad.

Night Road is considered the best, so forget it.

 

[ColaWerewolf]

Speaking of, are any of the VtM branded CYOAs or visual novels worth the time? I only attempted Night Road and to be honest, it was quite bad.

Yes, there's three, but Night Road was 1/3 and you didn't like it, so who knows. I think you should try Blood Frontier as its the closest to Bloodlines in terms of feeling. I recommend it to Storyfag too because there's some good szlachta content.

Night Road: Lots of stats and powers, poor plot.

Parliament of Knives: Meaningless powers, some stats, great political plot.

Blood Frontier: Mediocre writing with typos, unfiltered VtM edge.
https://dsnee.itch.io/vampire-the-masquerade-blood-frontier

Night Road is considered the best, so forget it.

I disagree, I liked Parliament more. Blood Frontier, being unofficial, has some very gruesome and unsanitized scenes that could never be present in Night Road.

 

[Roguey]

I disagree, I liked Parliament more. Blood Frontier, being unofficial, has some very gruesome and unsanitized scenes that could never be present in Night Road.

I went through all the demos, didn't like it.

I went through the demos of these on the Choice of Games website.

Night Road - This was fine enough, but then the experience soured when, multiple chapters in, it reveals your character diablerized an elder in the past. You want to put a whammy like this as part of a character's background, you introduce it near the beginning. It's an action completely at odds with what my idea of my character was. I will nevertheless give it a chance and go through it fully when it's on sale.

Parliament of Knives - Too many words, inappropriate twitter-brained dialogue. Doesn't surprise me that Steam users who disliked Night Road like this one better and vice versa (stereotypical VtM players would rather engage fully with vampire politics than be an errand runner caught up in political situations). Pass.

Out for Blood - This one shouldn't even be a Vampire the Masquerade game. It's a "returning to your home town to run a store you just inherited" social sim that apparently turns into a Hunter game after the demo portion. Also too many words. Pass.

Sins of the Sires - Got brickwalled when a character asked me for my pronouns and I had to give an affirming response to continue. Pass.

Night Road is indeed the best of this sorry bunch.

But yeah, you fit my observations.

 

[ColaWerewolf]

But yeah, you fit my observations.

I liked Night Road well enough, the reason why I liked Parliament of Knives more is because the central characters in Night Road were Julian, a Malaysian lady boy special snowflake who is a quirky genius that btfos everyone like a Death Note character. And Lettow, who is an elder with a heart of gold who is hella gay.

Parliament also had *plenty* of trash characters, but you could also just backstab all of them or even side with the Sabbat. Something you can't do in Night Road, where you're railroaded into working with either Julian or Lettow, or the SI which is somehow even more retarded.

 

[Tyranicon]

But yeah, you fit my observations.

I liked Night Road well enough, the reason why I liked Parliament of Knives more is because the central characters in Night Road were Julian, a Malaysian lady boy special snowflake who is a quirky genius that btfos everyone like a Death Note character. And Lettow, who is an elder with a heart of gold who is hella gay.

Parliament also had *plenty* of trash characters, but you could also just backstab all of them or even side with the Sabbat. Something you can't do in Night Road, where you're railroaded into working with either Julian or Lettow, or the SI which is somehow even more retarded.

Julian was what made me drop Night Road. He's an anime character with some clear author favoritism.

I don't want to generalize, but it seems like most of the creators behind VtM products are twitter millennials and write that way.

That appeals to V5's current audience, but not to me.

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

Parliament of Knives is superb. One of the best IF novels I have ever played and I've played a lot of them. The game abounds with choices and the DLC content blew me away too, it adds Malkavians and Lasombra as playable clans, each with their own unique twist to the story.

You can also completely miss out on the central mystery of the plot, as I did in my first playthrough, because my character just didn't give a fuck and had his loyalties elsewhere.

 

[ColaWerewolf]

In Parliament of Knives I...

Backstabbed my sire with a new ally.
Got backstabbed by my sire.
Agreed to help assassinate my sire.
Backstabbed the assassin in the middle of their assassination.
Allied back up with my sire.
Got backstabbed by my ally.
Sire backstabs me again.
Ally backstabs my sire, reverting their backstab of me.
I backstab my sire to her temporary ally, who is in the process of backstabbing her.
I backstab my ally in her moment of triumph.
Backstab the Prince, too, when they're staked and helpless.
My sire backstabs her conspiracy ally, triggering a city vs city domain war.

And then I turn up to my sire and we both pretend like we've always been the bestest chums, having discovered no secrets about eachother and having comitted no unknowable crimes or treasons, it was all simply a misunderstanding.