This game was so cool not because it was about vampires
Nope. One of the reasons Bloodlines was cool was because
it's about vampires. And I would say every single piece of fiction gains a few points if they include vampires too. Vampires are a cool archetype that borrow themselves for a different type of story from the ones we're so accustomed to see today. They're suited for a darker tone, reminiscences of the past, and the presence of strict hierarchies.
Take them out and what you've left is some cheap worldbuilding and milquetoast "capitalism bad" takes. Precisely what these guys are doing with this "sequel".
Bloodlines 2 has vampires and somehow it doesn't look cool. What can be said about every new game in this universe.
Now imagine that the original Bloodlines was not a game about vampires but about the mafia and its branches. Still sounds cool, right?
Honestly I never paid much attention to this because I don't think Bloodlines needs or deserves a sequel and I could care less - but I'm now just finding out Malkavian and Nosferatu aren't playable in the sequel? What the fuck are they thinking? Those two clans being playable is one of the main reasons Bloodlines is worth playing.
Nosferatu are too much work and hardly anyone played one (most people don't want to be an ugly vampire). Malkavian is probably a DLC clan.
Nosferatu was not only interesting to play in Bloodlines, but I never laughed harder in any game I have ever played. If you haven't played as a Nosferatu in Bloodlines, you haven't lived.
OH SWEET LORD JESUS! <drops dead>
Hold on, that's problematic right there - featuring playable characters so ugly, that their mere presence can cause heart attacks. This is oppressive towards all those 1-3 people in the attractiveness scale. Some of them play games too, and have the right to a safe space within World of Darkness.
You don't need life experience for creating a fun game, in fact most historically succesful game writers/designers were very young and thus lacking in experience. You just need a working imagination, a passion for the art and the lack of a IQ90 committee of DEI-tokens hampering your efforts.
Experience is always needed when you create. The trick is to transcribe your inner experience into fiction. Victor Hugo was not a hunchback bell ringer in medieval Paris, nor had he seen medieval Paris. But his novel is true in the sense that it is saturated with the life truth that only art can convey.
I realize that no one at Troika had the experience or inner life to write "Notre-Dame de Paris", but they had enough of them to make a cool game about vampires, tits and shooting. These guys from the UK seem like human shells. There's nothing inside there. Just a little woke.