Back from the undead
Paradox Interactive has announced that they haven’t given up on the development of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.
Rise, Kindred, and join us in September for a big announcement! pic.twitter.com/RdmJY7pbgA
— Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 (@VtM_Bloodlines) June 7, 2023
A September announcement tease from the publisher was accompanied with a press release stating that the difficult development of Bloodlines 2 marches on. Paradox had been silent on Bloodlines 2 for over a year after many troubling moves: it fired the game’s lead writer, and its director, and subsequently moved all development duties to a still-unnamed development team. While all these shadowy machinations happening in the background fits thematically in a vampire-based series, fans were mostly left confused.
This is what comes up when you Google some Bloodlines 2 search terms:
Paradox also released a few screenshots to go with the announcement. They look great, but a handful of screenshots don’t quite measure up to the gorgeous gameplay videos they showed three years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XygaG56O_gY
This is nothing new for fans of Bloodlines
Hardcore fans still believe in Bloodlines 2 because they remember the early cursed days of the original. Bloodlines might absolutely rock now, but it took a while for it to get up to that point. At release, all we got was an unfinished game and the demise of its development company. The original Bloodlines by Troika Games was off to a promising start, though! It was one of the first games to use Valve’s glorious Source engine, but the hype quickly turned into a nightmare. Troubles related to overspending, dealing with a new engine, and a contract that forced Troika to only show Bloodlines after the reveal of Half-Life 2 and to only release it after (the delayed) Half-Life 2 put the company under great stress.
Bloodlines was met with a mixed response upon release, though its great story and gameplay potential were obvious from the get-go. We must thank the heroic fans and ex-Troika employees who never gave up and kept on working for years on patches that fixed the game’s issues. These patches made by the community are so good that GOG’s official release of the game has incorporated them.
So, If Bloodlines 2 doesn’t play great by the time Paradox’s unannounced company believes they’ve exhausted all of its development capabilities, just consider releasing it as is. Yes, please don’t cancel it. A few fans will probably take care of the rest.
