Game News Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 in development at The Chinese Room, coming Fall 2024

[Modron]

Justice! Americans still portray Europe without being here.

It's not Canada's and the USA's fault European studios won't make games about Europe.

 

[Grunker]

That trailer looked jank as hell

So many uh-ohs:

- The same 2-3 combat animations copy-pasted
- Barely any NPCs doing any amount of interaction
- Not a single populated environ shown
- No systems mentioned or hinted at
- Hardly any voicework shown
- No NPC dialogue glimpsed
- Extremely stiff, awkward silent scenes showing lack of development (such as bar scene)

I’m calling it: game won’t just be bad, it’ll be an underproduced nightmare on bargain bin level

 

[Don Peste]

If you want to ease the wait you can play other similar RPGs like Zeno Clash, Zeno Clash 2, and Breakdown (Namco).

 

[Roguey]

It had to be the US because for some reason no one takes Canada seriously, but I don't quite understand why Seattle was chosen. Because it's the largest city on the northern part of the west coast? Why not the east coast? Providence seems like a natural fit for US vampire stories.

Hardsuit chose Seattle because they lived there. TCR chose it because Hardsuit already created all this Seattle art and level design. Decisions made purely out of convenience.

So many uh-ohs:

- The same 2-3 combat animations copy-pasted
- Barely any NPCs doing any amount of interaction
- Not a single populated environ shown
- No systems mentioned or hinted at
- Hardly any voicework shown
- No NPC dialogue glimpsed
- Extremely stiff, awkward silent scenes showing lack of development (such as bar scene)

I’m calling it: game won’t just be bad, it’ll be an underproduced nightmare on bargain bin level

None of this stuff is ready to show and it'd cost too much to fake it. Hardsuit's Bloodlines 2 was also announced in 2019 with a 2020 release date. Despite claiming the contrary in all their financial reports to their investors, Paradox hasn't learned a damn thing.

At least it was an actual in-engine trailer and not a cinematic one (cinematic trailer would cost too much)

 

[lukaszek]

stop giving Delterius hope

 

[La vie sexuelle]

It had to be the US because for some reason no one takes Canada seriously, but I don't quite understand why Seattle was chosen. Because it's the largest city on the northern part of the west coast? Why not the east coast? Providence seems like a natural fit for US vampire stories.

Hardsuit chose Seattle because they lived there. TCR chose it because Hardsuit already created all this Seattle art and level design. Decisions made purely out of convenience.

Okay, that sounds reasonable. I thought WhiteWolf/Onyx/Whoever's doing it now took the default setting from warm California to a much colder state that is kind of a bulwark of unattainable Canada for the American left.

Justice! Americans still portray Europe without being here.

It's not Canada's and the USA's fault European studios won't make games about Europe.

Definitely yes. This is especially noticeable in small games where the USA is the default setting for everything.

There are so many interesting places, not only in Europe, that we will never see, because everyone is afraid that progressive Americans will not buy a game set in Marseille in the 1920s, in Byzantine Crete, Cairo in the Napoleonic period, the kingdom of Asoka or Siberia before Russia.

 

[Zariusz]

And the cycle of game jumping between state of being alive and dead continues, fitting for a project about vampires.

 

[Grunker]

It had to be the US because for some reason no one takes Canada seriously, but I don't quite understand why Seattle was chosen. Because it's the largest city on the northern part of the west coast? Why not the east coast? Providence seems like a natural fit for US vampire stories.

Hardsuit chose Seattle because they lived there. TCR chose it because Hardsuit already created all this Seattle art and level design. Decisions made purely out of convenience.

So many uh-ohs:

- The same 2-3 combat animations copy-pasted
- Barely any NPCs doing any amount of interaction
- Not a single populated environ shown
- No systems mentioned or hinted at
- Hardly any voicework shown
- No NPC dialogue glimpsed
- Extremely stiff, awkward silent scenes showing lack of development (such as bar scene)

I’m calling it: game won’t just be bad, it’ll be an underproduced nightmare on bargain bin level

None of this stuff is ready to show and it'd cost too much to fake it.

Which, with one year left till release, should tell you everything

None of this stuff is ready to show and it'd cost too much to fake it. Hardsuit's Bloodlines 2 was also announced in 2019 with a 2020 release date.

Not that I had any amount of faith in the original BL2 pitch, but its trailer was much better - and this one is made with more resources to draw on.

I think this game will be DoA.

 

[Roguey]

Which, with one year left till release, should tell you everything

I don't believe so. Most games don't look finished until the last few months. Game devs waste a lot of time making presentable vertical slices for presentation before then.

Not that I had any amount of faith in the original BL2 pitch, but its trailer was much better - and this one is made with more resources to draw on.

Does it have more resources? When Bloodlines 2 was announced in 2019 it had been in development for three years already. This iteration has been in development for about 2.5. They had the benefit of being able to reuse some level design and art, but everything else is being done from scratch. Paradox also told their investors that it would have a smaller budget https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...inese-room-coming-in-2024.126124/post-7792636

For externally developed games, we have reworked how we, going forward, invest in projects that are outside our core segments and how we collaborate with third-party developers. The investments will be monetarily smaller and managed by a dedicated team working outside the regular development organization. In parallel, we have reviewed the production process in order to be able to identify problems earlier and sharpen the focus of these collaborations. All in all, this means that we can act at a lower cost and with a lower risk while simultaneously enabling us to find new sources of revenue more efficiently.

 

[Grunker]

They had the benefit of being able to reuse some level design and art

Yes, they did. Yet they still made a worse trailer than what we were shown years ago - with fewer characters, animations and scenes.

 

[Delterius]

I think this game will be DoA.

unDoA*

 

[harhar!]

Dear Esther was one of the most rancid, pretentious "games" I have ever had the displeasure to play. You literally just walk around and nonsensical soundbites are thrown at you. I have no hope for this game.

 

[Konjad]

I kinda preferred it being dead.

 

[Roguey]

They had the benefit of being able to reuse some level design and art

Yes, they did. Yet they still made a worse trailer than what we were shown years ago - with fewer characters, animations and scenes.

Which trailer are you talking about? The reveal trailer was a NOT ACTUAL GAMEPLAY cinematic trailer. The first in-engine trailer didn't really show anything, though it did have a lot of voice-over.


They decided to go in the opposite direction this time (lots of combat, little voice-over)

 

[Gargaune]

That trailer looked jank as hell

So many uh-ohs:

- The same 2-3 combat animations copy-pasted
- Barely any NPCs doing any amount of interaction
- Not a single populated environ shown
- No systems mentioned or hinted at
- Hardly any voicework shown
- No NPC dialogue glimpsed
- Extremely stiff, awkward silent scenes showing lack of development (such as bar scene)

I’m calling it: game won’t just be bad, it’ll be an underproduced nightmare on bargain bin level

 

[Old Hans]

known for creating ground-breaking first-person titles

oh yes who doesn't remember all their big award winning hits, like...uhh...

 

[Bester]

There are so many interesting places, not only in Europe, that we will never see, because everyone is afraid that progressive Americans will not buy a game set in Marseille in the 1920s, in Byzantine Crete, Cairo in the Napoleonic period, the kingdom of Asoka or Siberia before Russia.

I'd love to see a VTMB game in Saint-Petersburg, where the nights in the summer are non-existent, but the days in winter last only a couple hours. Vamps would love it here in the winter. Plus the architecture and the exotic factor of Russia. Would've been a fucking bomb. Instead we get another US city. Yeah, disappointed.

 

[luj1]

That trailer looked jank as hell

So many uh-ohs:

- The same 2-3 combat animations copy-pasted
- Barely any NPCs doing any amount of interaction
- Not a single populated environ shown
- No systems mentioned or hinted at
- Hardly any voicework shown
- No NPC dialogue glimpsed
- Extremely stiff, awkward silent scenes showing lack of development (such as bar scene)

I’m calling it: game won’t just be bad, it’ll be an underproduced nightmare on bargain bin level

we all knew this before


i knew this gonna resurface at a different studio

except thats gonna make it even worse, like a technical frankenstein

 

[luj1]

known for creating ground-breaking first-person titles

oh yes who doesn't remember all their big award winning hits, like...uhh...

lol

shillary roll critical fail

 

[Drowed]

 

[La vie sexuelle]

There are so many interesting places, not only in Europe, that we will never see, because everyone is afraid that progressive Americans will not buy a game set in Marseille in the 1920s, in Byzantine Crete, Cairo in the Napoleonic period, the kingdom of Asoka or Siberia before Russia.

I'd love to see a VTMB game in Saint-Petersburg, where the nights in the summer are non-existent, but the days in winter last only a couple hours. Vamps would love it here in the winter. Plus the architecture and the exotic factor of Russia. Would've been a fucking bomb. Instead we get another US city. Yeah, disappointed.

Petersburg also has a very "dark" natural location - the city is surrounded by swamps and forests, occasionally kolkhoze in ruins. Plus the story, both the tsarist one and the wartime siege (for example - an old German vampire who has been hiding in the sewers since the war and so on).

 

[spectre]

VTM is the Jagged Alliance of RPGs it seems.

 

[Paul_cz]

Eh, I will give it benefit of the doubt, even if the trailer does not inspire much hope.

I still want to know what happened at Hardsuit though. Their BL2 looked so good on paper and in trailers.

 

[Delterius]

I still want to know what happened at Hardsuit though. Their BL2 looked so good on paper and in trailers.

sorry to say paul that you just broke the rpgcodex record for 'praising the game that came before the current thing' at minus 12 months. you may drive to the nearest ikea to claim your prize, which is sawdust leftovers

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

VTM is the Jagged Alliance of RPGs it seems.

Hm, is that:
a) No! More rape
b) No more rape!