Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is an upcoming action role-playing video game published by Paradox Interactive. A sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), the game is part of the World of Darkness series and based on the tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. The game was initially developed by Hardsuit Labs, but by 2021 had been moved to The Chinese Room. It is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S in late 2024.

The player takes the role of an elder vampire in 21st-century Seattle, and chooses one of several vampire clans to belong to, determining their vampiric abilities. To sustain the player character and their abilities, they feed on human characters' blood while trying to avoid being discovered as a vampire, breaking the masquerade – the conspiracy within vampire society to hide their existence from mortals.

Gameplay
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is presented mainly from the first-person perspective. Before the game begins, players create a vampire character, and can select a clan background that informs their abilities.

The game takes place in Seattle, where the player may explore and interact with non-player characters in a variety of ways. The player will be able to ally themselves with different factions, and deal with enemies in a variety of ways.

As a vampire, the player character needs blood to survive, and can feed on humans.

Players are penalized for using certain vampiric powers (called disciplines) or feeding on blood in front of witnesses, which would expose their existence as a vampire to the mortal world. This is a violation of the masquerade, and may result in changes to the gameplay.

Setting
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 takes place in 21st-century Seattle. Set in the World of Darkness, the game depicts a world in which vampires, werewolves, demons, and other creatures shape human history. The vampires are bound by a code to maintain their secrecy (forbidding the use of vampiric abilities in front of humans) and avoid unnecessary killing (to preserve the vampire's last shreds of humanity). The vampires are divided into various clans with distinctive traits and abilities. The Toreador are the closest to humanity, with a passion for culture; the Ventrue are noble, powerful leaders; the Brujah are rebels who excel at fighting; the Malkavians are cursed with insanity and blessed with insight; the Gangrel are loners, in sync with their animalistic nature; the secretive, untrustworthy Tremere wield blood magic; and Nosferatu, who are condemned to a life in the shadows due to their monstrous appearance. The clans are loosely governed by the Camarilla, a cabal that enforces the vampire code and maintains the peace. Opposed to the Camarilla are the Sabbat, vampires who revel in their feral instincts and see all humans as prey, and the Anarchs, an idealistic group who disagree with the Camarilla's oligarchic political structure and believe that power should be shared by all vampires.

The main character of Bloodlines 2, whom the player controls, is an elder vampire known as "Phyre", whose clan, appearance, backstory, and gender can be chosen by the player. It has been revealed that clans Brujah, Tremere, Banu Haqim, and Ventrue will be playable at launch.

Plot
Phyre will see a three-front siege in Seattle during a historic Christmas time snow-storm. Phyre is an elder vampire, meaning one who has been turned for at least 300 years, and who is at odds with a voice inside their head, as well as with a power vacuum in Seattle's vampire court.

Background
The 2004 release of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines had been a relative failure, selling fewer than 100,000 copies when it was launched in competition against sequels in Half-Life 2, Halo 2, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Bloodlines was the last in a line of games developed by Troika Games that was critically well received but marred by technical issues and low sales, and Troika was shuttered shortly after its release, preventing them from developing a sequel. In 2004, then-director Leonard Boyarsky said that although the team would like to pursue a Bloodlines sequel, the decision belonged to then-publisher Activision. Before their closure, Troika had begun development of a workable prototype based on another of White Wolf's tabletop role-playing games, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, set in the same universe as Vampire: The Masquerade. In the years following Bloodlines release, the game became considered a cult classic,  receiving over a decade of development by fans to fix technical issues and restore cut or incomplete content.

Video game publisher Paradox Interactive purchased White Wolf in October 2015, obtaining the World of Darkness intellectual property, including Bloodlines. Following the purchase, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester confirmed that a sequel was possible, stating "when the time is right I guess a sequel will find its place in the market."

Production
Shortly after Paradox Interactive's acquisition of White Wolf, Seattle-based developer Hardsuit Labs pitched a Bloodlines sequel to Paradox. The Creative Director Ka'ai Cluney contacted Brian Mitsoda, who joined the sequel as the narrative lead, bringing in Cara Ellison as senior writer. Game designer Chris Avellone also served as a writer from 2016 - 2018, and Bloodlines composer Rik Schaffer returned for the sequel as the main composer.

In October 2019, Hardsuit Labs publicly announced that the game was delayed to later 2020. Coinciding with the game's second delay in July 2020, Mitsoda and Cluney were both let go from their positions, as a joint decision by the leaderships at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox Interactive. Following this, Alexandre Mandryka took over the role of Creative Director. In October 2020, Paradox confirmed that Ellison had also left the project.

In February 2021, Paradox Interactive announced that Hardsuit Labs was no longer working on the game, and that Paradox Interactive was collaborating with another developer to finish the production. Paradox Interactive had prior to this considered cancelling the project, but decided to continue development with a new partner and to retain much of what had been produced for it until that point.

In September 2023, it was announced at PAX West that The Chinese Room had taken over development of the game, and a new trailer was shown.

Writing
During the time Hardsuit Labs was working on the game, Ellison described the story and in-game factions as influenced by the conflicts over Seattle's modern identity, between its traditional music and culture and the modern developments brought by large corporations. Mitsoda said "There's this idea of how much Seattle can change before it's no longer Seattle. So we made the factions aspects of the old and the new."

As of September 2023, the plot of the game has changed significantly, with the player character now being an elder vampire.

Game design
As the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game's fifth edition was in development alongside Bloodlines 2, some of Hardsuit Labs' ideas were adopted into the board game, including the concept of Resonances serving to provide enhancements.

Since the announcement of The Chinese Room being the new developer on Bloodlines 2 at PAX West 2023, in September 2023, they kept its initial planned setting of Seattle. Sean Greaney, Paradox's VP of the World of Darkness franchise, noted that they "have been able to reuse a significant amount of art and level design" from Hardsuit's project. The Chinese Room's Studio Director Alex Skidmore clarified that they're using "a new code base with different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems."

Release
Bloodlines 2 was first teased in February 2019 with the release of the dating app "Tender", created by Paradox and Alice & Smith. The app offered to use a "soulmate algorithm" and asks for the user's blood type before offering to match them with sick people nearby. A Twitch livestream, and later Paradox's own official Twitter account also displayed a memo from fictional Tender CEO Malcolm Chandler noting the need to be prepared for March 21, 2019 in San Francisco, the date the game was publicly revealed.

Initially scheduled for release in March 2020, the game was pushed back in October 2019 to an unspecified 2020 release date, and further delayed in August 2020 to an unspecified 2021 release date. Along with the announcement of the change in developers in February 2021, the game was delayed past 2021.

In September 2023, The Chinese Room was announced as the new developer, with the game scheduled to release for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S in late 2024.