Bloodlines 2 (The game we actually want) - will never see the light of day - and that is okay, because Vampires perish in the sunlight.
Since the release of Half-Life 2 (more than twenty years ago, I've waited.) I have waited for a sequel for Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, and I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that I'll not ever see the successor I, and so many others in the gaming world desire.
It is a problem more than the impending release date of Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, set to come out on the 21st of October, 2025 - ten full days before Halloween. But anyway... what even is Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines and numbers that come after a name?
Well: a brief history. Vampire The Masquerade is a table top role playing game that was first released in 1991, and The Masquerade bit is about more than just a ball where everyone wears masks - it is about Vampires living in the shadows of modern, urban society, and trying to keep their presence and influence in the world to be little known. Away from the police, away from the eyes of the general public, who would otherwise destroy vampire kind.
The game first made its way to video gaming in 2000, with the release of Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, and I remember my "collector's edition" of the game coming with a full fiction book as well as the game manual, disks, maps, and all the splendour of peak-big-box PC games.
Then, 2004 - on the very same day as Half-Life 2, the buggiest, most-loved vampire PC game ever was released. Bloodlines was so broken on release you couldn't progress beyond a certain part of the game. It needed patches. It needed fixes. It didn't matter. The first half of the game is filled with such rich atmospheric storytelling and dialogue, that you can almost ignore the parts that come "after the patch" - but it is all good.
The Bloodlines game, set in contemporary Santa Monica oozes with darkness, comedy, violence, sophisticated writing and is an incredible immersive sim, with so many options to achieve objectives that it makes it feel like Deus Ex with vampires. There have since been a whole lot of games released in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, a series of interactive fiction stories, and Swansong, another RPG, which did not get rave reviews.
Therefore, having waited (I have had the game on my Wishlist since it was first an echo on Steam) twenty, years, and having seen the development hell that Bloodlines 2 has endured, I am lamenting that I will never see the game that I envision and desire.
Firstly, the original studio that developed Bloodlines is long gone, axed by its publisher before the original title was even playable to completion. But don't worry - fan patches fixed that. In 2004 (according to Wikipedia ) the game director said they'd love to make a sequel but Activision being Activision, closed things, sold things, and some how, Paradox Interactive ended up with the rights to overarching intellectual property.
Then, in 2015, it was said "a sequel could happen". Enter Hardsuit Labs. They had a writer, a project pitch, and a setting. All those things don't really matter, because the game was delayed, game designers and writers left and come 2021, the publisher announced that the game was done, dusted, over, and a new studio would come on board to lead the project.
Silence until 2023. Developer The Chinese Room, famous for its walking simulators and horror entered the public sphere, following an announcement by Paradox Interactive to "Save" the project. The saving of the project sees an upcoming release, but pre-release builds of the game played by passionate journalists have criticised what they have played - and have spoken on the disappointment that they've gotten from the new this, not being that.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and the Nostalgia for Bloodlines is deserved. It is a cult classic, with memorable characters, an excellent story, and gameplay so thoroughly immersive and absorbing that I still fondly remember the Santa Monica streets all these years later, having never travelled there in actuality.
And then, of course, there is the Ocean House Hotel, which anyone who has played this game will speak to you with the same amount of fondness that gamers will hold for Half-Life 2's Ravenholm:
Returning now to Paradox Interactive "Saving the project". This, they have not done, if only by pointing to the marketing of the title. In order to play TWO Clans (think of these are races in something like Baldur's Gate, or Dungeons and Dragons) - you're locked into purchasing the "Premium Edition" of the game.
Considering Toreador is the most popular, and this is locked behind the Premium pay wall, that is already destroying a lot of goodwill for gamers. On top of that - Malkavian clans - which are the psychotic, funny, unhinged (say the quiet part out loud clan) aren't even present.
Further, from everything seen so far on the game - The Masquerade bit is also put to the side. This appears to be far more of an action game, from right there in the marketing:
Experience immersive, visceral combat that rewards various playstyles and approaches based on your choice of vampire clan. Will you engage in close combat with supernatural strength, attack from a distance with blood sorcery, or silently thin the herd like the apex predator you are? Your clan choice will support these playstyles and more.
But you clan choice is locked behind a premium pay wall. For a full priced game. Shameful. In a preview published by Eurogamer, written by Bertie Purchese - they talk about this in some depth - but worse still, is the telling heading "Turns out Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 Isn't much of An RPG".
And, with that, and what is shown on offer - it looks as though this game is going be a half-baked Dishonored-style title, with Assassin's Creed style parkour. The perspective, the narrative, and the general consensus, even from the comments is that this game is going to be one of the bitterest disappointments that gamers have ever waited for.
Perhaps even more of a disappointment than Duke Nukem Forever. Release date: "When it is done." This game is certainly done, and it isn't even out yet. I might still want to play it, but I will certainly not be happy about handing over my money for it, because in no uncertain words - the immersive sim, likes of which Deus Ex, System Shock, Dishonored, and the original Bloodlines touched upon seems to be a genre that is sadly, done.
Please, sit with me in an eternal vigil of sadness for what Bloodlines 2 could have been - even though it technically isn't released yet. The fact that anyone remembers Bloodlines at all, given it was released in the same month as Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metal Gear Sold 3: Snake Eater, Halo 2, Need for Speed Underground 2, AND World of Warcraft.
What a wild month November 2004 was. Too bad we shall never see the likes of it ever again.