LogInThe Chinese Room released a new announcement trailer, revealing the launch window.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has faced troubled development but it is finally coming, and relatively soon. A new trailer revealed that we'll see a new vision of the game in the fall of 2024.
And what a game this will be! Bloodlines 2 was first in development at Hardsuit Labs but then moved to The Chinese Room (Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs) where it has been cooking since 2021.
Image credit: The Chinese Room
Now, you might be surprised to see The Chinese Room working on such a game. The studio is known for setting up narrative walking simulators where you learn about the world through notes and objects around you. However, its staff was laid off entirely in 2017, so it probably has a different concept in mind now.
Still, Bloodlines 2 creative director Alex Skidmore, who has worked on the Fable series at Lionhead Studios, also didn't expect to see The Chinese Room developing the game at first, but it looks like we don't have anything to worry about: "And really, it was a big reason why I joined, because these are the kinds of games I love working on."
Image credit: The Chinese Room
So what should we expect from Bloodlines 2? While the new studio has been "able to reuse a significant amount of art and level design" from Hardsuit, it overhauled quite a lot. Skidmore says the team is using "a new code base with different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems" along with a different protagonist.
Originally, the game was supposed to introduce a recently turned thin-blood vampire but now you will play as an elder vampire awoken from their deep sleep in modern Seattle. This switch to someone with knowledge and experience definitely sounds fresh and maybe more fitting for the battle to come. "You have enough that you can fill in the character a bit as you go and roleplay, but they're also an established thing that you understand as aspirational."
Image credit: The Chinese Room
"We don't want it to be just a sort of poor homage or pastiche of Bloodlines 1. We want it to be its own thing," Skidmore shared. "We're not doing what Bloodlines 1 did, which is a traditional RPG game start: the very first day you're a vampire. The actual character you are has been a vampire for quite a while. And that was to create something different from Bloodlines to give a different experience."
Image credit: The Chinese Room
It's interesting to see what The Chinese Room has in store for the game long awaited by so many fans. We'll get to watch more gameplay in January.
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