Bloodlines 2...Again

[Silver Sorrow]

Looks like they didn't drive the stake all the way through its heart after all.

ARTICLE LINK: Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 resurfaces with new developer and date

Well...huh. I don't know.

Now due for release in fall 2024, Bloodlines 2 has been taken over by The Chinese Room, a U.K. studio best known for its atmospheric and mysterious walking simulators, Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.

Fall 2024. Riiiiiiiiight.

From the guys that brought you Dear Esther...

The protagonist has also changed from a young vampire, as in the original game, to a powerful Elder, "to create something different from Bloodlines to give a different experience." This Elder has been awoken from a long slumber, so the world will still be new to them.

Different doesn't necessarily mean "better" or even "interesting," especially as compared to the work-your-way-up-from-the-bottom philosophy of the original premise, which was far more intriguing to me.

It seems as though little remains of the Hardsuit Labs version beyond some of the game's art assets.

So forget everything you found interesting about the previous almost-incarnation.

Still, there's a developer reveal video at the end of the article that gives a bit of background or whatever to the current crop of doomed fools attempting to bring this disaster to the masses, so append your hopes and dreams to their enthusiasm, or something.

But...BUT. I will give them a chance. The new direction could be playable, even. As long as I'm not expected to stroll along a beach as a narrator rambles on about various subjects, it should be okay. We won't know any salient details until the publisher decides to impart a few in January.

I have no high hopes for it, to be honest.

[Doc_Brown]

Mixed feelings.  The Chinese Room is mostly known for making walking simulators; gameplay isn't exactly their forté.  Being recast as an ancient vampire doesn't bother me that much--I imagine leveling up is simply you shaking off the sluggishness of your long rest--but character-wise I find this new trailer to be underwhelming.  Remember the original Bloodlines trailer?  Jeanette instantly made an impression; this "I will wait for you" chick isn't even registering.

There's a similar situation happening with Little Nightmares III.  Tarsier Studios made the first two, while Supermassive Games is taking over for this one.  If the name sounds familiar, that's because Supermassive is the studio behind the likes of Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology.  Their choose-your-own-adventure focus is a little concerning, though they are quite familiar with the horror genre and have a history with 2.5D platforming (LittleBigPlanet DLCs).

[Starfox]

Get mixed feeling here too. A studio specialized in walking simulators doing a VTMB so essentially a pure RPG game? Not sure it will mesh well and doesn't fill me with confidence because it will be a test for them. They don't even have a single RPG to their name. Doesn't mean they cannot get the job done, but some experience always helps. If it's just a case of "Oh, we botched that one but we learned so much from our mistakes that we'll ace the next.

The only of the game they developed that even come close to VTMB general look and feel would be Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs which I honestly didn't play so I have no opinion. And it still wasn't a RPG anyway.

Being a vampire elder... well that could be interesting... if well done. You could decide to punish all your stupid children or to frighten them to retake control and drench the world in blood. Many over scenarios could come up.

But that all depends on the studio. 1f they do intend to transform VTMB in a walk in the park with story and interactions barely above the visual novels we had for the VTM franchise those last years, I'm out.

Then again... with all the things happening in my life currently and in our lives in general (+30% food prices, +30% energy prices, no problem, we can take it with our 2 to 5% wages augmentation a year -- I'm talking Europe here, don't really know how the situation is for you guys in the US -- Fall 2024 seems very very far away right now. So far away that I'm not even really thinking about it. I'm barely thinking about next month as it is.

[Doc_Brown]

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Reveals Its Main Character - Phyre the Elder Kindred

[Silver Sorrow]

That sounds...interesting, I admit.

I know: outrage, bitter complaining, hopeless woe, fatalistic acceptance, death, decay, dust, a return to the cosmic soup, etc.; but it isn't a bad idea. I just hope it doesn't stray to the dark side of "interesting."

(As in: "may you live in interesting times.")