Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 News

Bloodlines 2's disastrous $37 million write-down "lies fully" with Paradox, says its CEO, as the controversial VTM game flops

It's no secret that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has struggled since launch. With middling reviews (I scored it a 5/10 in my own Bloodlines 2 review) and an unimpressive 56% lifetime rating on Steam, The Chinese Room's take on the World of Darkness simply doesn't have enough bite. While Paradox has previously told us that it wouldn't personally develop Bloodlines 3 because it lies outside of its strategy game remit, it's now doubled down on that statement after confirming a SEK 355 (~$37 million) write-down on the game's development costs.

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Не тянет на сиквел легендарной RPG: The Chinese Room просила Paradox Interactive назвать Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 иначе

Бывший креативный директор The Chinese Room Дэн Пинчбек считает, что Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 (наш обзор) стоило максимально дистанцировать от легендарной первой части — хотя бы путем смены названия.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 should have been called something else, agrees former creative director

The former creative director of The Chinese Room's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has finally said the quiet part loud and agreed that the game really shouldn't have been called Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Have you played Bloodlines 2? What would you have called it? I'm going with Vampire: The Masquerade - Third Cousin Twice Removed.

Honestly, there are a lot of disappointing things about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Having waited far too long for a game that maybe would have been better left to our collective imagination, its performance issues, lack of stakes (pun intended), and weak RPG systems left me cold. But, as I say in my Bloodlines 2 review, the lack of connection to the first game is what kills it dead for me. Bar a somewhat meaningless throwback towards the end of the narrative, there's literally nothing connecting the two games bar disparate lore snippets scattered around the map that no one is really reading. Bloodlines 2 is a sequel in name alone, and sadly not a good enough RPG to move the needle.