Paradox deputy CEO Mattias Lilja says The Chinese Room is putting its own stamp on the game.
It was a very big deal when Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was announced in 2019, and it’s been a very big shit show ever since. Which is perhaps not inappropriate for a Bloodlines sequel—those of us who are honest about it will admit the original was a remarkable shit show in its own right—but nonetheless irritating for those of us who have been waiting patiently for 20 years for more.
Things went really sideways beginning in August 2020, when lead writer Brian Mitsoda and creative director Ka’ai Cluney were fired from developer Hardsuit Labs. At some point thereafter, senior narrative designer Cara Ellison also left the project; then it was probably delayed into 2021, then it was definitely delayed indefinitely, at which time Hardsuit was taken off the job entirely, replaced by—we found out more than two years later—The Chinese Room, best known as the studio behind Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
Whew! It’s a lot, eh? In an interview with GamesIndustry, Paradox deputy CEO Mattias Lilja acknowledged that changing studios midway through development was a “pretty drastic measure,” but said that despite all its troubles the game is coming along pretty well. “I’m a huge World of Darkness fan myself,” Lilja said. “So, when I play it, I’m starting to see that actually you’re in that world, which is the experience we’re going for.”
As for the nature of that experience, “generally, it’s a continuation of the same vision,” Lilja said, but The Chinese Room “had to make it theirs.”
Comparisons with the original Bloodlines are inevitable, but in gameplay terms, “people who have seen it talk about Dishonored,” Lilja said. “So it’s a bit more of an action RPG, but very steeped in the lore in the sense that you’re a vampire in World of Darkness.”
That’s not the worst idea ever: Dishonored is only two steps removed from being a vampire simulator anyway, and that style of gameplay wrapped in a Chinese Room take on the World of Darkness could be genuinely compelling. Will it also disappoint Bloodlines fans who will be satisfied with nothing less than an unadulterated, unbroken continuation of the mood they experienced in 2004? Almost certainly. But that’s almost certain no matter what TCR and Paradox do, so they might as well just fly free and hope for the best.
It will be a while yet before we find out. Bloodlines 2 was delayed yet again in August, and is now expected out sometime in the first half of 2025. However it ultimately works out, it sounds like this will be Paradox’s last kick at the Bloodlines can: Lilja recently told PC Gamer in a separate interview that “if Bloodlines 2, God willing, is successful, Bloodlines 3 [will be] done by someone else.”
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