Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

[MT 900]

This got leaked about half an hour ago, and then officially announced in the last 5 minutes

 

 

[Galeigh 283]

I need this now. Fuck you physics, make time go faster damn it!

[webhead 518]

I never actually played the first.  People that like this game seem to fucking LOVE it though so I'm curious now.

[Galeigh 283]

Get it (its super cheap), install the fan patch (required because the studio went under b4 they could bug fix), and play it. 

[webhead 518]

Nice it's 5 bucks on the Humble store for a Steam key.  Might take a look.

[Galeigh 283]

Seriously... Dont forget the fan patch. It's basically unplayable without it. 

Oh, and don't play Nosferatu on your first time through. They are the "hard mode" selection cause they can't walk the streets and talk to people as easily as the other choices. 

[Darkce 13]

I've also never played the first one but I've heard great things about it and the ttrpg its based on, so I'm definitely interested.

[Galeigh 283]

I played the ttrpg first and the devs bent over backwards to make the game feel like the ttrpg. They succeeded for the most part. If they had had the time to iron out the technical issues before launch the game would be far more than the cult classic it is today. 

[Mera'din 306]

Was just going to post about this. Watched the live stream. They built up to the announcement over the last month via an ARG using the beta for a fake dating app. 

 

My wife is losing her mind right now. She absolutely loves VTM and Bloodlines is basically her favorite game. She made me play through it a while back (and actually sat there and watched me because she wanted to see what choices I made. Literally eating popcorn and watching me play it. XD ) and it is honestly really good (even by today's standards, it holds up decently). Got me really into the whole World of Darkness story and I've been reading stuff for it pretty much since then.

 

Apparently one of the big things that hurt the game when it first came out is it launched the same day as Half-Life 2 (was a joke on the announcement stream about it "Guess we won't have to worry about that this time, right Valve?"  ).

 

Best thing is they got the original lead writer from the first game, Brian Mitsodo, back for it. Chris Avellone is also attached to it (big name writer/designer from Obsidian that worked on Planescape: Torment, New Vegas, and KotOR 2 among other things) as well.

 

Have a lot of hope for this. This is technically the first game for the studio that is making it (Hardsuit Labs), but they were formed out of Zombie Studios who made most of the Spec Ops and Blacklight games (so mostly FPS type stuff), but apparently shortly after they formed is when Paradox bought White Wolf and one of the people from the studio was a huge fan and immediately put together a pitch for Bloodlines 2 for Paradox and they've been working on it pretty much since then (so about 3 1/2 years).

 

Game is up for pre-order already and their site has a bunch of hidden things on it that let you unlock things in the game when it comes out.

https://www.bloodlines2.com/?ref=133e619ffe8b

 

Looks like it'll be on console as well as PC, and PC has listings for Steam, Epic, GoG and Paradox's own laucher as available pre-order sources. They also said in an interview I just watched that they will be fully supporting mods for the game since the mod community is literally what kept the first one alive for so long.

[Galeigh 283]

This got me so Excited I re-installed VTMB1

[webhead 518]

11 hours ago, Mera'din said:

Looks like it'll be on console as well as PC, and PC has listings for Steam, Epic, GoG and Paradox's own laucher as available pre-order sources.

 

Better preorder on a Steam before Epic pays them to take it out of there.

[MT 900]

Just now, webhead said:

 

on a Steam

[webhead 518]

This is what I get for trying to type from my phone.

[Mera'din 306]

2 hours ago, webhead said:

 

Better preorder on a Steam before Epic pays them to take it out of there.

 

Saw a bunch of people worrying about that.  

 

Made the mistake of looking at the forums for it on Steam. It's like 10% worrying about that, 25% refusal to pre-order because "NEVER PRE-ORDER"  15% refusal to ever touch the game because it's 1st person only, and 50% "IT LETS YOU PICK YOUR PRONOUN AND THE SJWs AND GAYS ARE RUINING OUR VIDYA".

 

Did pre-order it for the wife though. Don't know if there's too much worry since they'll have it on their own launcher too, but I guess if you're offered enough money, anything can happen. XD

 

Saw an article talking about DLC a bit. I know their "fancy" edition of the game comes with the 'Year 1' DLC, but a cool thing I read was that they will also add more clans through DLC beyond what they start with, and those will be free. So basically, story DLC will be paid, but (to term it like regular RPGs) any new classes they add will be free.

[Galeigh 283]

I went to the reddit and it was all celebrations and cheers. Sometimes Reddit is a nice place. 

[Hornet 114]

I was sold at "Open world; based on the White Wolf ttrpg". I was Double-sold at Avellone being involved. 

 

One of my big gaming regrets is not playing the original, and I feel like if I tried to play it now (Like I'm experiencing atm with Far Cry 3 remaster) I will be unable to, being used to getting so many serotony-hugs and so much handholding from contemporary games. I tried to play Fallout 1 + 2 and got destroyed, hated the UI... Clearly excellent gaming to be had, I just don't have the patience. 

 

But yeah, White Wolf game, Avellone on board, sequel to a game that ALWAYS comes up when I say I like narrative heavy, plot-branching type games... Very excited.

[Mera'din 306]

Honestly, the first holds up pretty well even by today's standards (leaves a little to be desired graphically, but I've seen worse from around the same time). I tend to have trouble playing older stuff anymore too, but really enjoyed the experience and didn't have many complaints with it. It's on sale for like $5 if that's a price you're willing to risk to give it a try so no time like the present.

 

If you give it a shot, just make sure to get the patch that KK was talking about. I believe the GoG version (which is also $5 right now) actually even comes with already so you don't have to put any extra work into it. 

 

 

[Galeigh 283]

It definitely holds up. It's a story driven experience and its embraces and doubles down on that. A great deal of combat can simple just be avoided by creative thinking. Not all of it though. 

[Mera'din 306]

Worst case scenario, depending on your clan and skill point choices, you can just make everyone in a fight kill each other.  
Still need some regular combat skills for boss fights and stuff, but they managed a pretty close representation of how you can do things in the TT game all things considered. 

 

 

Speaking of clans, it sounds like the new one might be missing a couple from the first game. Website only has 5 "sections" for clans (all listed "Coming Soon" or whatever) so there's a lot of speculation we won't be getting Nosferatu or Malkavian right away. They have said they will be adding more through DLC though so hopefully that will expand past 7 playable ones they used in the original. On the plus side, though there will be DLC "seasons" of paid content, all Clans added through DLC will be free.  

 

Really sad if that's true though. Malkavian is my jam. Apparently the first game is quite a bit different playing as one too. That's what the game picked for me from the questionnaire thing so I went with it and my wife was flipping out because of how differently people react to you and how different your choices are with them. 

[Galeigh 283]

If you need a "fuck this" option for bosses buy a shotgun. They ain't no destiny 2 peashooters, they will fucking destroy anything in front of that barrel. 

[Mera'din 306]

Found a good list of stuff that's been confirmed/talked about for the game. Really liking the sound of pretty much all of it.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/vtmb/comments/b5io9j/heres_a_list_of_details_that_are_currently_known/

[webhead 518]

Bought the first one for 5 bucks on the Humble Store.  It's gonna have to wait until after DMC5 though.  I was surprisingly able to install and play with the patch in Linux using Steam's new compatibility stuff.  Nice.

[Mera'din 306]

Forgot to post last week, but they've started revealing clans. They're doing 1 each week starting last week with Thin Bloods, and today they revealed the Brujah. Looks like there's only going to be 5 normal clans to start but they'll add more as free DLC down the road like I said before. Speculation is that it's likely that Nosferatu and Malkavian will be left off the starting set from what the first game had because those two change the experience so much.

 

They're doing a short animated video for each as well. When you start as a Thin Blood you pick between one of 3 disciplines specific to them that you will keep even after you choose a clan, and then you'll get two additional disciplines for the clan you pick.

 

The Thin Blood disciplines you pick from are:

Chiropteran - Ability to glide and summon a bat swarm

Mentalism - Ability to pull objects and people with telekinesis, and levitation

Nebulation - Power over mist. Can turn into or shroud yourself in mist and even suffocate people by filling their lungs with mist.

 

These aren't normal disciplines from the table top game (though some are taken from classic disciplines or inspired by them), but the traditional way Thin Bloods work is a bit screwy so it's honestly not a bad decision.

 

For Brujah, the disciplines you're given are Potence (super strength) and Celerity (super speed). It sounds like presence is going to be a more general thing that is worked into the social side of the game though they were really vague talking about it so it's hard to say if that's coming more from a RP perspective or if it's an intended thing that will modify how a Brujah can interact with people innately.

Here are the trailers and links to the streams for each for people interested in the first hand info:

 

Thin Blood

Spoiler

Twitch reveal/info:

 

 

Brujah

Spoiler

 

Twitch reveal/info:

 

 

They've also started adding unlockables for the game on their website (so far clothing options and decorations for your "house". There are hidden objects on the the pages of the site and stuff like that or you can get people to sign up to get points via a referral link. There's enough stuff I imagine they'll add way to get things unlocked as time goes on though. At least I would hope so. At least it's more interesting than just locking a bunch of shit behind pre-orders (though they have that too. ? ).

[Mera'din 306]

Today's reveal was Tremere. Their disciplines will be Thaumaturgy (Blood Magic) and Auspex (6th Sense/projection). Looks like they are going 2 per instead of 3 so no Dominate for them I guess. Unless this is rolled into normal social interaction as well like was insinuated with the 3rd Brujah one. Tremere have also had their clan weakness reworked a bit for this and they will be a sort of 'hard mode' for the game as they will take more damage from vampires than other clans (kind of comes from the innate hatred for the Tremere from most other clans due to their origins). 

 

Videos:

 

Twitch Reveal (jump to the 2hr. mark. Didn't have it's own separate clip this time yet) :

 

[Hoob 10]

Chris Avellone on staff, instant want

[Mera'din 306]

Today is Toreador. Their disciplines will be Celerity (Super Speed) and Presence (Crowd Control for lack of a better simple description. Like, LITERAL crowd control. Can make people follow you and stuff like that).  These streams have been pretty informative. They go into more than just the particular clan and are starting to give little bits of information otherwise. I also like how the one guy goes pretty in depth about the way each clan works from a story standpoint and tries to give examples from well known vampire based movies that match the "style" of a particular clan for those that don't know anything about VtM.

One cool thing they call out in this one is that the game will have auto-saves, and specifically, it will make a SEPARATE auto-save at the point where you pick your clan so you can start off of that point if you want to try something else or don't like the clan you picked without completely starting over.

 

Videos:

 

 

Twitch Stream:

 

Also, dancing confirmed. They better have the dance from the first one at least as an option.  

 

 

[Galeigh 283]

I know they wont be at launch, but I 100% wanna see La Sombra get added to the list of playable clans. 

[Mera'din 306]

Yeah, they're one of the ones I'm hoping to see sooner rather than later as DLC. Hell, maybe even shake things up and actually make them a launch clan. In terms of lore, they've started joining the Camarilla now so it wouldn't cause any massive shakeup in the story and Obtenibration would be a really cool power for a video game. Expecting the next one to be Ventrue, and then PROBABLY Gangrel last, but I sincerely wish it would be anything BUT Gangrel, because I find them kind of boring but we'll see.

 

They're being tight lipped on how many they'll actually end up adding post-launch, but that's probably because they want to see how the game does long term. Paradox is known to support their games for fucking ever though (they have games that released 6+ years ago that still get expansions even) so it would be cool if we eventually get all 13 of the main clans at the very least. 

[Galeigh 283]

I actually hope Gangrel IS in there though, 5e Gangrel (that this one is based on) are really fucking cool.

[Mera'din 306]

This week is indeed Ventrue. For disciplines they'll have Dominate (Force of Will style mind control) and Fortitude (super resilience). They didn't do a live stream this time due to scheduling issues so they have a pre-recorded segment but still answer questions gathered from previous streams and such that they didn't get time to answer (mostly general questions about how the game will work and what not). They also go in depth about why the went with the clans they did and reinforcing that they want to support this game for a long time and want to add more clans to it. Even mentioning things outside the traditional set clans, such as the Antitribu clans and things like the Daughters of Cacophony. Would really be cool if they take it that far.

 

Really like how blunt they are with some things too. They don't shy away from saying they changed things because as great as they can be in a table top game, they're garbage for a video game, or that there are some things they just aren't going to do or will do differently because it's how they need to do it from a business standpoint.

 

Videos:

 

[Mera'din 306]

Final clan for the base game is Malkavian.   Disciplines are Dementation (ability to drive people mad) and Auspex (6th Sense/Projection). Legitimately surprised they went went them. Using Dementation helps (in V5, Dementation has been rolled back into Dominate like it had been in a couple previous editions), as it gives them something unique. At this point I was honestly expecting Nosferatu or Gangrel since they both have unique disciplines (Obfuscate and Animalism/Protean respectively), but I guess not. Malk's also have Obfuscate traditionally, but with the 2 discipline thing they're doing I wasn't expecting them to get it since it's the least defining part of the clan and Dementation and Auspex are far more signature for them.

 

Malkavian is easily my favorite clan and I really enjoyed them in the first game (though some people didn't). The experience playing as one changes the game pretty heavily and it sounds like that will apply this time though a lot of people should be happy with it. Sounds like they're trying to move away from the "goofy gibbering idiot" sort of crazy, and into more of a darker tone and pushing more of a paranoia angle. Should be interesting.

 

Not much else to say really. They said there would be gameplay revealed June 10th (there will be a playable demo at PDXCon), and they said they will continue doing streams going forward, just covering different topics obviously.  I'm expecting the first DLC clan we'll get will likely be Gangrel at this point. The title of the first "Season" they're doing (Season of the Wolf) kind of leans in that direction for sure.

Stream was kind of shitty this time around. They had video conferenced in Brian Mitsoda from Seattle (streams take place in Europe) and there was some pretty horrendous lag so it was hard to tell what he was saying a lot of the time.

Videos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starts about 2h 48m in if it the link doesn't set it properly:

[Galeigh 283]

You should watch the LA by Night show on Geek and Sundry. The game is run by one of the White Wolf game designers and the characters are played by experienced voice actors. X is an occasional guest character and the guy would plays him (Xander) does the absolute Greatest Malk performance I have ever seen. 

[Mera'din 306]

Yeah, I've heard a lot about it. My wife watches it. I don't have the time right now to commit to it though. 2+ hours per episode is pushing what my free time allows right now. X_x

[Galeigh 283]

I feel ya on that. I listen to it while I am work after everyone else is gone. Takes a few days to finish an ep. 

 

Good shit though. 

[Mera'din 306]

Gameplay trailer from E3:

 

[MT 900]

 

[Mera'din 306]

Saw that today. The person playing seems like he has no idea what he's doing half the time. XD

[Mera'din 306]

New short trailer. Mostly just serves to show some of the scenery comparisons with the Ray tracing from the Nvidia RTX cards on, but I'll take what I can get. >_>

 

 

[Galeigh 283]

Fuck it's super hard to not watch this stuff as I wanna go in blind. Curiosity is a bitch when you're excited about something 

[Mera'din 306]

Game has been pushed back. Honestly the right decision and kind of figured this is what would happen after they announced they wouldn't have a playable demo at PDXCON anymore last month. No concrete date just that it will for sure still be in 2020. Probably a good move even if they didn't need the extra time with all the other big stuff coming out in Q1. Here's the statement:

 

Quote

 

To all fans of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

For the last three and a half years, we’ve worked hard to bring you a worthy successor to Bloodlines 1. To us, that meant not only making good on the ambitions of this remarkable game, but also a duty to ensure we would not repeat its mistakes. Today, we have to tell you that we need some more time to get you the game you’ve been waiting for. Although Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will still launch in 2020, we have decided to value quality over making the Q1 launch window. 

There are some things we wanted to hit under all circumstances when we set out to follow in Bloodlines’ footsteps: A deep, branching storyline; fascinating and amazingly acted characters; the rich universe of the World of Darkness. We firmly believe that we’re on the right track to get you all of this.

On the flip side, there’s the responsibility to avoid some of the issues that plagued the first game, which was famously launched too early. Over the last few months, it became clear that to stick to our original date would risk repeating that mistake. We won’t do that. In the end, everyone working on this game wants to offer you the best Bloodlines 2 we can.

This hasn’t been an easy- nor our first choice. Throughout 2019 we have been improving our processes and growing our teams, however it soon became clear that this alone won’t allow us to deliver the quality we want at the date we promised. 

Your feedback was invaluable in this. It helped us give the proper weight to what we saw, as well. We’d like to thank you, and hope you’ll support us in the decision that came from it. 

Many of us from Hardsuit Labs will be in Berlin for PDXCON. For those of you going, we look forward to seeing you there! We will be sharing insights into the development of Bloodlines 2 along with other steps we’ve taken to strengthen our development team  to realize our ambitions for Bloodlines 2.

For those of you who won’t be there, we will be sharing more about this during the PDXCON Announcement stream on Saturday the 19th. We are also opening up a Reddit thread to answer any of your questions in the Bloodlines stream on the following Sunday. 

Thanks,
Andy Kipling and Brian Mitsoda, on behalf of the team at Hardsuit Labs
 

 

[Mera'din 306]

New trailer from the Next Gen Xbox showcase thing:
 

 

 

I've been keeping up on Dev diary stuff as well but figured most people aren't that invested so haven't really posted anything but here's the general gist of where they're at since I'm posting the trailer anyway:

They're closing in on the 'content complete' stage of the game and are mostly working on side quests and stuff like that now. They did some new mocap in Feb. to clean up some of the clunky animations we saw in the gameplay demos shown off last year, and have reworked some game systems. Namely, the 3 traversal options you got when picking a Thinblood discipline at the start have all been unlocked for use regardless of the Discipline you go with to open up to give more player agency about how they move through the game.

 

Overall things sound like they're still progressing steadily even with the work at home set up they have going.

[Mera'din 306]

The games release has now been delayed until 2021. Guessing Q1 probably. Have been expecting this since the announcement that Cyberpunk was being pushed to Nov. since that seemed the likeliest time frame for this game and they're going to avoid releasing anywhere near Cyberpunk like it was the plague. 

[Galeigh 283]

Smart move. I am excited for Bloodlines, but Cyberpunk 2077 is a sword of damacles hanging over November. Anything that's not it is gonna suffer. 

[Mera'din 306]

Indeed. Every time it moves I panic because it's always loomed around where Bloodlines 2 was likely to hit at the time and that series knows that kind of pain already (first one released same day as Half Life 2.  )

[Mera'din 306]

A'ight, now I'm fucking concerned. Apparently they (higher ups at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox) have fired Brian Mitsoda (lead writer and writer of the original game) and Ka'ai Cluney (Creative Director) and they have been replaced with a "Creative Consultant" to fill the role that the Creative Director previously performed.  

Official Statement:

https://www.bloodlines2.com/en/an-update-on-the-organizational-changes-for-bloodlines-2

 

Rock Paper Shotgun has a statement from Mitsoda. This was not a "my job was done and I wasn't needed anymore" kind of thing it was out of the fucking blue and the writing team was on schedule with their portion of the game and he was not consulted about the delay. The firing appears to have actually happened PRIOR to the recent delay announcement which is even more worrying if I'm being honest.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/19/brian-mitsoda-has-been-fired-as-narrative-lead-on-bloodlines-2/

 

Brian's Statement:

Quote

 

“Until recently, I was the Narrative Lead on a videogame called Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 for Hardsuit Labs, Inc being published by Paradox Interactive (which owns 30% of Hardsuit Labs). After almost five years involvement with the studio, I was suddenly terminated on 7/16/20.

That this came as a shock to me is underselling it. I’ve worked on Bloodlines 2 for almost five years. The story and main cast was initially conceived in my living room. I helped develop the pitch for Hardsuit Labs and helped pitch the project to Paradox in Las Vegas. I’ve been in charge of the narrative since the beginning, working long days and sometimes weekends to deliver a successor to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and I’ve never been led to believe that I hadn’t succeeded. Very obviously, I have also been involved in the PR and marketing side of things, even though it was one of the most difficult parts for me. I’m a pretty private person – press and crowds tend to heavily trigger my social anxiety (which, if you’ve ever wondered about the gloves, they are “armor” that make me feel less exposed in situations that trigger my anxiety).

Bloodlines and the fandom of the game mean the world to me. So I lent my legacy with the franchise, my name, and my participation in marketing efforts for the game, even when it was intensely difficult and took a mental and physical toll. This is all because I wanted to do what was best for the game and the team.

The pride in the work, the fan expectations, and the support from co-workers who started out as fans kept me going through this long five years. And I’m incredibly disappointed and frustrated to say that this is where it ends for me on the project.

I was not part of the conversations that led to the decision to delay production, and to my knowledge, there were no delays caused by the Bloodlines 2 narrative development. I am confident and proud of the work that I and my team put forward. When that work will be seen and what form it will take is unknown to me.

It was a pleasure to work on this game and with many people at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox and I’m sorry I won’t be able to see it to the end. I spent years on some of the best characters and dialogue that I ever wrote. It’s meant a lot to hear from the Bloodlines community and I do hope that what’s finally delivered is as satisfying as I intended it to be. Thanks to all of you who supported me throughout the project.”
 

 

[Galeigh 283]

God damn it, it's VtM:B production bullshit all over again. 

[Mera'din 306]

WHELP

 

 

Honestly after how the last year has gone, this is probably a good thing. Paradox isn't a publisher who generally axes or pulls the rug out from under projects without good reason. Get someone who can clean up the animations and push it across the finish line. Maybe the new studio will even pull Mitsoda and whoever back into it. Just sucks that it's going to push the release back another year or so to give a new dev time to acclimate to all the work that's already there (they have a dev already, they just can't announce it until all the details are hammered out on paper, and all the work already performed on the game is being passed along to them).

 

Ultimately, I'm sure Paradox is feeling like they should have not bothered to even announce the game at this point. XD

[Galeigh 283]

Good news: No more Crunch (I hope)

 

Bad News: wasted hype, whole new console generation.

[MT 900]

 

[Mera'din 306]

A teaser for that leaked a few months ago, was waiting for them to say more about it. Don't much care for battle royale games but I'll probably give it a look when it comes out since the setting is interesting. Looking forward more to VTM: Swansong at this point. Should get more info on that one before the end of the weekend too. 

 

 

Side note since I forgot to update this with the last actual Bloodlines 2 news:

 

Hardsuit Labs has been completely removed from the project and Paradox has passed it over to another (as of yet unnamed) developer. With the turn the development of the game appeared to have been taking, it's probably for the best honestly. They're apparently going to announce who's taking over once all the legal shit is settled and everything signed and squared away, but they're getting full access to all the work that HSL had done so hopefully it'll just be a matter of cleaning it up and fine tuning everything and they're not going to take an axe to the story (which had been completed already).