Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was a good game, even though it’s still very rough around the edges. Players enjoyed the intense themes and clever world-building, but the gameplay itself was rather bad in some areas. The launch version of the original game was notoriously buggy, and only through sustained efforts over several years, has the game become playable and enjoyable in all of its campy glory. This is a mistake the developers want to avoid with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.
And now, with a sequel on the way, the development time behind the effort want to be sure that they get it right this time. From the outset of development, the team has retooled combat and other gameplay elements to be more engaging. The combat focus for this new RPG is going to be one area of improvement. Paradox Interactive are pushing tons of refinements into the RPG formula, and giving the players a renewed sense of power. I mean come on, you’re a supernatural vampire, and in the words of the developer, “you are the weapon”.
Developer Hardsuit Labs and publisher Paradox Interactive are keen to make this feel real, and part of that goal is designing a combat system that feels rewarding and balanced. After all, if you’re a badass vampire, why shouldn’t you be able to take down entire swaths of humanity without batting an eye.
Paradox Interactive senior producer Florian Schwarzer explained this in more detail. “The majority of combat in Bloodlines happened in smaller environments and you had a third-person camera, which you couldn’t switch from in melee combat, that was usually three steps behind you,” Schwarzer detailed. This is obviously a problem, as it makes it much harder to stay engaged with the story and the gameplay itself. The developers don’t want that to happen. Going further he said, “something we focused on very early in development was making sure that your attack would always go hand-in-hand with movement.” The goal here is to polish the whole experience from top to bottom. “It’s one of those things where you focus on a thing and make it good,” Schwarzer concluded.
In the leadup to the release, the companies behind Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 have released a variety of trailers and other stuff hyping up fans. For example, there are some trailers showcasing in-game factions, There’s the enigmatic and powerful businessfolk of the Venture. Then there’s the deceptively weak, but notoriously tricky Thinbloods. The Brujah are a rough bunch of berserkers. While the Toreador are very much the common artist of the bunch, very creative, and very dangerous.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is coming out in late 2020 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
