Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines II

Electric Suckaloo

The email announcement just popped in my inbox moments ago. I’m excited. Except… the fact that they’re looking for preorders a year before release is concerning.

Here are some previews based on a 30 minute behind-closed-doors demo:

According to the IGN preview, there’s going to be 3rd person cutaways in the style of the modern Deus Ex games:

Combat in Bloodlines 2, like most of the game, is almost entirely locked in first person. I primarily saw fights resolved in melee, though there was a good, gooey run with a 12-gauge in there, too - and both gunfights and fisticuffs seemed to be focused on expelling forward energy and power against your opponents. The camera will occasionally pull out to third-person - à la the rebooted Deus Ex - for select maneuvers like rolling over an enemy or scaling a wall then pouncing onto an unlucky target. According to the team, the choice was made to ensure players felt drawn into the world through their characters eyes while exploring and socializing. Third-person, they say, allows for actions that would feel uncomfortable in first, and to let players enjoy the cosmetic choices they’ll make throughout the game. Also, according to Andy Kipling (Hardsuit’s co-founder and CEO), “it looks really cool.”

On one level I’m super excited, as VTMB was one of my favorite games of all time. I’m not quite sure about if a new developer is going to have the same game feel as the original though - is anyone from the original team working on the game, or are e just hoping that these devs can somehow capture Troika’s magic?

Well, this is positive news:

Bloodlines fans among you may recognise Brian Mitsoda as designer and writer for the original Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines.

I’m so happy to see him working on a huge game again. He’s writing the game with help from Chris Avellone and Cara Ellison, too. :)

Super excited! But for all the cool Vampire The Masquerade shit they could have shown… that trailer was terrible. Here’s hoping future trailers (and the game) will be much better.

Oh did no one post the trailer? Here it is.

It’s very difficult to capture geek kitsch. The problem with a lot of modern reboots, is they slick the game up. There always seems to be an attempt to make the game more “legit” and serious, and in that process, you lose a bit of what made the originals great. That trailer is a pretty good example of what I’m talking about. It’s sort of like…when PSA’s try to be “cool”. Here’s some music that was already tired 20 years ago, and some footage of guys that look like they work at Urban Outfitters.

It’s hard to capture legitimate and naturally occurring geekiness.

I like the trailer well enough, but mostly I am just happy this is happening. So much potential.

Oh man. Very much stoked for it, even if I will only be playing it at night when the kids are asleep :D

I loved the masquerade to bits. Janky as it was. So well written. It was the maturest game I had seen up to that time.

There is something I always disliked in the first Bloodlines, and it’s how the story setup have the city in a exceptional situation where everyone is hidden and you gotta save the world, with you being third-rate pawn that quest-givers would use because you were so new no one would know who you were.

I just want to be a normal vampire in the Vampiric society of the city, and interact with it in a normal fashion. More like in the tabletop. Have a prince, archons, scourge, sheriff, keeper of elysium, have different vampire factions vying for political power in the city, exchange favors with them, fight for hunting grounds, etc.

I just want to be in that world, and have the writing be as good as I remember the first game.

It’s Paradox. That’s their current MO, really.

Quack quack motherfucker, hell yeah!

This was one of the more atmospheric games for it’s time, but god damn was it buggy when I played it. Certainly felt half finished when I beat it. I have seen the enormous community patches roll out for the longest time but don’t think I ever really gave them a full play through.

Yes! And without the game turning into a tedious first-person shooter during the latter half.

I am very excited in theory, but the CGI “not actual gameplay” trailer didn’t do much for me and I turned it off pretty quick. I don’t want to see approximations, I want to see gameplay. Otherwise, I’m totally on board with a big, meaty, VtM RPG coming and will happily follow it’s development.

YES!!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!!

Guess I need to play the first game, I’ve eye’d it a few times in sales, but it looks so dated.