Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines: 2 - I want to believe, but...

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By the way, if you guys are wondering why Paradox has Chinese Room on it, it was because they hired on Sumo Digital, who chose to put Chinese Room into it. This was a budget saving move on both studios' part that is biting them in the ass, and it's even funnier than that.

The entire team has shifted over twice. The first shift was in progress when it was first handed out to them. This was because Sumo for some retarded reason was trying to convert the walking simulator mod team into an action studio. Not even kidding. At this point it's now another new team.

It's amazing how they can't even be fucked to fire them after it releases.
 
Cant wait to see when they add consent mechanic where i have to ask the civilian is they would let their blood get sucked by me. This game is gonna flop so hard it will make Cain speedrun gehenna just to not habe to live in the same setting as this.

For anyone new/curious, just play the first game and youll get more mileage than whatever the fuck this is.
 
FuckMeGentlyWithAChainsaw said:
Bunch of gameplay snippets from the dev diary
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VNzggacI-EUhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=SPvPDkHBxO4https://youtube.com/watch?v=xEWgR6dg1Vwhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=X6AtZqdT_Ewhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=7fDhd5wpcvshype for this is so dead most of these don't break 10k views
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Looks decent. If it holds I think it'll be a fun time waster as long as they dont screw up the plot too much

Although I think that one chick is floating in the air slightly after she gets bit.
 
One Winged Pear Farmer said:
Doubt it’ll even get that far, this shit will probably get dropped completely at this rate. Hell if we are lucky maybe the whole IP will get sold to someone new since I doubt V5 sales are doing them any favors either
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Fingers crossed for a Japanese company that goes full Hellsing with the setting.
 
I saw some recent videos of the game. I don't know what build it was. It looked interesting but I don't have high hopes. It will probably be full of woke garbage. Though I did play the first game, and it has its fair share of proto wokeness. The kind of shit you would see in games from the early to mid 2000's. There are also some dated political social refences from the time. Like one character will talk shit about Bush. It was pretty funny really.

I played through the game a probably back in 2022-2023and got pretty close to the end. But one of my SSD's died in my PC in late 2023 so I lost my save file. I haven't been able to get back into the game. Most of the really interesting story moments are kind of blown now anyway.
 
Look at that feeding animation.


Funniest shit I've ever seen.

I especially like the part where he breaches the masquerade, palms her face like a basketball, and then runs off to a corner like a monkey and waits a couple seconds for what I think is his masquerade meter up there to go down. Like he's just unbreaking the masquerade or some shit.

In all honesty, the movement looks fine - can't say much about the combat - and the environment rendering is very good and conveys a good snowy city ambience but the problem is literally everything else.

The level layout looks kind of plain and the art design doesn't convey any modern-gothic vibes at all. Compare the buildings you see in the distance to the Bloodlines 1 CD case art and you can kind of get what I mean. I get the feeling they just copied a street out of a random American city and made next to no attempt to hide it, Any resemblance to Vampire the Masquerade is purely coincidential.

But it's NPC behaviours that are the real problem. In the Acidic Touch video the guy explodes at 0:18 and everyone just hangs around in their idle animation for almost a full three seconds before reacting. Same problem in that Staking video where I'm pretty sure that vampire enforcer just teleports in behind you because fuckit. I guess that's what happens when your masquerade meter goes too high.

How long has this been in development again? 4 years? 5?
 

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SalmonForSale2 said:
Look at that feeding animation.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SPvPDkHBxO4:17
Funniest shit I've ever seen.

I especially like the part where he breaches the masquerade, palms her face like a basketball, and then runs off to a corner like a monkey and waits a couple seconds for what I think is his masquerade meter up there to go down. Like he's just unbreaking the masquerade or some shit.

In all honesty, the movement looks fine - can't say much about the combat - and the environment rendering is very good and conveys a good snowy city ambience but the problem is literally everything else.

The level layout looks kind of plain and the art design doesn't convey any modern-gothic vibes at all. Compare the buildings you see in the distance to the Bloodlines 1 CD case art and you can kind of get what I mean. I get the feeling they just copied a street out of a random American city and made next to no attempt to hide it, Any resemblance to Vampire the Masquerade is purely coincidential.

But it's NPC behaviours that are the real problem. In the Acidic Touch video the guy explodes at 0:18 and everyone just hangs around in their idle animation for almost a full three seconds before reacting. Same problem in that Staking video where I'm pretty sure that vampire enforcer just teleports in behind you because fuckit. I guess that's what happens when your masquerade meter goes too high.

How long has this been in development again? 4 years? 5?
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It was supposed to be RELEASED five years ago.
 
Given how there's going to be no more delays since Paradox' newer leadership just wants to drop this shit and have Renegade keep it on life support in the TTRPG sphere, it's going to make Bloodlines 1 look stable and well polished given that they have mostly focused on visuals it looks like.
 
Adamska said:
Given how there's going to be no more delays since Paradox' newer leadership just wants to drop this shit and have Renegade keep it on life support in the TTRPG sphere, it's going to make Bloodlines 1 look stable and well polished given that they have mostly focused on visuals it looks like.
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...How many fucking sub-contractors have they gone through publishing the RPG?
 
In Dev Diary 17 we introduced you to the Anarchs, one of the enemy factions you will face. Tonight, we want to introduce another: the I.A.O.

The Information and Awareness Office spearheads the U.S. government's response to the Blankbody threat. While officially defunded, it operates on a large black budget that allows its hunters to face the undead under the guise of "training missions" and "counter-terrorist strikes”.


Agent Baker
"Does your kind still feel protective over the young? Do you still feel at all?"

Agent Baker is pragmatic and methodical. She leads the I.A.O. in its mission to investigate the Blankbody presence in Seattle. She doggedly follows up on any suspicious deaths or disappearances and re-examines historical events to achieve her goal: to understand the monsters that she hunts so their elimination can be absolute.

The agents under her command respect her and have given her a nickname, which she bears proudly: “Mother Hen.”

First and foremost the I.A.O. needed to represent a different type of enemy to those that the player would have already encountered in the game. As opposed to the rough and ready Anarch, I.A.O. are a highly trained paramilitary force hunting a very specific type of prey.

From their hard leather padded extremities or the glaring haze of the thermal weapons, we really wanted the I.A.O. to both look and feel like an adversarial force an elder vampire would think twice about before attacking.

I.A.O. are human and thus use technology and tactics to fight their foe, so it was important that we convey the range of enemies and the threat they pose to Phyre as visually and distinctly as possible. Ranged enemies have large, hooded ponchos framing their piercing eyes from range. The more up-front melee enemies have wide dynamic stances as they swing their thermal batons at you. The weapons are military grade so overall feel harder, heavier and built for a specific purpose. The I.A.O. may not have the perks of ghouls or vampires but they’re a formidable force, using technology to their advantage.

- Project Art Director Ben Matthews

In one of my favourite quests to work on, Phyre explores an I.A.O. stronghold on Harbor Island which is heavily guarded both inside and out by I.A.O. agents.

It’s one of the game’s largest and most expansive combat areas, providing multiple ways to navigate the environment, as well as allowing you to tackle objectives in whichever order you choose. The I.A.O. have set up thermal shielding to block certain routes - touching or going near the shields will damage you. You will need to search Harbor Island to find a way of shutting them down, opening up more areas to explore.

I.A.O. agents are more organized than the other enemies you would have faced by this stage of the game. They patrol the facility in groups making it harder to pick them off one-by-one, and their use of night-vision goggles, searchlights, and personal radios requires you to be more strategic if you want to take them out without being spotted.

If you engage the I.A.O. in combat head-on they will use more militaristic tactics with better accuracy and knowledge of their weapons, knowing where to shoot you for the most damage. They wear combat armor, allowing them to take more damage than other humans, but are still weak compared to ghouls and vampires. They make up for their mortal frailty with an arsenal of anti-vampire weapons, which are the strongest you will face in the game: Thermal Batons for close combat, which unlike other enemies will cause damage if you hit them when they are blocking your attacks; Phosphor Grenades which create pools of burning damage to flush you out of hiding spots; and Sniper Crossbows which fire explosive bolts causing lots of damage if you don’t remove them in time.

A favourite tactic of mine is to catch the phosphor grenades or explosive bolts mid-air and throw them back for maximum carnage. It's also a great quest for using a Ventrue’s Possession ability, getting an agent to attack one of their own and hearing the panicked screams of friendly fire.

- Senior Game Designer Martin Akehurst


Santiago
The I.A.O. aren’t the only hunters to feature in Bloodlines 2. There is evidence that an ancient hunter is active on the streets of Seattle.

In the early years of the 20th Century, many Kindred met their Final Deaths at the hands of a hunter known only as Santiago. Multiple coteries were wiped out in San Francisco and New Orleans, their destruction attributed to this same relentless pursuer. At the site of each incident, an ornate metal memento in the shape of a sharpened cross was left behind. Crucifixes of this form are called the Cross of St. James - hence the name given to this hunter.

Speculation persists that Santiago, whoever they truly were, was a member of the Society of Leopold, one of the most ancient and feared factions of hunters of the supernatural. If that were true, Santiago would have seen themselves as a soldier of Christ, waging a holy war against the Damned.

- Project Narrative Director Ian Thomas
>Society of Leopold
>Ancient
All of the government vampire hunters have fire weapons of some type.
Great game design. Very creative and balanced.
 
I have no interest in the second Inquisition in general, since it was written as essentially normal people kinkshaming the leeches for being leeches and killed the politicking dynamics that has people give a shit. I also have no interest in them clearly repurposing the first game's quest where you had to do something similar to this one, including ensuring the bad guy is religious since they are looting the corpse to decorate their own.

Also a vamp hunter with tech would likely not want to ever engage a vamp in close range unless forced to. They chose to recycle what are likely other enemies and just gave them fire because fuck that.
 
Anarchs being an enemy faction is retarded too. The sabbat would be the only sect that remotely makes sense as auto enemies. I really wish they had the balls to make a video game where you can actually play sabbat though, easily the best mod for the original game
 
One Winged Pear Farmer said:
Anarchs being an enemy faction is retarded too. The sabbat would be the only sect that remotely makes sense as auto enemies. I really wish they had the balls to make a video game where you can actually play sabbat though, easily the best mod for the original game
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Problem is the way VTM works the game would actively punish those who don't understand the lore for playing like they'd think the game wants you to. I didn't know what happens when you reach 0 humanity, the original game doesn't let you dip below 3, but the mod does. Had to reload a much earlier save to not hardlock myself out, lol.
 
Adamska said:
engage a vamp in close range unless forced to
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That's what Dragon's Breath shells and flamethrowers are for, not flaming hot Cheeto batons.

I also doubt these "thermal" weapons are going to do aggravated damage to you as they should, or that this game even has aggravated damage.

That aside, I actually like the idea of the Second Inquisition, if not the implementation of it.
 
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