Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has made more progress than ever over the past few years following a somewhat rocky development process. The Paradox Interactive sequel to the 2004 title recently changed hands on the developer side, forming a partnership with The Chinese Room in 2021. Since then the title has made great strides, and plans to innovate the vampire experience to new heights when it releases next year.
Bloodlines 2 is set in an alternate universe version of Seattle in 2024 overseen by the Camarilla, a sort of governing body for vampires. In a first for the series, players will begin as an elder vampire instead of building up their powers as a recently-turned bloodsucker. The original Bloodlines is widely considered one of the best vampire games in the past several decades, and though there's no set release date developers plan to reveal more information soon regarding things like potential clans and powers fans will be able to take on in the highly-anticipated title.
Screen Rant sat down with Alex Skidmore, studio design director at The Chinese Room, and Sean Greaney, the vice president of World of Darkness at Paradox Interactive, to discuss the game's world, translating key elements of the TTRPG into a new medium, and the journey towards release.
Screen Rant: First, I would just love to hear from you guys what you feel the biggest differences are between this and the original Bloodlines.
Alex Skidmore: There's a lot of differences making a game 20 years later, with a different group of people based on an IP and game system that is now on version five. A lot of things have moved, but I think there are the elements that we love that we've taken to heart and sort of preserved. But I'd say the overall game has moved to what you'd expect more from a more than action RPG, if that makes sense, whilst hopefully having those sort of, let's say, je nais se quois [Laughs], those emotional parts. The Chinese Room is very compatible with Vampire the Masquerade.
Sean Greaney: I think it's the right question, but it's a really tough question. I'm on the Paradox Interactive side, so the publisher and the IP holder. I'm the vice president for World of Darkness across all of our World of Darkness projects with a particular focus on this one. I think that the similarity is what Alex is saying. I mean, the thing that - among the many things - that people love about Bloodlines one is the immersive side of it. And you do that in a lot of different ways, things like the narrative, the voiceovers in that narrative, the place as a character in the actual narrative - all of these things are part of Bloodlines 2.
And then obviously there's been huge, huge developments in the technology and the expectations that gamers have around these kinds of games. Being able to take something that was a really great vampire experience in 2004 and do it justice in 2023, that requires very different thinking. And that's what the TCR team has brought to this, obviously.
You mentioned the location as a character, and one of my next questions was actually how you think the setting of Seattle versus Los Angeles affects the game?
Alex Skidmore: So you have this 20 year gap of how the world of VTM has moved on. I mean, Seattle is a Camarilla city in 2024 so it has a different political setup to how LA was very Camarilla-driven. When you're going on about sort of world as a character - I mean, I'm right here in Seattle, right now I can look out the window. And if you saw our trailer, the Seattle in it, we've heightened it, we've tried to make it look as if you're looking through the eyes of a vampire. So we've made the buildings taller, things are more claustrophobic, larger contrasts and all that stuff.
We're very much focusing on the world that is this parallel vampire world that is there hiding in plain sight. That's what you get to explore. I'm gonna go out to Seattle this afternoon and look at the locations that are the same ones that we have in the game, but the things that won't be there is that vampire lair, I won't be able to go into a bar and speak to a barman and then be a vampire - well, maybe I could. [Laughs] Maybe I've been in VTM too long now, I'm starting to get paranoid about it.
Sean Greaney: I think it's also a really good question, because Los Angeles is a great setting for a lot of stories, but a vampire story especially. I think it was timely as well. It was very much kind of celebrating some of the serious sides of Los Angeles and the Golden Age of Hollywood and that sort of thing. When this game came out, it was a little bit of a love letter to Los Angeles, I would say.
And then I think what TCR has been doing with Seattle is a little more forward looking because we have these trends that are very tangible in Seattle as a city. Big tech is here, the focus of the city is shifting from the past - Boeing, et cetera, there's been many iterations of Seattle, and now we're into a new phase. And I think it's a really fertile ground to use creatures that live for a very long time to talk about a city.
Alex Skidmore: Being in a new city, you get to do research, find out about the city and then go, "What if there's a vampire explanation?" In the trailer, there's three characters in there, but there's one lady with a veil, and she's based on an actual person who lived, who died I think in 1901. And for us it's like, "Well, what if she's a vampire?" So we've taken that person; you can look up on Wikipedia Lou Grand, she was a famous madam. And in our story, she's a very powerful and intriguing figure. So that's a great thing about new places that's untapped, to bring all these news stories from it.
I'm not sure how much you can reveal right now in general, but I would love to hear some about the different powers that players will be able to have in this game. I know you start as a Thin Blood, so you're not quite as powerful, but I assume that doesn't last forever.
Sean Greaney: We can talk a little bit about this. So first of all, we've actually taken the other approach in this project - you don't start as a Thin Blood, you start as an elder vampire, and this is the first time that we're doing this in a World of Darkness product. I'll leave that for Alex to talk about. On the powers front, we won't speak specifically because that's the next thing we're going to go into; we're going to start talking about the playable clans, and then eventually the player experience of those and revealing those sorts of things.
But a lot of this is about claiming the vampire fantasy that Alex can also speak to that is a bit undefined in video games, I would say, very well defined, obviously, in film and television. But there's an open fantasy that I think the team is doing a really, really good job approaching and defining. And I've never felt quite as much like a vampire as I do in this game.
Alex Skidmore: Yeah, thank you, Sean. For clarity, when The Chinese Room started on the project in 2021, we're building our own vision; it's our own narrative, our own sort of world and gameplay and everything. So things you would have heard before, now it's a new thing. As I said, instead of starting as Thin Blood, it's a game about being an elder and exploring that side of VTM. Because elders are quite rare, so that for us in a really, really cool thing to do, and also a nice contrast to the first Bloodlines game as well, where literally the start of the game was the scream as you became a vampire. And we went, "Okay, that's kind of done. What if we did an elder vampire?" So very much our own vision, if that makes sense.
Kind of touching on what you mentioned, in of powers and that sort of thing. I saw a long time ago the former producer Christian Schluter, he described the player experience as choosing your preferred flavor of evilness, which I really liked. What does that kind of mean to you in of what players are able to do in this game?
Alex Skidmore: Yeah, so when we were looking at the class, we were looking at the sort of play styles that people would want to have, right? Do you want to be a sort of high-action play style who rely more on their skills with a controller or do you want to be a more strategic vampire that stalks their prey and et cetera? So we try to offer all these different play styles through the clans to allow audiences to come in and go, "This is the way I like to play in these kind of games."
Maybe on a second playthrough you try with a different clan, and see how that changes the gameplay. That's sort of our philosophy of the clan, they also offer a sort of vampire fantasy to them with all the other things around them, we've tried to be true to that and make our gameplay loops for them give you the emotional feeling of being that kind of vampire fantasy. It's hard to say without going into the details.
Sean Greaney: We can talk sort of very broadly at this stage on what the approach has been on working together in the collaboration. As Alex referenced, the clans in Vampire: The Masquerade were reimagined in V5 to align with the different kinds of vampire fantasies we see out there. So there's everything from the really obvious social sexy vampire, to some of them with a bit more depth and psychological motivations. There's the really classic Dracula - once he sets his sights on something, that's it.
And we've gone through every one of the clans in Vampire: The Masquerade and really identified this, and then designed systems around that. And these systems are very much focused on tabletop role playing. Having the initial kind of fantasy that you're trying to answer really, really helps us when we work with any partner, but particularly The Chinese Room picked this up and ran with it in a really, really satisfying way. And I think that if people allow themselves to choose their clan based on a little bit of maybe a scary level of honesty, they're gonna get a good, deep, dark experience.
As you mentioned, Alex, The Chinese Room started on this project in 2021. I would love to hear just a little bit about the prompt for a shift in developer and what made this partnership really the right fit for the project?
Sean Greaney: Well, Hardsuit Labs is a great studio, and they did a lot of great work getting us to a certain point in the project, we just had a different vision. And at that point, we knew that we wanted to complete the project, obviously, and we went out and we talked to an awful lot of studios and groups. There was some clear things that we were looking for, obviously, we needed to find somebody with a great narrative background. TCR obviously has a portfolio of fantastic narrative games, a lot of games that are very grounded, but also dealing with something that's slightly different out of the expectations of our world.
Also, a studio that really sets a high bar for immersion in the places that we often don't talk about in games as much as we probably should, so things like audio voiceover animation, as well. And then what we were also after, obviously, is somebody who could bring the role playing aspect to the experience, and that's where we found that TCR was a really great fit. They were actively moving into a position where they'd be able to produce these kind of games. Alex is instrumental to that plan, so I'll throw it to him from there.
Alex Skidmore: From our side, it was kind of perfect timing. The studio wanted to make an action game. And as part of the sort of goal when ing Sumo Digital, because Sumo Digital allows us - we're now part of a much bigger company that has loads of skills and competencies in pretty much all games. So it's a very safe way for us to scale up. We do actually have designers - I have designers on my team who are working at some of the other studios and have worked on other big action RPGs as well. And then for me, I've been on the project a bit over a year. And when I came down to Brighton, I played Still Wakes The Deep and I played Bloodlines 2, and definitely part of the hook of why I came to the studio was was Bloodlines. Bloodlines 2, it aligns very much for me with a fun time you know; working on the Fable games I really loved.
There's also the studio art director John McCormack, he also worked on the Fable games with me, so you've got a bit of Lionhead and Fable DNA in there. And then I've also worked on other action titles like Gears of War and things like that, so I came on to help bolster that side and then I've recruited more designers like that whilst also staying very true to the core skills of The Chinese Room which is building rich, detailed worlds you can immerse and lose yourself in and very compelling narratives. We always aim for you to feel genuine emotions, that's a goal we have and hope to keep hitting.
And I know as you said you've haven't been on the project a super long time to see it really change, but Sean from your perspective over the years since this project first began what have the biggest evolutions and changes been? I know the elder vampire is a big one, but I'm curious what else has been a big change over time.
Sean Greaney: I think the really obvious answer is that technology changes a lot of things. And it's maybe not the most satisfying answer in this kind of format, but it does mean that we can do things in the game that we couldn't have done even a few years ago. I think the design side has evolved a lot, the realization of "How does it feel to play this vampire clan? And exactly how do you translate those abilities into a an action roleplaying game that really gives you the same feeling as if you were playing a tabletop roleplaying game, or even reading the comics?" Transmedia is very, very difficult.
And I can say when Alex and the team have presented new clans, it's basically standing ovation on our side. Like, "We're going to suggest one little text change here, but the design is exactly right. It's spot on." We absolutely have a telekinesis on that one, it's amazing. I think, as we talked about, the location is a character in this game, and there's some themes that are always going to follow along because Seattle is the city Seattle is. And as I sort of referenced before, it's very much about the new meeting the old and eating it, and that's a great theme to have in a vampire game.
So there's some things that have really evolved, there's some things that have remained the same. And TCR has been able to use some degree of the art assets, the level design, etc, but the vision for the game, as Alex says, the story and narrative behind the game, that's TCR's. And everything that has been carried over has been modernized and upgraded simply because game developers moved on, technology has moved on, and we have the opportunities to do these things.
What are you guys most excited to see players react to when the game finally releases?
Sean Greaney: I can't answer this honestly, Deven. [Laughs]
Alex Skidmore: I'll take on a VTM story. Definitely. We see it almost as an adaptation, because you can't literally take the VTM 5 - maybe you could, but it wouldn't necessarily get you the pacing and the experience you want to, because it wasn't built for that. So we see it as an adaptation, a faithful one. If you're adapting a book to a film or something, there's certain choices you need to make, and Sean and their team have been really ive on the choices we've made to get the kind of pacing and feeling that we want when you bring it to life.
And if you saw the trailer, it's quite visceral as well - that's a key word. I'm pretty sure the combat sequence ends with the player's fist going through someone's head. But for a vampire that's just life, that's just an everyday occurrence. [Laughs] It's very much our vision. I've been on the project a year, but when The Chinese Room took it over in 2021, we did for our vision sort of start from scratch. So it is a new codebase, a new world, a new story, because we're a different developer, and we're building to our strengths and what we see as that fateful translation of VTM. But the things that have continued over from the Hardsuit Labs version is quite a lot of character art and environment art, especially since we chose to also base it in Seattle, because that gave us a big leg up. We thought it's a really cool place to explore, and to explore a city that's dominated by the Camarilla compared to Los Angeles and Bloodlines 1.
Sean Greaney: I'm going to put a little bit of meat on the bone of my comment that I can't answer this honestly - there's some narrative peaks that these guys have brought to the game that are so amazing. And I would say the cinematography to some of these moments - I can see that there's going to be a generation of gamers who play this game and it stays with them in the way that hopefully we've all have that experience, particularly at a certain age when you're very receptive these things stick with you and you think about them years after. That's going to happen in this game for a lot of people. And then and then I do agree with Alex, I think the realization of the clans is best in class - it's going to be very, very cool to see people really feel that they finally get that experience of what it would be like to be in a clan.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is planned for release some time in 2024.