Paradox considered cancelling Bloodlines 2

When Paradox Interactive designed the remarkable choice to choose Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 absent from its primary developers, Hardsuit Labs, the corporation thought of outright cancelling the sport. Which is in accordance to returning CEO Fredrik Wester in a new interview. Paradox continue to are not stating who’s earning the Environment Of Darkness RPG now nor when it will be performed, but seemingly it’s still taking place?

The job interview was with a Swedish information agency in Swedish, as noticed on Placera. You can get the broad which means from device translation but the know-how is imperfect, so I arrived at out to Paradox for a more exact edition of vital pieces.

“When we taken off the sport from the primary developer we took a lengthy look at whether we should really terminate it or continue on improvement,” Wester reported in the translation Paradox offered. “We have been geared up to end production entirely, but we obtained a pitch that was persuasive plenty of for us to keep on with. We have higher hopes that this will be a good match that fulfills our players’ wishes.”

Paradox still haven’t stated who has taken in excess of producing Bloodlines 2. Wester passed on answering a query about that in this job interview, but did say they are “a pretty reliable and gifted developer” who’ve built many game titles right before. It is also mysterious how a lot the new Bloodlines 2 resembles the aged Bloodlines 2, though Wester seemingly reported in this interview [currently going off Google Translate for this part, soz] that they can even now use a great deal of the work. For all any person understands, that could mean anything from re-utilizing art property to finding up the place Hardsuit left off. Tough to say when what happened is these kinds of a mystery.


A woman looks out over the city in a Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 screenshot.
Some way of vampiric overlording.

In July 2024, Paradox fired Brian Mitsoda, who was the sequel’s narrative guide as very well as a writer and designer on the primary. Seemed lousy acquired worse. In February 2024, Paradox announced an even even larger transform: they had been using Hardsuit off the sport and handing improvement to another studio. It is astonishingly rare for that to occur the moment a game has hit the stage of previews and interviews. Hardsuit suffered layoffs after that.

I had always anticipated Bloodlines 2 to be a minor cursed, specified what occurred with the very first sport. I did not assume that on the scale of curses, it would be around the level of “You, your little ones, your grandkids, your fantastic-grandkids, and your excellent-great-grandkids will be spitting tooth just about every time you sniff or sneeze, and not your have tooth, other teeth, secret tooth, just tooth, shock, it is really tooth, in this article they come.” But I nevertheless want to see what will come out when that sport/these teeth comes. I gotta see.

I also asked Paradox if they experienced something new to share publicly about the game’s growth. They do not.

Paradox seemingly have problems of their possess. In new months, several media reviews and a leaked study of union personnel have manufactured allegations of office difficulties for girls in individual. Amidst this, Wester admitted “inappropriate behaviour” in the direction of an worker at a enterprise function in 2018. “Accountability starts off from the leading,” he mentioned.

Disclosure: Cara Ellison, a previous RPS columnist and my former flatmate, was narrative designer on Bloodlines 2 at Hardsuit Labs. I continue to have her candlesticks, although I have at last started out burning the candles.