Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2, the sequel to the cult classic role-playing game released in 2004, is coming to the Xbox Series X. The announcement was made Thursday during the official Inside Xbox livestream. It was also accompanied by a new trailer, which highlights the developers unique take on the game’s vampiric powers.
Originally announced in March 2019, Bloodlines 2 is being developed by Hardsuit Labs and published by Paradox Interactive. The franchise is well regarded as a nuanced and flexible engine for telling mature stories, and developers are leaning into that strength. The narrative designer is none other than Brian Mitsoda, the same man responsible for the storyline of the original. The game takes place in modern-day Seattle, Washington and tells the story of a newly-minted vampire trying to find their way in a complex world. Additional narrative work is also being done by Cara Ellison, a former journalist and herself a fan of the original game.
The new trailer features several vignettes from the lives of vampires, focusing on how they find and feed on human blood. One character can be seen torturing a family around the Christmas tree. Another is shown wearing a white suit and dining alone in his opulent penthouse, while a third uses mind control to lure her victims in at a dance club.
The release of Bloodlines 2 comes several years after the launch of the 5th edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, the tabletop role-playing system on which the video game franchise is based. Paradox acquired White Wolf, makers of Vampire and other RPG systems, in 2015 only to take a fairly hands-off approach to the tabletop game’s development. The new system was mired in controversy even before its release, and its bungled launch eventually led to the dissolution of the team that made it. Eventually the entire effort was handed over to Modiphius Entertainment.
Mitsoda told Polygon that while the team at Hardsuit Labs is using the new edition of the tabletop game for inspiration and some thematic elements, his team has been able to take the lore wherever it needs to go to meet their needs.
“It was pretty much a blank slate for us,” Mitsoda said in our interview last May, “to build up and build out our corner of the World of Darkness.”
Update (May 8): According to a news release sent on Friday, Bloodlines 2 will also feature Smart Delivery. That means players who purchase the game for the Xbox One will get an upgraded version for the Xbox Series X for free. Characters and saves will also carry over.
Additionally, developers confirmed the game was also in development for the PlayStation 5.
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