In an ostensible attempt to help avoid any undue pain for either his studio or its fan, Paradox Interactive Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja has warned fans that while their expectations for the upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines sequel may be sky high, they would do best to bring them way, way down.
Lilja offered this advice to the fan-favorite vampire sim’s large fanbase while speaking with Rock Paper Shotgun‘s Edwin Evans-Thirlwell about the sequel’s current status during Paradox’s recent 2024 Media Day.
Pressed by his host as to just how confident he was that Bloodlines 2, which is set to be published by Paradox Interactive and began life under the guide of developer Hardsuit Labs before being fully handed over to The Chinese Room in 2021, would deliver a quality experience, Lilja asserted that while he believed it would, he also wanted to make it clear that it was unlikely to meet fans’ long-building expectations.
“With Hardsuit Labs, we agreed on a vision of what they were gonna make, [and] they had a problem delivering on that,” said the Deputy CEO. “We were in agreement, we moved [development] to The Chinese Room and we said, this is the vision and this is what Hardsuit Labs have made. And of course, we gave them quite a lot of freedom to interpret the vision, based on what Hardsuit Labs had made, or change or remove whatever they didn’t like.”
“We have a high trust in The Chinese Room, given what they’ve done,” he told Evans-Thirwell. “We’ve announced again a delay, into the first half of next year. I would stand by that. I’m pretty confident that that’s going to work. I’ve seen the game now. The Chinese Room is really invested in it. They’re taking a lot of initiatives. They like some things that Hardsuit did, they’re changing some other things, and they’re making their own game, that’s still the vision that we had.”
“So it’s going to be an action-RPG in the World Of Darkness,” Lilja added. “If you’ve seen [The Chinese Room’s previous game] Still Wakes The Deep, they know how to do story-driven action games with good voice-acting, all of that, which is basically what we’re looking for in this game. I hope and feel that we will be able to deliver a game that puts you in the World Of Darkness.”
As noted by Evans-Thirwell, the Paradox Interactive exec was careful to describe the game not as a Bloodlines sequel, but as “a game that puts you in the World of Darkness”, because, in his words, “It’s about setting the right expectations.”
“The first Bloodlines game – it is what it is, and people who’ve played it recently will see that it’s a game from 2004, that is now patched so that it works,” he explained. “But there’s also a lot of ideas about what that game was, that are more, not to offend anyone, mythical.”
“I like the first game as well a lot, but we want to clarify what this game is, so people have a clear understanding of what they’re buying, so they don’t come in with weird expectations – because we don’t want that, we want them to understand that this is an action RPG with a storyline that is more fixed,” said Lilja. “It’s not the open sim it maybe shouldn’t be compared to. Again, we want people to understand what they’re getting into.”
“It’s about setting the right expectations,” he said. “The first Bloodlines game – it is what it is, and people who’ve played it recently will see that it’s a game from 2004, that is now patched so that it works. But there’s also a lot of ideas about what that game was, that are more, not to offend anyone, mythical.”
Asked by his host as to which aspects of the original game he believed fans had put on a pedestal, rather than criticize any particular part of the Bloodlines experience, Lilja instead vaguely argued, “I actually played Bloodlines 1 quite recently, and it is a good game, but it is also an old game, and there are many things that would not fly today.”
“I understand why people were super psyched by it in 2004, because it had a lot of cool [elements], and the feeling of being a vampire is really strong, regardless of other features,” he said. “But I think people, they remember their feelings about it. And if they replayed it, I think they would see that it’s a competently good game by 2004 standards, now that it’s patched.”
His time with the outlet coming to a close, Lilja ultimately asserted, “But mainly we want to clarify that we’re making a spiritual successor, not an actual same blueprint type of game, so people don’t get disappointed and feel cheated.”
“We really don’t want that,” he reiterated. “We do expect it to recover its investment, but also saying that, it has changed studios, been in production a long time. My expectation is we will release a good game.”
At present, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is set to stalk the night beginning sometime in 2025.