World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 - VTMB sequel from The Chinese Room - coming early 2025

[Hobknobling]

The power of DLC allowing them to absorb the tens of millions of losses they had with Hardsuit's Bloodlines (25 million,) Lamplighters League (30 million), and Life By You (20 million).

Though all this turmoil did kill their collaborations with Digimancy and Draw Distance, among others.

It does and more importantly the constant cash flow it gives them helps. They aren’t accumulating big debts and costs and then getting a financial windfall right after release. I’d imagine they’ve made vastly more money from CK2 and Stellaris dlc than they ever made from selling the base game itself. They keep their games relevant and selling by servicing them for years after launch. Their dlc also don’t cost anywhere near as much a new game to make as well. That model probably won’t translate well to games that aren’t grand strategy. Even as successful as BG3 was on a $100 million budget, that three year early access period gave them three years of cash flow before they even released, I think they made the whole game’s cost back prior to release, and then continued to sell millions of copies post release. Don’t think that didn’t give Larian much needed breathing room and comfort space prior to final release.

Holy fuck. I can't believe each of those games cost that much. I expected Bloodlines to be half that loss, and Lamplighters League looks like it could have been made for <1million. I never even heard of Life By You. Maybe they are actually a money laundering operation.

I would imagine that’s all an accounting trick. Financial guys aren’t stupid, they probably threw every cost they could possibly fit into the total cost before they claimed a loss on it.

Not to give them accolades but I do respect on some level their ability to not follow the sunk-cost fallacy and just cancel what they feel won’t work. It does make me a little more confident in BL2 as if they really thought it was trash it would definitely be dead already. That doesn’t mean it won’t be trash though, it’s almost August and all we’ve seen is a warehouse fight.

One interesting detail I once heard from the CEO of Colossal Order was that releasing a new DLC always also boosts the sales of the base game even without any sort of discount. DLCs double down as advertisement. This is one of the reasons why Paradox pressures the developers into doing a lot of them.

I suspect BL2 is a tough project to kill since they are probably willing to push out a mediocre game and rely on the brand-name recognition. This is also primed to be grade A pigslop for Game Pass.

 

[Vulpes]

Paradox is hesitant to scrap Bloodlines 2 because they made the mistake of purchasing the WoD franchise. In order to get back the money they wasted and justify the acquisition to their investors, they need to push out big budget games like this to boost brand recognition and get people interested in buying other WoD products.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Domination won't work on an elder malkavian such as Wesp.

Sorry, but I played a Toreador and unless Bloodlines 2 is a piece of art like the original, I will not touch it !

It will be a piece of postmodern art.

And gods willing, postmortem as well)) Like poetry, it rhymes.

 

[Harthwain]

Paradox is hesitant to scrap Bloodlines 2 because they made the mistake of purchasing the WoD franchise. In order to get back the money they wasted and justify the acquisition to their investors, they need to push out big budget games like this to boost brand recognition and get people interested in buying other WoD products.

I think it is even simplier: they made a big deal out of it by making it Bloodlines 2 and selling it to people in advance (you know, the special versions including the future DLCs and stuff?), so now they have to at very least deliver on the promises they made, even if it turns out to be shit in the end. Had this been some no-name project they could've easily just cancel it and avoid generating even more loss.

 

[The President]

Paradox is hesitant to scrap Bloodlines 2 because they made the mistake of purchasing the WoD franchise. In order to get back the money they wasted and justify the acquisition to their investors, they need to push out big budget games like this to boost brand recognition and get people interested in buying other WoD products.

They paid like $5 million for the whole franchise almost a decade ago. They aren’t worried about it.

 

[Roguey]

They paid like $5 million for the whole franchise almost a decade ago. They aren’t worried about it.

A Swedish-language report on digital.di has Paradox boss Fred Wester saying "this is our biggest investment to date", and claims the purchase involved "several tens of millions" - Paradox confirm to us that this is in Swedish Krona rather than US dollars or Euros; for reference, 10m SEK is approximately $1.2m.

Washing their hands of the whole mess and selling it for a few million once this bombs, similar to what happened with Harebrained Schemes, is a possibility.

 

[Rahdulan]

I would love to know if they turned meaningful profit in the years since that purchase. Margins on book sales, especially since they effectively axed half of WoD properties, have to be razor thin these days and biggest success they had with video games seem to be CYOAs. Killer app never really materialized for Paradox.

 

[Tyranicon]

Judging by the content of those CYOAs and visual novels I can make a clear assumption about what playerbase they're targeting.

Yet another attempt to see if the "modern audience" actually exists.

 

[Semiurge]

Modern audience is an IQ80 mongrel of indistinguishable heritage who votes marxist, never shuts up about itself and keeps the ozone layer thin by letting out constant pungent vegan farts.

Yeah, this audience already exists, but our benevolent overlords won't be pleased until this audience is the only one left. You are a threat to their plan while you still draw breath.

 

[Skinwalker]

Modern audience is an IQ80 mongrel of indistinguishable heritage

Oh, don't worry, there's still plenty of self-hating white shitlib cucks in that demographic.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Lamplighters League looks like it could have been made for <1million.

Graphics are way too detailed (actually a flaw, the style doesn't look right). This is a game that was made for roughly a million https://fionabrunerart.artstation.com/projects/GXv9OV

Add to that full-voice acting, a cinematic trailer, and around 40 or so devs working for 4-5 years (Battletech was released in early 2018).

Lamplighters doesn't push the envelope in any regard though. Graphically it's ordinary. Gameplay is like NuXcom+. Making this game should have been formulaic. It seems to offer very little over Shadowrun Returns. I'm aghast that it would take that much time and money to make.

 

[True Ukrainian]

What will come next?

Ravnos were genocided and are now no longer ethnic gypsy or Indian.

 

[Roguey]

Lamplighters doesn't push the envelope in any regard though. Graphically it's ordinary. Gameplay is like NuXcom+. Making this game should have been formulaic. It seems to offer very little over Shadowrun Returns. I'm aghast that it would take that much time and money to make.

Well there was a covid disruption in the middle that destroyed productivity across the board.

 

[Katerina]

It doesn't, but Lamplighters was decent imho, and could be good if it wasn't abandoned. Some love and an expansion or two and could go a long way.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It doesn't, but Lamplighters was decent imho, and could be good if it wasn't abandoned. Some love and an expansion or two and could go a long way.

I think that it would've fared much better if it hadn't gone for that cartoony style. There's definitely a market for old school adventure pulp, but the way they went about trying to tap into it was misguided imho.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Ugly cartoonish graphics, an ostensibly 1930s setting that is actually ahistorical, and supposed pulp influences that are overshadowed by Current Year quirkiness.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Ugly cartoonish graphics, an ostensibly 1930s setting that is actually ahistorical, and supposed pulp influences that are overshadowed by Current Year quirkiness.

Honestly, for pulp adventure stuff (but with a different sort of narrative focus), I'd rather recommend something like


(Avoid the sequel though. That's peak current year soulless garbage - closer to Lamplighters, really.)

Don't open it

 

[Lord_Potato]

unless Bloodlines 2 is a piece of art like the original, I will not touch it !

It will be a piece of postmodern art.

 

[MjKorz]

unless Bloodlines 2 is a piece of art like the original, I will not touch it !

It will be a piece of postmodern art.

I was thinking more of the butthole gallery, but this will do.

 

[Harthwain]

(Avoid the sequel though. That's peak current year soulless garbage - closer to Lamplighters, really.)

I know about The Curious Expedition. It was a very interesting little game. How the developer has managed to screw up the sequel?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

(Avoid the sequel though. That's peak current year soulless garbage - closer to Lamplighters, really.)

I know about The Curious Expedition. It was a very interesting little game. How the developer has managed to screw up the sequel?

I mean, gameplaywise you might still enjoy the sequel, but the zany cartoon style they went for is pure cringe and a great downgrade over the original's.

I also recall the devs stating outright that they wanted to be more PC in their approach with the second game, but I can't tell you how much of that translates into a worse design for the sequel. Although they were woke from the start, so no surprise there. Perhaps Taka-Haradin puolipeikko can tell us more since he seems to be a fan of the sequel.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

(Avoid the sequel though. That's peak current year soulless garbage - closer to Lamplighters, really.)

I know about The Curious Expedition. It was a very interesting little game. How the developer has managed to screw up the sequel?

I mean, gameplaywise you might still enjoy the sequel, but the zany cartoon style they went for is pure cringe and a great downgrade over the original's.

I also recall the devs stating outright that they wanted to be more PC in their approach with the second game, but I can't tell you how much of that translates into a worse design for the sequel. Although they were woke from the start, so no surprise there. Perhaps Taka-Haradin puolipeikko can tell us more since he seems to be a fan of the sequel.

Not having played the 1st one I can't compare it with the sequel.
Most glaring woke element I remember from CE2 was some lizards referring themselves with hir-pronoun, but it's savage lizard abomination so who cares.

As for the cartoon style, I thought it was pretty direct tribute for Herge. None of the characters wouldn't look that out of place in later Tintin albums.

 

[sosmoflux]

Surely there has to be a more critical lens through which VTMB2 is being looked at. They scrapped a whole game and team, so this is the second try. Everywhere they look online is negativity and criticism. They're seeing all these millennial games drop like flies.

Usually a big factor in games like these flopping is the leadership being greedy/useless, and/or the team are so wilfully ignorant they simply don't care that they're marching the game into a meat grinder.

Surely a few people there actually want this to go right and have a little bit of contemporary insight... right?!

Might just be having a fleeting moment of optimism.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I would love to know if they turned meaningful profit in the years since that purchase. Margins on book sales, especially since they effectively axed half of WoD properties, have to be razor thin these days and biggest success they had with video games seem to be CYOAs. Killer app never really materialized for Paradox.

Tabletop whales are second only to mobile game whales. They buy up every possible book and official figure on mass just to store it.

Surely there has to be a more critical lens through which VTMB2 is being looked at. They scrapped a whole game and team, so this is the second try. Everywhere they look online is negativity and criticism. They're seeing all these millennial games drop like flies.

Probably be another Halo infinite case where they assume people will hate it no matter what so they don't put the effort in to make it something people would like.

What are the good world of darkness games?

 

[Roguey]

Surely there has to be a more critical lens through which VTMB2 is being looked at. They scrapped a whole game and team, so this is the second try. Everywhere they look online is negativity and criticism. They're seeing all these millennial games drop like flies.

Usually a big factor in games like these flopping is the leadership being greedy/useless, and/or the team are so wilfully ignorant they simply don't care that they're marching the game into a meat grinder.

Surely a few people there actually want this to go right and have a little bit of contemporary insight... right?!

Might just be having a fleeting moment of optimism.

There's no time to do any kind of course correction. Paradox wanted to delay announcement until it was nearly ready so now they have to live with their choices.