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

[MjKorz]

They’re definitely hearing the noise of the complaints

If they're bothering to do that, then I have strong confidence in the game actually releasing.

 

[Roguey]

Assuming what you're saying is true, why would've Paradox waited so long to scrap the game if there was something fundamentally wrong with it's direction from the very beginning? Why was Hardsuit even allowed to postpone the launch date not once, but TWICE? It was supposed to initially come out in March 2020, only to get pushed back to late 2020 and then again to early 2021.

Some glassdoor reviews have talked about how Paradox was too hands-off and then got way too hands-on to the point of people being fired.

Publishers typically don't care about the writing in a game. I can't recall where I read it, but I vaguely recall reading someone claim that Hardsuit pitched and made a game that played like a sequel to Bloodlines 2 more or less, but somewhere in the middle of development Paradox decided that it needed to be "modernized." Hardsuit/Cluney/Mitsoda just ignored that directive and kept making the game they pitched, leading to Paradox's anger when they got milestone builds that were no longer what they wanted. I was skeptical at the time, since that story puts the blame mostly on Paradox (who allegedly turned down that Daggerfall successor when a dumb dev said they needed more money to compete with Skyrim) and not Hardsuit's own ineptitude which is backed up by all those Glassdoor reviews. It could be true that Hardsuit was both inept at trying to make a Bloodlines-like game and they were also suddenly told that it had to be a different kind of game, one that they didn't bother starting to try to make until people got fired for not making it. Wester was the CEO of Paradox when Bloodlines 2 was signed, but Ljungerud took over in 2018, so the "okay, make a different kind of game now" decision could have come from her (one of the many decisions leading to her resignation and Wester's return just last month).

Avellone also came out and indirectly said in his Medium post that Hardsuit was not suited to make a game Bloodlines 2, but he was full of hopium because he really wanted to be a part of it. On his linkedin he also said that Paradox changed the specs shortly before his contract ended. It's most likely there was wrongdoing on all sides: Hardsuit couldn't have completed the game they were trying to make (and the Ubisoft Finisher likely said as much when Paradox hired him to assess the state of the project) and Paradox changed their mind midway through development to want a different kind of game, which just compounded the problems.

 

[Shaja]

Wondering how they will extend the paragraphs about the dialogue choices in the next diary. When they have just showed up poor ones leading to the same conclusion (with Lou and Willem).
No matter how you deal with Willem, and how much he regrets his actions, the bomb will explode. Similar to the scene from Mankind Divided with Rucker (but at least Rucker can open a sealed door for you if you did well during the minigame discussion).
I fucking miss Deus Ex.

Anyway what were we taking about?

Ah yes the dialogue choice dev diary. How an A - AA studio is gonna make choice consequences that impacts the story? Most of the AAA "rpg" games just changes some dialogue lines and nothing else. Or maybe I'm just used to 2010's Bioware and many other studios junk.

At least when CDPR showed the Cyberpunk demo for the first time, it showed the Maelstrom robot scene, which is the only dialogue choice moment in the game that has different consequences.

 

[sosmoflux]

Thanks for reminding me about that Cyberpunk moment being the only cool thing in the entire game. Damn.

 

[Semiurge]

What was that line lol
"Make him fear you"

That's going to be a challenge, looking the way the main character looks. Especially when wearing the brujah (vegan) leathers.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

It seems that Paradox wants to quickly rattle through the marketing cycle and release the game shortly after the last video, and then, buried under the duvet with a bottle of Finnish vodka, forget about everything.

 

[whydoibother]

It seems that Paradox wants to quickly rattle through the marketing cycle and release the game shortly after the last video, and then, buried under the duvet with a bottle of Finnish vodka, forget about everything.

Well, at least they will learn to NOT offer preorders for a game before that is in its conceptual phase, as they'd then have to follow up on those legally binding contracts with consumers.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

It seems that Paradox wants to quickly rattle through the marketing cycle and release the game shortly after the last video, and then, buried under the duvet with a bottle of Finnish vodka, forget about everything.

Well, at least they will learn to NOT offer preorders for a game before that is in its conceptual phase, as they'd then have to follow up on those legally binding contracts with consumers.

Indeed, so they learned something.

However, as we can see, it was a costly learning experience.

 

[whydoibother]

It seems that Paradox wants to quickly rattle through the marketing cycle and release the game shortly after the last video, and then, buried under the duvet with a bottle of Finnish vodka, forget about everything.

Well, at least they will learn to NOT offer preorders for a game before that is in its conceptual phase, as they'd then have to follow up on those legally binding contracts with consumers.

Indeed, so they learned something.

However, as we can see, it was a costly learning experience.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

Apparently, Arone Le Bray has been rehired by The Chinese Room and he'll get to finish up Bloodlines 2.

 

[Herumor]

Apparently, Arone Le Bray has been rehired by The Chinese Room and he'll get to finish up Bloodlines 2.

Who?

 

[Caim]

Apparently, Arone Le Bray has been rehired by The Chinese Room and he'll get to finish up Bloodlines 2.

Who?

The Dear Esther people.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

Apparently, Arone Le Bray has been rehired by The Chinese Room and he'll get to finish up Bloodlines 2.

Who?

Ex-QA tester from BioWare who was given the job of Principal Narrative Designer for Bloodlines 2. There's some interview where he's justifying the third-person cinematic dialogue decision because he thinks Dragon Age 2 was the better written game over Dragon Age Origins.

 

[sosmoflux]

Oh good

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

Apparently, Arone Le Bray has been rehired by The Chinese Room and he'll get to finish up Bloodlines 2.

Who?

Ex-QA tester from BioWare who was given the job of Principal Narrative Designer for Bloodlines 2. There's some interview where he's justifying the third-person cinematic dialogue decision because he thinks Dragon Age 2 was the better written game over Dragon Age Origins.

I don't know why, I don't even care that much about Dragon Age, but this makes me feel incredibly angry.

 

[ind33d]

if bungie can't even make destiny 3 there is zero chance some incompetent gays can make a sequel to VTMB

 

[Lariko.Sch]

That link is gone. Here is another one:

those artworks are so bland, it looks like a puzzle-investigation mobile game, or something that you would see on the facebook games some years ago

 

[Cricket McBangle]

https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-The-Chinese-Room-EI_IE4965686.11,27.htm

One of the Glassdoor reviews describe that there's unbelievable crunch on Bloodlines 2. I'm sure those employees will take solace in the fact that while everyone doesn't like what they're making, at least it'll flop.

 

[sosmoflux]

"At least we learned a lot "
[Studio shuts down]
[Embittered devs move to new studios and do even less work]
The cycle continues

 

[Roguey]

Hadda make an account to get full access to the reviews -_-

Stay away!

Pros

Some of the games are pretty good

Cons

BE WARNED they go after former employees who say anything negative about the company, they got two people fired from future jobs that I know of, there's probably more

Advice to Management

One of the founders is legitimately out of her mind, she's a liability and should be kept far away from the business if she's not already

Dan Pinchbeck's wife is crazy eh, that's not too surprising.

Excellent company culture
Senior environment artist

Pros

- Excellent company culture
- Huge potential to grow and develop if you're proactive
- Real lust for developing narrative focussed games
- TCR parties, evening chill and event days
- Sumo company benefits (learning days, duvet days, SDC)

Cons

- Expensive in Brighton
- Production team and project management lacks experience and it shows in Bloodlines 2
- Seemingly random promotions
- Cultural shift after Dan Pinchbeck left
- Needs much stronger Art and Game Directors
- Unbelievable level of crunch on Bloodlines as core-team spread even thinner than buttery thin (i,e. whole departments can literally just be one or two people. Great for ownership and agency, terrible for work-life balance)

Advice to Management

Listen to the team when setting sprint goals. Fewer meetings. Ensure projects have the resources they need to thrive.

Paradox wants it cheap and it wants it now.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

The Chinese Room is a Sumo studio, which is part of Sumo Digital, a studio-for-fire support ecosystem owned by Tencent, which is the 19th largest company in the world. They entered a joint funding deal with Paradox. Not nearly as big of course but they have a market-cap of over a billion dollars. At any rate, neither of these companies should have trouble putting up the money to find the labor and get the talent needed to get a game like this working.

And yet neither of these operations are capable of putting out a mediocre-at-best first-person pugilist (where they foolishly pointed to successful and well-received games like Elden Ring, God of War and Middle-Earth as points of references for what they're going for) game as "smoothly" as a mismanaged and rushed PC game from 2004 that was developed on unfinished technology.

Though it would appear that Paradox is having even more trouble than usual:

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/media/life-by-you-is-cancelled

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/prison-architect-2-delayed-release.1697795/

https://www.polygon.com/gaming/24194344/cities-skylines-2-console-version-delayed-paradox#:~:text=Cities: Skylines 2, the follow,2 has been postponed indefinitely.

 

[Tyranicon]

Studios with 5,000 employees can barely put out working games, nevermind one that's clearly starved for resources.

 

[Semiurge]

Hadda make an account to get full access to the reviews -_-

Stay away!

Pros

Some of the games are pretty good

Cons

BE WARNED they go after former employees who say anything negative about the company, they got two people fired from future jobs that I know of, there's probably more

Advice to Management

One of the founders is legitimately out of her mind, she's a liability and should be kept far away from the business if she's not already

Dan Pinchbeck's wife is crazy eh, that's not too surprising.

Excellent company culture
Senior environment artist

Pros

- Excellent company culture
- Huge potential to grow and develop if you're proactive
- Real lust for developing narrative focussed games
- TCR parties, evening chill and event days
- Sumo company benefits (learning days, duvet days, SDC)

Cons

- Expensive in Brighton
- Production team and project management lacks experience and it shows in Bloodlines 2
- Seemingly random promotions
- Cultural shift after Dan Pinchbeck left
- Needs much stronger Art and Game Directors
- Unbelievable level of crunch on Bloodlines as core-team spread even thinner than buttery thin (i,e. whole departments can literally just be one or two people. Great for ownership and agency, terrible for work-life balance)

Advice to Management

Listen to the team when setting sprint goals. Fewer meetings. Ensure projects have the resources they need to thrive.

Paradox wants it cheap and it wants it now.

Need I ask what this "cultural shift" entails, did the amateur zoomers take over?

 

[Roguey]

The Chinese Room is a Sumo studio, which is part of Sumo Digital, a studio-for-fire support ecosystem owned by Tencent, which is the 19th largest company in the world. They entered a joint funding deal with Paradox. Not nearly as big of course but they have a market-cap of over a billion dollars. At any rate, neither of these companies should have trouble putting up the money to find the labor and get the talent needed to get a game like this working.

And yet neither of these operations are capable of putting out a mediocre-at-best first-person pugilist (where they foolishly pointed to successful and well-received games like Elden Ring, God of War and Middle-Earth as points of references for what they're going for) game as "smoothly" as a mismanaged and rushed PC game from 2004 that was developed on unfinished technology.

Though it would appear that Paradox is having even more trouble than usual:

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/media/life-by-you-is-cancelled

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/prison-architect-2-delayed-release.1697795/

https://www.polygon.com/gaming/24194344/cities-skylines-2-console-version-delayed-paradox#:~:text=Cities: Skylines 2, the follow,2 has been postponed indefinitely.

As The President noted earlier, Paradox is reporting that they have a lot of cash, they just don't want to keep spending more and more on this game.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

Hadda make an account to get full access to the reviews -_-

Stay away!

Pros

Some of the games are pretty good

Cons

BE WARNED they go after former employees who say anything negative about the company, they got two people fired from future jobs that I know of, there's probably more

Advice to Management

One of the founders is legitimately out of her mind, she's a liability and should be kept far away from the business if she's not already

Dan Pinchbeck's wife is crazy eh, that's not too surprising.

Excellent company culture
Senior environment artist

Pros

- Excellent company culture
- Huge potential to grow and develop if you're proactive
- Real lust for developing narrative focussed games
- TCR parties, evening chill and event days
- Sumo company benefits (learning days, duvet days, SDC)

Cons

- Expensive in Brighton
- Production team and project management lacks experience and it shows in Bloodlines 2
- Seemingly random promotions
- Cultural shift after Dan Pinchbeck left
- Needs much stronger Art and Game Directors
- Unbelievable level of crunch on Bloodlines as core-team spread even thinner than buttery thin (i,e. whole departments can literally just be one or two people. Great for ownership and agency, terrible for work-life balance)

Advice to Management

Listen to the team when setting sprint goals. Fewer meetings. Ensure projects have the resources they need to thrive.

Paradox wants it cheap and it wants it now.

Need I ask what this "cultural shift" entails, did the amateur zoomers take over?

With Dan Pinchbeck, they probably were under the illusion that they could make pretentious garbage but on a higher budget. Even though Dan wanted to move away from walking sim games, he probably still had delusions that they were going to be able to make artsy-fartsy crowd-pleasing "thought-provoking" games until he saw what was coming. Now that he's gone, they're effectively Sumo Brighton and they will probably drop all pretenses of making such things considering no one gives a shit about Still Wakes The Deep.