What would a REAL Vampire: Bloodlines sequel/successor be like?

[Zombra]

There's been a lot of picky talk about the REAL legacy of the earliest Vampire: the Masquerade RPGs in the current Bloodlines 2 thread, after the announcement that Paradox thinks RPGs are too hard to make so they give up forever.

So, Codex, let's put on our monocles and try to figure out why Bloodlines is REALLY such a classic, and what a game would ACTUALLY need to live up to our experience with the original when we were younger and more impressionable.

Note there may be some talk about Vampire: Redemption and maybe other games too but the focus for this thread is intended to be Bloodlines.

I thought about making a poll but I have a feeling we're going to get so many different opinions that a poll would be worthless. Maybe I'll put in a placeholder so I can try to edit in a real poll later.

Your perspective and discussion below ... or maybe a link to an existing thread. I couldn't find one.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It doesn't need a sequel at all.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Bloodlines doesn't need a sequel. Better VtM C/RPGs are welcome though.

 

[Roguey]

Just copy the design and tone of Santa Monica/Downtown/the first part of Hollywood. Grand guignol writing, social hubs, combat areas that can also be sneaked through on the critical path, some smaller optional combat sidequests.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It's a product of its era. Better to leave it alone rather than revive it in a sanitized fashion.

 

[Kev Inkline]

 

[lukaszek]

thief like, but with fangs

 

[Zombra]

It doesn't need a sequel at all.

Bloodlines doesn't need a sequel. Better VtM C/RPGs are welcome though.

It's a product of its era. Better to leave it alone rather than revive it in a sanitized fashion.

Y'all could be right. For me, a numbered sequel isn't necessary and may be counterproductive. Remakes and sequels always get something wrong. And yet, more games that give me the same type of enjoyment would not be a bad thing.

A product of its time? OK, yes. I mean this is the Codex and for many of us there is an obsession with an intangible connection to a past that seems to be slipping away every moment, probably different for each of us. But what about it do we miss, besides the feeling that we were 12 and the world was full of possibility? Can we put our finger on it?

So ... why did/do I love Bloodlines? There's so much going on here but here are a few bullet points.

• Ambitious hybridization of multiple gameplay styles and elements:
  • Choice and Consequence. I touch on this in a few ways below but this is strongly felt throughout the game. No, the story does not have a million branches or endings but it does have a few, and there are several subplots that can go different ways. Despite many things being on rails, Bloodlines gives me a sense of agency throughout.
  • First-Person Shooter. It's not Doom but this is part of it.
  • First-Person Slasher.
  • Immersive Sim. There was at least a sense at times that you could play through your way. The game was certainly limited but the promise of success using different means was always felt. To me a real successor would have to at least pay lip service here.
  • RPG. Although VtM is not a deeply "crunchy" system, Bloodlines does allow for "builds" with substantial gameplay impact. In this respect, you could watch 10 different YouTube plays, see 10 different builds, and see slightly different playthroughs as a result.
  • Stealth. See imsim above perhaps. The stealth system was not fully fleshed and it was never a pure "stealth game", but xp was awarded for fulfilling objectives, not killing things. Sneaking past everything was supported as a legitimate choice in most levels.
  • Visual Novel. There was a ton of dialogue and the story very much mattered. Again, choices were sometimes illusory but the sense was that dialogue choices had substantial consequences, and in a lot of cases this is true.
  • Exploration. Most locations turned out to be on the critical path but there is a certain amount of side content, things you can miss, and things you can choose not to engage with.
• Vibes.
  • Spookiness. Of course the game takes place 100% at night and has several levels that not only delve into outright horror, but do so in varying styles. The Tzimisce lair and Grout's mansion are creepy for different reasons, not even mentioning Ocean House. Even the sewers are dreadful and oppressive, and not just because the gameplay is pretty bad in this section.
  • Charm. The game had a brilliant mix of humor in a setting that takes itself very seriously; neither a "comedy game" nor a monotonous heavy drama but with just enough of both to keep the tone very dynamic.
  • Sexuality. The setting lets itself be sexy, not in an outright pornographic way, but with both positivity and negativity. It provides the unashamed indulgence of a strip club, while not shying away from the sketchiness of the creeps and weirdos who pay for it, and even the emotional manipulation used by sex workers.
  • Moral ambiguity.
    • There is a full fledged "humanity" system which lets you find your level between "responsible" monsterism and full beast mode.
    • More than that, the writing and factions are done so well, everyone with their own agenda and story to tell. It's neither about black and white good and evil nor pure inhuman self-interest on all sides. Characters have believable agendas that usually don't map to a simple morality scale (although some do, and more pretend they do). In this way, it's good noir.

I feel like I'm missing a lot so may edit in more later. Do these points resonate with you? Or do you love Bloodlines for completely different reasons?

Typing this out I realized that a lot of this stuff maps to what Cyberpunk 2077 tried to achieve. In this way I think it can be considered a successor in some ways. I still need to play 2.0.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's a product of its era. Better to leave it alone rather than revive it in a sanitized fashion.

My sentiment exactly, you just cannot do a worthy sequel in the current neo-puritan climate.

Typing this out I realized that a lot of this stuff maps to what Cyberpunk 2077 tried to achieve. In this way I think it can be considered a successor in some ways. I still need to play 2.0.

Definitely worth replaying the whole thing, tons of changes and the expansion alone is brilliant.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Do these points resonate with you?

Sure. I'm mostly being pessimistic about the vibes part of it and I agree that Cyberpunk 2077 is somewhat of a successor to VtMB in that regard. Although I think that Cyberpunk 2077 was also CDPR's swan song and I wouldn't necessarily trust them to make a good sequel to VtMB (spiritual or otherwise, but within the WoD setting) even if they'd have an interest in doing so today. They'd still probably do a much better job than TCR, particularly in terms of appropriate gameplay design, but I also think that they've creatively exhausted themselves by now. Comes with the territory of AAA gaming in terms of replicating the sort of work environment and corpo culture that their competitors have which is detrimental to the sort of narrative design which won them recognition in the first place.

 

[Dark Souls II]

The core element of VtmB is that it's set in 2004. At least officially, because that's the year the game's got released. But practically, the setting feels much more anachronistic. It has a very 90s feeling, obviously because it takes inspiration from the height of vampire movies during 80s/90s. Vampire content back then was gritty. You get a similar feeling from VtmB, through numerous anachronisms: snuff films on vhs, oldschool cabs, computers with a TUI and so on. The setting was also played relatively straight-forward, and not overstylized.

Nu-VtmB's main mistake, an unreedemable one, was setting the game in the current year. First of all, it means you cannot avoid modern day bugman politics. Secondly, if you played the setting straightforward, it would be the most boring, ugly and unimaginative thing in the world. So by necessity, it has to be overstylized. But because nothing about the modern world is stylish or cool, the setting will be not only ugly and boring, but also feel fake and ingenuine.

tl;dr a proper successor to VtmB should be set in the 90s, 80s, or the 70s (think Taxi Driver, or 1970s Berlin).

Also, I went to Wikipedia to check what year the game is set in, and this is literally the picture Wikipedia uses:

VtmB is a relic of an era when you could still use cheap looking hoes to market your video game. These days are long gone. The West has fallen.

 

[lukaszek]

Typing this out I realized that a lot of this stuff maps to what Cyberpunk 2077 tried to achieve. In this way I think it can be considered a successor in some ways. I still need to play 2.0.

tl;dr a proper successor to VtmB should be set in the 90s, 80s, or the 70s (think Taxi Driver, or 1970s Berlin).

thats it, successor need to be set during 1st matrix cinematic release when people were cosplaying it in front of the cinemas, to combine both worlds

 

[Kev Inkline]

The core element of VtmB is that it's set in 2004. At least officially, because that's the year the game's got released. But practically, the setting feels much more anachronistic. It has a very 90s feeling, obviously because it takes inspiration from the height of vampire movies during 80s/90s.

Most obviously of course, because VTM first edition - which I bought back in the day, man can't believe it's over 30 years - was published 1991.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

at this point, just give us a remake and be done with it. a bunch more polygons, slightly more detailed textures, a fistful of crashes less, wesp patch included and be done with it. it's going to sell a copy at least to everyone who already owns it.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

at this point, just give us a remake and be done with it. a bunch more polygons, slightly more detailed textures, a fistful of crashes less, wesp patch included and be done with it. it's going to sell a copy at least to everyone who already owns it.

I'm highly skeptical of it not ending up being subtly censored here and there if that happens.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

did i stutter?

 

[Storyfag]

Successor, not sequel? Good. A sequel would be so much more difficult to make (though possible none-the-less).

I must firstly agree with all the points made by Zombra and Heroic Liberator thus far.

Secondly, it is imperative to underline that Bloodlines is VtM in a can. Condensed to its essentials, and thus made comprehensible to people with no prior knowledge of the setting. It has a slumbering ancient (ha ha) and those who would seek to usurp his power. It has all the levels of the Jyhad, with individuals and Sects tearing into one another and being unaware they are the pawns of a pawn of a far older monster. In a feat of brilliance, it even features the Cab Driver. It remains set within the World of Darkness, which, while strikingly similar, is actually darker than our own. It simplifies certain things, but comes out stronger for it.

Much of this needs to be retained. Obviously not everything, but such precise details as the amount of Methuselahs pulling the city's strings (more than one this time?) or the presence of the Cabbie (an absence can be afforded) are secondary concerns in this discussion. A more detailed Sabbat would be nice.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Lots of bugs and bad combat, I won’t have it any other way.

 

[lycanwarrior]

I'd be up for isometric party-based CRPG rather than a literal Bloodlines successor.

 

[mediocrepoet]

VtMB is almost entirely atmosphere and presentation for me. The immersive elements, animation, detailed characters and faces, great voice acting. It really sucked you in.

And despite being generally prudish in my game tastes, I find it difficult to believe that a truly straight man can experience Jeanette's intro without having this reaction:

It's also a true RPG with all the clans and charges and highly reactive to those choices and allows a variety of choices.

This is a game that would benefit a lot from better combat, but doesn't suffer overly much from combat being complete ass because it delivers in basically every other area.

Interesting thought re: CP77. I think there may be something to that. And it does have way better combat.

 

[Jaesun]

Combat is not really that large of a part in a real VtM based game. It is there though.

 

[Hoodoo]

Clans are remade into different flavours of LGBTQ and you fight against white people by having genderless sex orgies

 

[Tyranicon]

You guys have no idea how many "the spiritual successor to VtMB that we've been waiting for!!!" comments I've heard in recent weeks.

It's funny because I'm not even attempting a spiritual successor.

Or am I?

 

[Daemongar]

If a sequel was released at the time, it would be fine to:

• Start you in the same apartment and streets with more unlocked locations.
• Maybe you start as a thinblood and for altruistic reasons, need to drink the hearts blood of one of the clans to become a full vampire
• The game then pushes you in a different direction than the pier/astrolite. Mercutio can still drive the story, but to different places with larger environments
• You then set out to find why all the thinboods, why they are hunted, whatever. You go to other locations in California. Quests, etc.
• Eventually, you craft a lightsaber and fight through legions of sabbat or something, They probably couldn't legally pull it off, but if you don't call it a lightsaber, it's probably not illegal.
• Larry is there, Jack visits you, maybe that hot vampire that eats flesh - and VV join you. As a surprise, Vigo does own lots of yachts, he was just nervous on the radio. Maybe you fight that lady on the radio on his biggest boat.

 

[MerchantKing]

The ideal sequel to bloodlines would be a tactical turn-based dungeon crawler where you control a party of vampire hunters who purge the dungeon of vampires.