In a press release shared late yesterday evening, Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive announced that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 failed to meet its sales estimates. Due to the game's underperformance, the publisher has been forced to make a non-cash write-down of around $37 million in 'capitalized development costs'.
Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester said that the company is proud of the work done by The Chinese Room (which replaced the original developer, Hardsuit Labs), but also admitted that the sales will not match the projections. In a refreshing move, the executive took the blame on the publisher's side instead of blaming the developers as so often happens nowadays, adding that Paradox's lack of expertise in the action RPG genre made it challenging to gauge the game's sales properly.
In the future, Wester vowed to return to the publisher's core market, which has always been in the grand strategy genre. Paradox's most accomplished games are, after all, Imperator: Rome, the Crusader Kings series, the Europa Universalis series (which has just received its fifth main installment), the Victoria series, the Hearts of Iron series, and Stellaris. This isn't surprising, as Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja already said last year that another Bloodlines title would be licensed out instead of developed internally.
Indeed, Fredrik Wester said:
We’ll evaluate how we best develop World of Darkness’ strong brand catalogue in the future.
That said, Paradox confirmed that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is still getting its two DLCs as planned, as well as other free post-launch updates. In the DLCs, players will find themselves in the shoes of different characters: Loose Cannon is focused on the former Sheriff of the Seattle Court, Benny Muldoon, whereas The Flower & the Flame lets you play as the Toreador vampire Ysabella. The first DLC will be available in Q2 2026, with the second DLC following in Q3.
Recently, former The Chinese Room Creative Director Dan Pinchbeck revealed that he attempted to persuade Paradox to change the game's name because the studio lacked the time and resources to create a proper Bloodlines game. Alas, the publisher did not relent, and the result is abysmal sales and mixed reviews.
I somewhat enjoyed my time with Bloodlines 2, but noted in the review that its several flaws only warranted purchase at a much lower price, and even then, only for fans of Vampire: The Masquerade.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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