Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 was once one of the most anticipated roleplaying games. It had to be as the official sequel to the cult action RPG released by Troika Games in 2004.
The game was announced in March 2019 for a Q1 2020 release window. However, publisher Paradox Interactive (also the owner of the World of Darkness IP) delayed it once in late 2019 and a second time in 2020 with a new generic 2021 target launch.
In August 2020, we learned that Lead Narrative Designer Brian Mitsoda (who was on the original game's writing team) and Creative Director Ka’ai Cluney had been removed from the project. That was just a hint of worse news to come. In February 2021, Paradox Interactive announced that the Seattle-based developer Hardsuit Labs had been removed as the lead studio working on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2.
At this point in time, fans had little to no hope of ever seeing this project come to fruition. They were right: Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester admitted in October 2021 that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 was nearly canceled after the removal of Hardsuit Labs.
However, a month later, a statement shared by Paradox Interactive CFO Alexander Bricca renewed players' dreams with the following statement:
The new developer is doing quite well and we are happy with the progress of the project now, but it's still quite some time before we can start to talk about release dates.
True to the word, Paradox did not reveal any further information about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 for the entirety of 2022 and nearly half of 2023. That changed today with a brief but significant blog post.
First of all, Paradox shared five new screenshots of the game. They confirmed that more details on this new version will be revealed in September.
Paradox also had important news to share regarding the long-standing pre-orders of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Given the amount of time that passed since pre-orders were first opened, the publisher is offering refunds on all types of pre-orders. In fact, physical pre-orders are being proactively refunded, including the Collector's Edition, while digital pre-order refunds will have to be requested by the users.
Paradox has put up a dedicated FAQ page for refunding Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 pre-orders. If you're wondering why refunds are happening now, here's the official response:
With the bonus content being updated, the prior physical edition offered items that are no longer representative of the game. This includes the Collector’s Edition created and sold by DPA Merchandising GmbH(formerly Gaya Entertainment GmbH), and all physical versions of the First Blood edition, Unsanctioned edition and Blood Moon edition disc.
In other Vampire: The Masquerade news, a VR adventure RPG for Meta Quest devices is in development at Fast Travel Games.
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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