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Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 delayed to 2021

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
The more this game gets delayed, the more it worries me that it won't be any good even though devs have more time to make it better. And it for sure will look outdated next year.... although it kinda already was even a year ago tbh.
 
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Stuart360

Member
To ne honest, i'm surprised more games havent been delayed with Covid basically meaning studios have lost 4 or 5 month dev time, and i dont believe the staff than can work from home can make up for that. I include next gen games, and the console launches themselves in that as well. Really surprised they havent been delayed.
 

CAB_Life

Member
Most unimpressive game of “next-gen”, up there with Bugsnacks and HI. The animations in particular felt like something from the PS360 era—that weird, stiff movement at the joints as if everyone were a marionette.

Still don’t have high hopes for the game, regardless of the delay.
 

Stuart360

Member
Most unimpressive game of “next-gen”, up there with Bugsnacks and HI. The animations in particular felt like something from the PS360 era—that weird, stiff movement at the joints as if everyone were a marionette.

Still don’t have high hopes for the game, regardless of the delay.
Its a AA game with probably a modest budget. I'm sure it will look fine when finsihed, for what it is. The first game was hardly a looker, even though it released on a state of the art engine at the time. I mean seriously compare the fist game to Half Life 2, then realize its the same engine. Graphics are not everything.
 

CAB_Life

Member
Its a AA game with probably a modest budget. I'm sure it will look fine when finsihed, for what it is. The first game was hardly a looker, even though it released on a state of the art engine at the time. I mean seriously compare the fist game to Half Life 2, then realize its the same engine. Graphics are not everything.

Well, respectfully: no. When your game does literally nothing to differentiate itself from the mechanics of previous generations, then yes, graphics are everything—since you have nothing else to fall back on. Otherwise why even make this game on the PS5 or XSX generation?

I’d even add that we’ve seen lots of AA games for next gen with modest budgets that look incredible so far.
 
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Stuart360

Member
Well, respectfully: no. When your game does literally nothing to differentiate itself from the mechanics of previous generations, then yes, graphics are everything—since you have nothing else to fall back on. Otherwise why even make this game on the PS5 or XSX generation?

I’d even add that we’ve seen lots of AA games for next gen with modest budgets that look incredible so far.
We have seen almost nothing of its gameplay though, its too early to judge gameplay. Many people think the first game is a masterpiece, even though its janky as fuck. I mean look at Bethesda games!.
And i'm sorry, but anyone expecting new forms of gameplay, with next gen, well i very much doubt it.
 

supernova8

Banned
Most unimpressive game of “next-gen”, up there with Bugsnacks and HI. The animations in particular felt like something from the PS360 era—that weird, stiff movement at the joints as if everyone were a marionette.

Still don’t have high hopes for the game, regardless of the delay.

Yeah I thought the same. The fact that Microsoft even thought it was a good idea to show it during their first look reveal of third party games kinda sheds light on how Halo Infinite was greenlit to be shown in that state. They seem to have no standards at all.
 

FireFly

Member
Well, respectfully: no. When your game does literally nothing to differentiate itself from the mechanics of previous generations, then yes, graphics are everything—since you have nothing else to fall back on. Otherwise why even make this game on the PS5 or XSX generation?

I’d even add that we’ve seen lots of AA games for next gen with modest budgets that look incredible so far.
It's an RPG, so the focus should be on the quest design, characterisation and overall story.

The original was mechanically and graphically sub-par, but in terms of the atmosphere, writing and world building, was in a class of its own.
 

ZehDon

Member
The graphics and amimations are going to look even more outdated on next-gen consoles.
I mean, yeah, but to be fair, the original didn't become the cult classic it is because of its presentation. They could re-use the Source Engine, for all I care. It's the emergent gameplay, the character writing, and the world that will make or break this one.
 
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-Arcadia-

Banned
To ne honest, i'm surprised more games havent been delayed with Covid basically meaning studios have lost 4 or 5 month dev time, and i dont believe the staff than can work from home can make up for that. I include next gen games, and the console launches themselves in that as well. Really surprised they havent been delayed.

I kind of wonder if we're going to hear about cuts made to the games after (of course) release. That seems to be the path of least resistance -- reduce the work to match the reduced work efficiency.
 

Teslerum

Member
It's an RPG, so the focus should be on the quest design, characterisation and overall story.

The original was mechanically and graphically sub-par, but in terms of the atmosphere, writing and world building, was in a class of its own.

Bloodlines looked fine in its day and the facial animations were top-grade. As for the second part what gives you hope 2 will deliever on that it.
 
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Bloodlines looked fine in its day and the facial animations were top-grade. As for the second part what gives you hope 2 will deliever on that it.
Hardsuit Labs are mainly an FPS developer and have existed under different names since the 90's, most recentally under the name of Zombie Studios makers of the online F2P MP FPS Blacklight: Retribution, looking at their previous games they've developed I'm not sure what to expect.....
  • Ice & Fire (1995)
  • Locus (1995)
  • Zork Nemesis (1996)
  • ZPC (1996)
  • Spec Ops: Rangers Lead the Way (1998)
  • Spec Ops: Ranger Team Bravo (1998) (Rangers Lead the Way expansion)
  • Spearhead (1998)
  • Body Glove's Bluewater Hunter (1999)
  • Spec Ops II: Green Berets (1999)
  • Spec Ops II: Operation Bravo (2000) (Green Berets expansion)
  • Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Covert Operations Essentials (2000) (Rogue Spear expansion)
  • Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol (2000)
  • Spec Ops II: Omega Squad (2000)
  • Spec Ops: Ranger Elite (2001)
  • Spec Ops: Covert Assault (2001)
  • Alcatraz: Prison Escape (2001)
  • Atlantis The Lost Empire: Search for the Journal (2001)
  • Atlantis The Lost Empire: Trial by Fire (2001)
  • Delta Force: Task Force Dagger (2002)
  • Super Bubble Pop (2002)
  • Shadow Ops: Red Mercury (2004)
  • Saw (2009)
  • Blacklight: Tango Down (2010)
  • Saw II: Flesh & Blood (2010)
  • Blackwater (2011)
  • Blacklight: Retribution (2012)
  • Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition (2012)
  • Special Forces: Team X (2013)
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Way of the Warrior (Plug and play CMOS camera video game)
  • Daylight (2014)
  • Phantom Army (2014)
 

GHG

Gold Member
To ne honest, i'm surprised more games havent been delayed with Covid basically meaning studios have lost 4 or 5 month dev time, and i dont believe the staff than can work from home can make up for that. I include next gen games, and the console launches themselves in that as well. Really surprised they havent been delayed.

Depends on how their work flow was set up and how motivated the studio/deva were.

Some will have experienced little to no drop off in productivity. Some software development companies have actually experienced increases in productivity levels as a result of all of their staff working from home.

Not everyone will be using covid as an excuse, not everyone needs to.
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
It's going to suck regardless, and screw them for dropping Chris Avellone from the project over Twitter gossip.
I hate how they go from "HEY YOU LOOK WE HAVE CHRIS AVELLONE !!! IT'S COOL RIGHT !! HEYYY HOOOO LOOOOOOOOOOK YOU LOVE HIM AND HE IS WORKING WITH US" to "Uh yeah, Chris Avellone briefly worked with the Bloodlines 2 writing team early in game development so... no problem right ? RIGHT ?????"
 

FireFly

Member
Bloodlines looked fine in its day and the facial animations were top-grade. As for the second part what gives you hope 2 will deliever on that it.
Perhaps subpar was a little strong but I don't think it had the graphical fidelity of HL2. To me Bloodlines 2 also looks "fine" in this sense.

I don't know that it will deliver on these elements. My point was that it should be judged as an RPG, not an action game.
 

Roberts

Member
To ne honest, i'm surprised more games havent been delayed with Covid basically meaning studios have lost 4 or 5 month dev time, and i dont believe the staff than can work from home can make up for that. I include next gen games, and the console launches themselves in that as well. Really surprised they havent been delayed.

True. I was also thinking that not everything can be done at home. You can't really record dialogue or VO at home, you can't motion capture at home, etc.
 

KaiserBecks

Member
Yeah I thought the same. The fact that Microsoft even thought it was a good idea to show it during their first look reveal of third party games kinda sheds light on how Halo Infinite was greenlit to be shown in that state. They seem to have no standards at all.

The first game is a cult classic. I'd assume they made it part of the show in order to have some hardcore appeal. People only focusing on the game's technical aspect kinda shows that it probably was a bad move though.
I haven't been following the development but since none of the original team members of Troika Games have a hand in it afair, I don't really care for the game.

Bloodlines looked fine in its day and the facial animations were top-grade. As for the second part what gives you hope 2 will deliever on that it.

Let's not make it sound better than it actually was. The game profited from the "Half Life 2 Engine!"-hype, but it was a technical mess at release and ironically to this thread, a perfect example of how that doesn't matter as long as the game is awesome at its core.
 

Ellery

Member
I genuinely can't even be bothered to read the apologies anymore. Nowadays I am much more surprised when a game isn't delayed.
 

Teslerum

Member
Let's not make it sound better than it actually was. The game profited from the "Half Life 2 Engine!"-hype, but it was a technical mess at release and ironically to this thread, a perfect example of how that doesn't matter as long as the game is awesome at its core.

I'm not, I was there. I still know exactly what the reception was.

The game was absolutely a technical mess, but the graphics, especially the art style, were fine for 2005. And the facial animations in dialog were praised to the point where you had people joking for a long time how facial animations in rpgs didn't match Bloodline's.

Both of these things are true. I'm not exaggerating any of it. Some examples from reviews

Bloodlines is a mostly great-looking game, though it's not on the same level of visual quality as that certain other game featuring the same graphics engine. Even though Vampire's graphics do have some rough spots, like flickering textures and clumsily edited cutscenes, they're still impressive for a role-playing game.

But I haven't said a word about the visuals. Most of you know by now that Bloodlines uses Valve Software's Source engine. This doesn't include physics, animation, or character models, but you get lighting, water effects, some great shader capabilities, and those eerily realistic eyes that follow you as you walk past. In a word, the game looks great.
The faces of the characters can be awesomely realistic, particularly with The Sheriff, Skelter, VV, and the Baron of Santa Monica.
 
Most unimpressive game of “next-gen”, up there with Bugsnacks and HI. The animations in particular felt like something from the PS360 era—that weird, stiff movement at the joints as if everyone were a marionette.

Still don’t have high hopes for the game, regardless of the delay.


If we've learned anything from Bethesda is that you can ship janky animations with weird face textures and still get GOTY..
 

PresetError

Neophyte
People that's goig to play Bloodlines 2 doesn't care that much about graphics and performance. This game is all about letting loose the fantasy of roleplaying as a vampire and all kinds of twisted desires.

What has been shown of Bloodlines 2 makes me think the problems with this game are deeper than outdated graphics and animations. The world doesn't feel alive and the gameplay is underwhelming for 2015 standards.

 

supernova8

Banned
The first game is a cult classic. I'd assume they made it part of the show in order to have some hardcore appeal. People only focusing on the game's technical aspect kinda shows that it probably was a bad move though.
I haven't been following the development but since none of the original team members of Troika Games have a hand in it afair, I don't really care for the game.

From the only info I can find online, it looks like the first title likely barely even breached 150k copies (solid 72k based on initial sales so if we generously double that..), so that's a very very cult game. Cult to the point that the vast majority (possibly 90% or more) of people watching Inside Xbox wouldn't know what it was. Seems like the kinda thing you'd announce separately.
 

jaysius

Banned
The worse thing about getting this game on console is that it'll be a huge fucking mess, and like the first one on PC you won't be able to get the community patches that actually fix the game.
 
The sheer ugliness of the game aside, the studio (Hardsuit? I had no idea who these devs even were until this game) doesn't have any experience with RPGs so that's a problem as well outside of the questionable trailers they've shown. If the game was a shooter, I'd feel slightly better, but that's not Vampire, so... yeah.

It boggles the mind why Paradox even went with Hardsuit beyond it must have been a very cheap option, they certainly don't have a stellar resume. Still, I think they have one dev from the original game working on it (?), but I don't know if one person can save it, especially if the overall systems design and game design is shitty (I'm just irritated there's no Nosferatu, even though there are NPCs that are). Most of the other original devs have scattered for elsewhere, so I couldn't tell you who's heading up the game design except that it wouldn't be hard to outdo the first game even if you did a terrible job (I haven't seen the resumes of the design team).

I don't think it's enitrely the dev studio's fault, though, I think Paradox also had to fire their production liasion to the game - apparently I saw someone mention this on Twitter, but he "departed" this month on LinkedIn, so things can't be great on the publisher end, either - a new producer means new problems, I'd expect.

I wanted to have high hopes for this game, but nothing is filling me with confidence and definitely going to wait for reviews (and likely a cut in price). It's too bad.
 
People that's goig to play Bloodlines 2 doesn't care that much about graphics and performance. This game is all about letting loose the fantasy of roleplaying as a vampire and all kinds of twisted desires.

What has been shown of Bloodlines 2 makes me think the problems with this game are deeper than outdated graphics and animations. The world doesn't feel alive and the gameplay is underwhelming for 2015 standards.



Jesus, that Dislike to Like ratio in that video is priceless. If someone approved this video, they should definitely be part of the "organizational changes" coming to the game.
 
New: Also, wow - looks like the Creative Director for Bloodlines 2 got the axe in July (Martin Cluney?), and the Paradox producer (Christian Schlutter) got the axe this month.

Guess they are cleaning house, that's not an encouraging sign.
 

Barakov

Member
This whole thing looks like a dumpster fire. This thing looks like it would be questionable even on a deep sale.
 

AGRacing

Gold Member
hUSEozU.gif


Another one off my list. Depressing.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
I'm hoping we still get something decent, though I'd prefer more than that. With all of the shifting they've had during its development I think the delay will help it out across the board. At least I really hope so. I have NO idea why they were showing game footage as early as they were, it looked like it wasn't in the best state for that. In the long run it feels like they were being rushed to show gameplay.
 
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zeorhymer

Member
New: Also, wow - looks like the Creative Director for Bloodlines 2 got the axe in July (Martin Cluney?), and the Paradox producer (Christian Schlutter) got the axe this month.

Guess they are cleaning house, that's not an encouraging sign.
Marting Cluney did work as a level designer for FEAR and that did moderately well. On the other hand, Christian Schlutter did Blood Knights(360) and Dark(PC). Both games were abysmal according to Metacritic. Not sure if they're going to change direction at this point or tweak things there and there to make it on the new schedule.
 
This "sequel" is a sequel in name alone with almost no connection with the development culture and individuals that worked to create the first game, and that whole Avellone debacle caused a negative stigma associated with the game. There are 0 expectations that it will live up to what made the first one such a endearing masterpiece of a game that remarkably transcended its technically unpolished state.

People that's goig to play Bloodlines 2 doesn't care that much about graphics and performance. This game is all about letting loose the fantasy of roleplaying as a vampire and all kinds of twisted desires.

What has been shown of Bloodlines 2 makes me think the problems with this game are deeper than outdated graphics and animations. The world doesn't feel alive and the gameplay is underwhelming for 2015 standards.



The problem i see is that they took too much inspiration from the original and basically copy-pasted its technical presentation, which is remarkable. The animations, crowd density, the world, etc. shown all look eerily familiar to the original, which is a problem because the original is 16 years old. The bigger problem is that the expressiveness of the facial animations are worse then the original, which is baffling to me. I honestly have no idea what is going on in their heads.

I'm not one to ever judge a book by its cover, but in this case, it is remarkable that the effort to replicate Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was aimed into a completely wrong direction.

From the only info I can find online, it looks like the first title likely barely even breached 150k copies (solid 72k based on initial sales so if we generously double that..), so that's a very very cult game. Cult to the point that the vast majority (possibly 90% or more) of people watching Inside Xbox wouldn't know what it was. Seems like the kinda thing you'd announce separately.

Don't go by sales the same way you'd go with sales comparatively to home console releases. This is a PC game with legs that have been stretching since its initial release and is selling to this day via platforms like GOG and Steam. It's generally regarded as one of the greatest role playing games ever made and is well known among RPG enthusiasts and PC gamers with an inkling interest in classic role playing games. It is a cult classic, but is in no way, shape or form obscure. It also has a relatively decent modding community that has been actively polishing the original release for a while now.
 
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supernova8

Banned
Don't go by sales the same way you'd go with sales comparatively to home console releases. This is a PC game with legs that have been stretching since its initial release and is selling to this day via platforms like GOG and Steam. It's generally regarded as one of the greatest role playing games ever made and is well known among RPG enthusiasts and PC gamers with an inkling interest in classic role playing games. It is a cult classic, but is in no way, shape or form obscure. It also has a relatively decent modding community that has been actively polishing the original release for a while now.

Fair enough, SteamSpy suggests 500k-1 million owners on Steam. Cult but yeah as you say not 'very very' cult. Not really my thing but I was mostly turned off by the very outdated visuals. The actual game and its mechanics seem interesting.
 
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