Is Vampire Bloodline's development a Masquerade?

 Two

There has been one story that I've been pointedly avoiding for a while now in the hopes that it was all a bad dream. Perhaps I would wake up one day and look at my news feed only to see one huge emblazoned "Gotcha! Sincerely from the folks over at Paradox Interactive" But as we barrel ever closer to the date that was meant to be the originally revised launch window of 'Vampire Masquerade The Bloodlines 2' it's becoming increasingly difficult to deny the truth, that this game that I've been secretly thirsting, what feels like a lifetime, for is undergoing development difficulties. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the kind of difficulties wherein you hear "Ah nuts, we messed up and there's some more bugs than we originally thought there would be" but rather the kind of complications that fester to the point where serious concerns are being raised as to how steady the entire team is right now. I don't want to be the one throwing stones here, but I'm really starting to worry about the game we're going to be getting.

For those unaware, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines has been very important both to me and this blog ever since I started it. I found the game as a recommendation of a recommendation, and it was one of those titles that you hear about and forget time after time. Every now and then I'd bite the bullet and look up some screens and gameplay, but each time I'd come back concluding that it looked kinda weird and bad and completely forget about it. But that changed when one day I ended up getting it on sale and it's safe to say that I never looked back. Rare is it that one comes across a purely abnormal and weird title that completely turns on it's own head so very often and cleverly, with memorable characters, moments and choices throughout. Was the game rough? Yes. Was some of the dialogue clunky? (Especially some of the player's dialogue choices) Yes. But was the game charming enough to endure as one of my favourite oddball RPGs of all time? Also yes. 

And to make this a little more about the blog specifically for a moment, one of my very first blogs I ever did, (hold on... no it was actually my very first blog) was about Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 and how excited it made me. I remember diving into that blog and really enjoying just spilling everything about my personal love for the title, and finally getting my own opinion out there. It also got me to look up things about the game and I was amazed about how many other people loved the things I loved about. And I even found some on the opposite side of the fence, like how some outlet somewhere was criticizing the portrayal of the Voerman twins, which encouraged me to refute and explain how in actuality they were the highlight of the game's writing and completely inkeeping with the lore of the source material. (Also, they were voiced by Azula, so show some respect.)

Somehow this has made the Vampire game deeply personal to me in a manner that I hadn't really expected it to ever be. Thus whenever I read articles about the troubles the game is going through I end up taking it weirdly to heart as though my own child is up there receiving ridicule. (Which is ridiculous, I admit, but that's just the way it is.) Of course, what I'm talking about in this instance is the removal of key staff from the project in very foreboding ways. Recently the senior Narrative designer decided to quit both the game and the company working on it, Hardsuit labs,  a couple of months after the firing of the creative director and the lead writer. That last one especially hit me hard as Brian worked on the original, in fact, he was one of the reasons that I was deeply excited to see this sequel with the promise that it would remember what made the original great. Now he's gone and rumours claim it was a very turbulent departure too.

All of these are like blaring sirens warning everyone that there's almost definitely severe troubles with this game and maybe we should be bracing for something heading our way. I'm not saying that there might be a cancellation, but I don't think it'd be the first time that a VTMB 2 project got canned. That being said the release date has been indefinitely pushed back, so at least things aren't being rushed into a messy sequel that ruins all the things I loved from the first game, but sometimes it doesn't matter how long you dedicate to a project if the ingredients are wrong. And if so many key cooks have abandoned the kitchen, who's to say anyone can even make sense of the recipe anymore. (Is that analogy stretched a little too thin? Maybe overcooked a little? Okay, I'll stop.) I know I'm not the only person who has officially entered nail-biting mode right now, and concerns might be rising within the studio too. (No one is comfortable when the bosses start getting fired.)

But just in case you're perhaps thinking I'm making mountains out of anthills over here, let me direct you to another game that was struck with similar staff departures in the leadup to it's launch. You ever heard of, 'Mass Effect Andromeda'? A game that I still attest came out 4 years too soon, not because it was underdeveloped but because the franchise needed time to become nostalgic before it was bought back; Mass Effect Andromeda has become something of a poster child for troubled development processes. Fraught with complications, overambition, withdrawn resources and key staff turnover: it really is quite telling that it wasn't until the ill-advised early-play sessions with the public that folk started to notice this game wasn't baked nearly as well as it really should have been. Bioware were heroes to the western RPG community before then, and since that mess of a game they have been as much pariahs as modern day Bethesda. (Even though I'd argue Bethesda's fall from grace has been all around worse.) Does a similar fate await VTMB 2? I certainly pray not.

What especially sucks about this was that things seemed so smooth for so long that I actually let my guard down. Truth be told when I first heard about a VTMB sequel my guttural first reaction was distaste in having something that I loved so personally bought out and thrown into the spotlight. It felt like having a memory of mine shared without my sayso, thus I was concerned from the get go and had to turn myself around to the idea. In fact it wasn't until that Christmas themed 'Come dance' trailer that I threw aside all reservations and screamed "Yes! They got it!". Now it seems that I was premature in my celebration and the game we were promised in that brilliant little tease may never make it to consoles. (God I hope I'm wrong.)

So we approach the year end and VTMB2 has been delayed out of 2020 and all news surrounding it has been exclusively covering and speculating on the departures. I haven't the experience with game design nor the sources to definitively conclude what this all means, but I have hope that things may come around on the otherside despite it all. Over everything else I want Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines to be both good and a success, to make up for the cult reputation that it's predecessor has never been able to shake. I want 'The World of Darkness' to hit the mainstream in a fashion similar to how 'Cyberpunk' has and I want to play as a particularly dickish vampire who either learns to have a heart as the narrative goes on or becomes the embodiment of pure asshole by the end. (I was waiting for the storyline to help me decide.) Fingers crossed that these delays don't banish the hope for all those milestones, but just pushes them back. (I put my faith in you, Paradox and Hardsuit)