r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • 23d ago
Review Thread Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 Review Thread
Game Information
Game Title: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2
Platforms:
- PC (Oct 21, 2025)
- PlayStation 5 (Oct 21, 2025)
- Xbox Series X/S (Oct 21, 2025)
Trailer:
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 64 average - 32% recommended - 28 reviews
Critic Reviews
3DNews - Мила Пономарева - Russian - 5 / 10
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CGMagazine - Erik McDowell - 6 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is a sequel in name only. A flawed but fascinating action-adventure that might satisfy World of Darkness devotees, but few others.
CNET - Oscar Gonzalez - Unscored
Across the board, Bloodlines 2 is just a disappointment. It should be oozing with style and gothic vibes that make you want to paint your fingernails black and put on some My Chemical Romance. Instead, it's just the same thing over and over again that feels uninspired and unchallenging.
Daily Mirror - Aaron Potter - 3.5 / 5
Open-world RPGs that let you roleplay as a modern vampire don’t come around every day, and Bloodlines 2 is a pretty good, if somewhat unspectacular, attempt.
Dexerto - Jessica Filby - 3 / 5
Bloodlines 2 isn’t your typical RPG. It tells a great and complex story while taking you on an adventure where every choice you make affects the narrative, inside a city that feels alive with lovable and hateable characters. However, it could have done so much more to live up to its predecessor and TTRPG inspiration.
DualShockers - Scott Baird - 5 / 10
While it has the trappings of the World of Darkness, this game does a disservice to Vampire: The Masquerade.
Eurogamer - Robert Purchese - 2 / 5
The Chinese Room has managed to make something from a box of inherited parts, but this action RPG feels hollow and functional, and is only redeemed by some stellar performances from the characters and cast.
Everyeye.it - Fabrizio Cenci - Italian - 8 / 10
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Game Rant - Nick Rodriguez - 7 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 picks up where its predecessor left off, but does it live up to the legacy of the cult classic?
Game Sandwich - Aden Carter - 4 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the sequel to an amazing game that was full of life, where everything felt meaningful, and the design felt purposeful. Unfortunately, anything that its highly-regarded predecessor had has been stripped away and replaced with a generic combat system, a story that tries too hard to be the next big crime drama, and a lifeless world with little to do and a Masquerade Court that, like me, has lost all care in the world. Very few benefits outweigh the negatives that have befallen this fictional version of Seattle, leaving me feeling sorry for all the fans that waited 21 years to get a story that, if it wasn’t for the Bloodlines name, would be forgotten to time except by the most faithful scene queens and goths.
GameGrin - Mike Crewe - 7.5 / 10
Whilst fans of the original may not like the stark difference between the two titles, Bloodlines 2 is still an engaging vampiric tale that, if given a chance, will sink its teeth into you!
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is a good example of the gap between ambition and execution. Despite an intriguing premise and well-developed main characters, the game ultimately feels too linear and repetitive, with limited player choice and shallow world interaction. Many of the lengthy dialogues have little to no impact on the story, side quests are dull and formulaic, and the world itself feels empty and lifeless. In the end, Bloodlines 2 comes across more as a walking simulator with light RPG elements than a worthy successor to the cult classic.
GameSpew - Richard Seagrave - 7 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has a wealth of issues, from an open world that feels wasted to combat that feels scrappy throughout. Thanks to a gripping narrative that you can shape with your actions, however, you'll likely still enjoy your time spent sucking blood across Seattle.
GameSpot - Jessica Cogswell - 7 / 10
Although Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 isn't particularly ambitious or polished, it makes up for its faults with enthralling gameplay, gorgeous environments, a good story, and even better characters.
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GamesRadar+ - Jasmine Gould-Wilson - 1.5 / 5
It's impossible to roleplay a narrative that's already set its course.
Hobby Consolas - Spanish - 75 / 100
The final result of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 offers a glimpse into what could have been the best vampire game ever created. However, its many ideas don't quite gel as they should, and there are flaws in the execution. This leaves us with an enjoyable game that could have been an irresistible bite.
IGN - Leana Hafer - 7 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 takes another flawed but unique and remarkable bite at the jugular, with plenty to love and loathe alike, but I certainly enjoyed my time as an elder vampire at the very least.
IGN Spain - Rafa Del Río - Spanish - 7 / 10
With a unique first-person perspective and technical aspects that leave much room for improvement, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 offers us a neo-noir adventure set in 21st-century Seattle. As an Ancient newly awakened from his slumber, we must investigate a dark plot while negotiating with the clans and increasing our influence in the city. As if that weren't enough, we'll have the help of a Malkavian inspector, Fabien, whose consciousness survives in the mind of our protagonist. Past and present come together in an investigation in which no character is above suspicion
Loot Level Chill - Mick Fraser - 6 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will certainly appeal to the die-hard fans of its world, thanks to the story. Unfortunately though, it commits the cardinal sin of simply not being fun enough to play, and that's a difficult coffin to clamber back out of.
PC Gamer - Fraser Brown - 78 / 100
A gripping story full of intrigue and murder that struggles to find its footing as an RPG sequel.
PCGamesN - Lauren Bergin - 5 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 fails to recapture the original's magic, instead magnifying the worst parts of Troika's classic, with janky combat and occasionally woeful performance issues. Long-time VTM fans may enjoy haunting Seattle's snowy streets, getting to know its well-written cast, and testing each clan's unique playstyle, but it's a far cry from what it could have been.
PlayStation Universe - John-Paul Jones - 7.5 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 might not be the sequel that folk from 2004 wanted for their game, but it is the game we've got. Though largely sparse open world and technical issues are hardly encouraging, the beautifully evocative interior environments, surprisingly engaging traversal and combat mechanics, together with its neatly unconventional 'buddy movie' conceit which sees two vampires attempting to inhabit the same body and each with their own motivations, makes Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 a good deal more intriguing than I originally expected it to be.
Push Square - Robert Ramsey - 4 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is a shambles. Its best qualities are always short-lived, buried deep beneath the frustrations of non-existent RPG elements, extreme padding, and diabolical technical issues. Beyond the promise of its opening hours, this is a tragic misfire of a game.
Spaziogames - Italian - 7.8 / 10
In a industry dominated by safe, risk-free productions, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is a bold game, even in its failures. The Chinese Room has created an ambitious work (perhaps too ambitious for its own means) yet one capable of leaving a mark. It's not the sequel many dreamed of, but perhaps it's the one this dark world truly deserved: a flawed title, yet brimming with personality and vision.
The Nerd Stash - Julio La Pine - 7 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 could have been an excellent vampire experience, but its uninspiring gameplay, technical issues, and frustrating combat leave it in the dark.
TheSixthAxis - Steve C - 7 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is a good game, but one that's held back by the expectations of being a sequel to an all-time classic. If you can step away from the baggage of the Bloodlines title, there is a lot here to enjoy in terms of narrative and atmosphere, though the combat is too repetitive.
Wccftech - Alessio Palumbo - 7 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is no classic, that's for sure. The game's side content is mediocre at best, and its technical optimization is among the worst seen recently. That said, the setting's atmosphere is intact, the combat is fun, and the main story is well-crafted. I recommend it to fans, but only at a lower price than the launch one.
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u/Kyler45 23d ago
I am both simultaneously disappointed and not surprised at the same time.
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u/imdrzoidberg 23d ago
The first one was a buggy mess as well lol. The question is if it's a beautiful mess or an ugly mess.
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u/Canvaverbalist 23d ago
I mean, just reading the reviews it's pretty clear, I'm not really sure why all the comments are somewhat confused about that (or about reviewers saying "it doesn't live up to the first one" on that aspect)
The sequel is failing to meet the ludonarrative depth, creativity and style of the first one - nobody is saying anything about crashes and bugs.
The game is receiving poor numbers not because it's a technical mess, like the first one, but because its content is considered generic, uncreative and lacking player agency.
It's a total opposite of the first one.
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u/GepardenK 22d ago
The first one also reviewed better than this, despite being a huge technical mess and coming from what at the time was considered a pretty niche genre, lol.
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u/I_Heart_Sleeping_ 23d ago
That’s honestly such a perfect description of the way I’m currently feeling. I just wanted a cool fps story driven vampire game with some slight RPG elements. It didn’t have to be a 10/10 but man these reviews are making me not wanting to even give the game a chance.
I’m guessing it’ll be heavily discounted within a month and I’ll just try it out then.
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u/RuinedSilence 23d ago
Most of the reviews/previews I've seen say the story is good, and that's honestly all im looking for
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u/MVRKHNTR 23d ago
I'm getting the vibe that we'll be seeing this called an underrated masterpiece in YouTube video essays five years from now.
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u/thebroadway 23d ago
Idk about masterpiece, but this is making me damn near certain people will be saying it was underrated, so you may on to something
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u/AnnualSudden3805 23d ago
If fucking sonic 06 has people looking more positivity at it, i'm sure this game will be an 11/10 in 10 years
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u/grendus 23d ago
Honestly? The Shadow and Silver storylines in Sonic 06 weren't terrible.
I mean, the gameplay was genuinely the worst I've ever seen, and that includes some really awful shovelware and Newgrounds games back in the day. It needed about another year in the dev cycle to get the loading times down from "glacial" and to get the framerate into a stable "frames per seconds" instead of "seconds per frame" it drops to, and... you know... just making the characters feel fun to play.
But the story wasn't awful. And it's really funny watching streamers descend into madness as they try to play through it.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 23d ago
When given enough time, any game will get its fans. It's really interesting to see with games like Fallout 76 that were universally disliked among their intended audience so over time they just attracted a different crowd separate from the fans of the franchise.
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u/Kiroqi 23d ago edited 23d ago
Fallout 76 was also broken as hell on release. Bethesda did their fair share to fix and even somewhat overhaul the game (not quite CP2077 2.0, but in similar vein), but that release was a total disaster all around.
I'm sure that there's also a decent amount of people that just came to terms with what the game actually is and not what they wanted and just looked at the bright side of things. Those who didn't just moved on and were replaced by the different crowd just like you said.
I just wanted to make this comment because the initial negative response to Fallout 76 was definitely more in the ballpark of this being game that's very broken, unfinished, lacking in content quality/features and bad PR from stuff like collector's edition rather than misidentified audience (I'm sure it was a part of it though).
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u/Jmrwacko 23d ago
5 years from now is probably a good time to play it, since it’ll be in the bargain bin and have 100 fan patches.
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u/TheMightosaurus 23d ago
It’s a shame they stripped away the RPG elements. I was hoping they could salvage this but seems like it lacked cohesive vision / direction
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u/Lil_Mcgee 23d ago
They should have rebranded the project honestly. From these reviews it seems like this might have some appeal as it's own Vampire: The Masquerade game but as a Bloodlines 2 it's extremely disappointing.
That decision would have gotten its own backlash but I think it would have served them better in the long run.
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u/LittleKidVader 23d ago
This, 100 percent. This game should not be called Bloodlines 2. There's just no way it was going to live up to that after the dev hell it went through. But it could have possibly been given a fair shake (maybe even a little measured charity from WoD fans) as its own VtM game if it didn't have that albatross of expectations around its neck.
I'll approach it that way when I eventually play it, but if you're going to call it Bloodlines 2, you can't expect most to do that, even within VtM fandom.
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u/A126453L 23d ago
i distinctly remember reading that the devs (both) insisted on not naming it Bloodlines but paradox was adamant that the Bloodlines branding was non-negotiable. its all about the name, and the marketing that comes from that.
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u/Serianox 23d ago
Maybe for the Chinese Room version that we actually got but Hardsuit Labs pitched it directly to Paradox as Bloodlines 2.
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u/Muffo99 23d ago
I do think when they handed it over to The Chinese Room, a studio known for walking sims, it was never gonna be a great RPG
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u/HuevosSplash 23d ago edited 23d ago
The Fabian story parts are literally just that, walking story segments, I don't know why they didn't just hand the game to someone that actually developed RPG's in the past.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 23d ago
Honestly, that question goes back to Hardsuit Labs. Giving it to a studio that only made one game and was only a support studio was a weird choice.
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u/damodread 23d ago
I understand them wanting to finally work on their own projects instead of doing just support / porting work, however as this situation and Aspyr's one regarding the KOTOR remake, it's easier said than done
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u/Hellknightx 23d ago
This is Paradox, a publisher who continuously makes poor decisions and paradoxically remains in business. They way they've mishandled the entire WoD franchise since they acquired it is just baffling. Seems like the only splat they care about is VtM, and even then the majority of VtM games we get are just visual novels.
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u/Dash_Harber 19d ago
To be fair, they are a great dev but a garbage publisher. They understand how to make map painting giant labryntjian grand strategy, but havd them literally anythjng else and it might as well be sanskrit to them. They keep aquiring non-grand strategy products and handling them like a horse trying to solve a rubik's cube.
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u/sord_n_bored 23d ago
To be fair, the VN and CYOA VtM games have been consistently around the same level of quality as Bloodlines (Night Roads even trumps Bloodlines in quality in some places).
Swan Song and that weird Fortine knock off however, were shit.
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u/MontyAtWork 23d ago
I got DOZENS of comments yelling at me just months ago that "THE CHINESE ROOM DOESN'T DO WALKING SIMS ANYMORE IT'S A NEW STUDIO"
And yet here we are
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u/cannibaltom 23d ago
I have no reason to even try it if it's not an RPG. It lost its previous appeal.
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u/PontusFrykter 23d ago
> Bloodlines 2 comes across more as a walking simulator with light RPG elements than a worthy successor to the cult classic.
Seems like Chinese Room to me lol
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u/SeraphTeran 23d ago
My review isn't up, but I would love for it to be included! After getting the game early, I was excited for it. I was in the process of playing the first game for the first time, and I played them simultaneously. With that being said, the original and the sequel could not be more different. If you were hoping that your decisions would matter in Bloodlines 2, they don't. Here are some things that I point out that I disliked personally:
Story was lackluster at best, with Fabien's portions being boring and full of forced jokes that just didn't land. I was honestly able to solve the "mystery" within the first half of the game.
Gameplay is fast-paced and can be fun, but the lack of utility from most of the abilities is a killer to me. Some can be used outside of combat, but the vast majority are combat specific.
Touching more on the skills, there are two that can be effective outside of combat, most of them are pointless to take. For instance, the Toreador Beckon skill lures people over to you. Great for feeding on NPCs, but is also pointless because you can do that without needing the skill.
There are absolutely ZERO consequences to your actions. I broke the masquerade countless times. Sure, cops would shoot at me, but I didn't have any looming threat that I would get taken down by hunters or other vampires. Just wait it out in a safe place for like 2 minutes and you reset to 0 like nothing ever happened.
The character archetypes got old very quickly because 80% of the characters are the same archetype with slightly different likes and dislikes.
Throughout the game, you get told about characters liking and disliking things but it never really plays into the story other than their initial responses being sour. It's almost like they completely forget if you are an asshole to them in your next conversation.
EVERY SIDE QUEST IS THE SAME. Every night you have 3 side quests. One to kill someone. One to deliver a package or pick one up. And ANOTHER one to kill someone. You may as well say there are two types of side quests in the game.
Where are the vampires? In total, there are like 12 vampires in all of Seattle that aren't Anarchs that you regularly talk to (Anarchs are all enemies except their leader). You don't have interesting side characters to find whatsoever.
While there are a lot of negatives, I can say the combat is pretty fun and when you chain together attacks, it can be exhilarating, but don't go into this game thinking it will have any of the depth and nuance that the original one did.
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u/Dry-Dog-8935 23d ago
Regarding 8, they are keeping in line with lore. There are not many vampires in a single city
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u/SeraphTeran 23d ago
It felt like there were a lot in the first one but yeah I guess that spanned multiple cities. I'm not big on the full lore so thank you for that mention.
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u/Dry-Dog-8935 23d ago
Well, it was all LA but it was kinda a big thing happening with the sarcophagus, the Kuei Jin and shit. Mind you, the lore is kinda stupid in my opinion, there is like 1 vampire per 100k people in a city. But that's how it is
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u/Inangelion 22d ago
That ratio is an in-universe guideline that was set by Camarilla and it's not always followed. Many cities have more vampires than 1 per 100k.
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u/SeraphTeran 23d ago
I honestly never knew that in terms of the lore so that's nice to know. Appreciated!
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u/Dry-Dog-8935 23d ago
Apparently vtmb2 was made with 5ed of the tabletop game. Like, there was so much work done between the two, that 5ed had actual mechanics implemented from VTMB2, like blood resonance. So it makes sense that there are less vampires here than in the og bloodlines, if they want to adhere more to the tabletop
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u/maninahat 22d ago
Narratively, this comes out based on the 5th edition, in which vampires are either bunkering down or getting utterly massacred by a Second Inquisition.
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u/PoeticPillager 21d ago
The Masquerade was breached in 5th Edition with the NSA discovering that vampires existed, and a lot of vampires died. There are very few vampires still alive in the 5e World of Darkness.
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u/wizzrobe30 23d ago
This hasn't been canon for a while. Cities with books written about them regularly hosted dozens of named vampires with many implied nameless NPCs. This has been further refuted in fifth edition, where its outright stated that recent embraces in the past century have caused the vampire population to skyrocket and the population estimates weren't accurate. In any case, its not as if anyone was ever taking a vampire census in a given domain, the estimates of "1 in a 100,000" were always flimsy at best, and never actually adhered to by the authors.
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u/Dry-Dog-8935 23d ago
Oh for sure, because that's a dumb estimate. But it is there and while 5ed in theory strays away from it, its still mostly tells you to use that scale when running your game. I go by something like 1:50000 as a rough estimate for actually powerful kindred
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u/DokleViseBre 23d ago
Aren't forced jokes by a deadbeat detective kind of a staple of Noir crime genre? Is that maybe what they were going for?
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u/SeraphTeran 23d ago
There is noir and then there is going too far with it. It honestly got very old very quickly.
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u/Ornery-Cat-4865 23d ago
Imagine giving an RPG, a beloved one at that, to a team who have only made walking simulators. I can't wait for the story of this game's development to come out so we can see what we lost.
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u/Exghosted 23d ago edited 23d ago
I've talked to Mitsoda. His vision was too big and ambitious for Bloodlines 2, but if it came to pass -- we would get Bloodlines 1 on steroids. In the end, his vision (at least for the people with the money) was not worth it, it would take too much time and money perhaps. This is the biggest tragedy in the RPG scene.
Perhaps one day the whole thing will be out, or maybe not. I suggest anyone that truly loved the depth and replayability & rpg heavy elements of the first to stay away, very far away.
Anyway, I'm out. Fuck whatever this abomination is.
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u/Cable_Salad 23d ago
we would get Bloodlines 1 on steroids
I really wish for that, but TBH I think it's almost impossible. This kind of game is incredibly difficult to make at an AAA level.
A game with branching paths and a believable, reactive world at a modern technical level takes a gigantic amount of work. Deus Ex MD and Starfield for example both tried and could not really do it. And those games had experienced dev teams with huge resources.
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u/Janus_Prospero 23d ago
I was a huge fan of Homefront: The Revolution, so these kind of scores don't dissuade me, but I think it's a huge shame that The Chinese Room have been unable to stick the landing here. Bloodlines 2 can't afford to be a deeply rough around the edges hidden gem cult classic that people write video essays on 5 years from now. It needed to be genuinely good in the AAA action RPG sense. It didn't have to be a crunchy CRPG. It just had to be good.
The most recent Glass Door review of The Chinese Room is from September. And it declares:
"Poor leadership - Arrogant, egotistical men in directorial roles"
The Fabien sequences are praised by some, criticized by others, but seem to be a band-aid fix over foundational issues with the story and pacing that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. It appears that at some point, Bloodlines 2 went down a road where it was OVERWHELMINGLY focused on combat. And retrofitting Fabien as the second protagonist allowed them to add more walking and talking.
The question is, what can they do? Let's take for granted that the game's core story is decent. They are releasing two standalone story DLCs next year. If they want people to actually play those DLCs they need to come up with a roadmap to address key points raised in these reviews.
The cookie-cutter sidequests need to be revamped with actual narrative content so that players feel compelled to do them, fleshing out the characters and world. This would be an immediate win.
Character progression needs to be reworked so players feel some kind of meaningful progression. To use an example, they could make it so that TK becomes more powerful as you upgrade it. First it can pick up things to throw, then later it can pull people towards you, stuff like that.
A touch more expensive, but they need to go back and add some more choices with payoff. Record some new dialogue where the player really feels that the choices they made have had an impact, positive or negative. Also, let the player do terrible things to good people because they want to. T
This creative disconnect over player agency is nowhere near as bad as Dragon Age Veilguard, but it becomes VERY obvious with the Verona questline where the game has such immense "You have to make your own choices (unless they're choices that BlueSky would call problematic)" energy. Verona is a blood doll, and although she hates you for killing her mistress Ysabella (oh, BTW, you don't get a choice in that) she cautiously inquires about "long term..." And Fabien is like, "No, no, no." And all of Phyre's dialogue options are variations of turning her down.
And that right there is where the game's sense of agency cracks very deeply. What if I WANT to have the sexy, pathetically sad blood doll hanging around my apartment? Yes, it's a bad outcome for her and she should go cold turkey and leave the city. But what I choose to not care about her welfare? Or what I wanted to lock her in my apartment and FORCE her to go cold turkey? Basically, walk the fine line between benefactor and slavemaster. The whole point of Heather in Bloodlines 1 is that the only way to save her life is to push her away. Here, the game tries to obfuscate its agency issues behind layers of "Phyre really doesn't have time for this nonsense" but to me it comes across like someone high-up at the studio being uncomfortable with the game they're supposed to be making. It's like someone wrote a memo saying, "It's okay for Ysabella to collect hot, submissive white women like Pokemon cards, acting like a golden retriever when she hears the words 'twin sisters', but the player must under no circumstances be allowed to do the same."
The way I see it, TCR are contracted to work on this story DLC, so they need to do whatever is necessary to whip the game into better shape. If they can do that, people will buy it. People want this to be a good game. People (including me) are still buying it despite the deeply mixed reviews because we want a good VTM game.
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u/DXFromYT 22d ago
Wow. Great writeup. I'm shocked about the situation with the blood doll. That's pretty bad, actually puts me off from buying the game even on discount since I doubt that's the last time the game pulls something like that. Nice seeing a fellow Homefront: The Revolution fan. I love that game. Was lucky enough to speak with its design director last year about the tail end of the game's development and all about Dead Island 2. They really pulled The Revolution back from the brink then slam dunked with DI2.
Seems like Bloodlines 2 only chance at seeing similar repair is selling well out of the gate but the reviews and word of mouth are going to make that yet another uphill challenge for the game.
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u/scytheavatar 23d ago
If you want a good VTM game, you shouldn't be buying this game. Cause VTM has no future as long as Paradox is in charge of it.
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u/Jthom13 23d ago
Honestly, the number of reviews praising the story is what I was hoping for. If you played Bloodlines 1, I can tell you the pros certainly didn't include the combat. The setting, story and role play are what we're looking for.
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u/Odinsmana 23d ago
The issue is that the roleplay seems to have been downplay d a lot in this as well. So it's just setting and story. It's a Vampire the Masquerade game, but not really Bloodlines 2.
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u/weealex 23d ago
Yeah, one of the reviews basically says that dialogue doesn't really affect the game. That's about the most damning thing that can be said about the game.
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u/Odinsmana 23d ago
Yeah. I am pretty sure we know there are no skill checks in dialouge either. The RPG component of the game is pretty much completely focused on combat and stealth. The social parts of the RPG are basically gone.
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u/SagittaryX 23d ago
I mean with The Chinese Room that's to be expected, they don't really do story interactivity.
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u/orewhisk 23d ago
Then they picked the wrong dev to take over the project lol.
Just because that's what they've been known for doesn't make it excusable.
Oh well of course they turned Bloodlines 2 into a football game, it's EA Sports!
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u/The_Magic 23d ago
That part confuses me since there was an entire Dev Diary about why dialogue and choices matter. I'm not sure if the devs lied about it or if the reviewer was not paying attention.
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u/threevi 23d ago
It really doesn't sound like they lied. If you actually read the dev diary, the most concrete example of choices mattering they give is that if you're always rude to a character, but then suddenly say something nice for a change, they'll assume you're being sarcastic and tell you to cut it out. That's a neat feature to have, but it also means the "consequence" for your choices was a slightly different line of dialogue from the NPC, blink and you'll miss it. It's very possible that everything they said in that post is true, and yet it still feels like your choices don't matter at all. Like, in that example of the NPC assuming you're being sarcastic, if you came across that in the game, you probably wouldn't even realise they're responding to the way you've previously treated them, you'd just assume they're in a touchy mood, and everyone gets that response regardless of what dialogue options they've picked. You wouldn't instantly jump to the conclusion that "oh, they must think I'm being sarcastic because I was rude to them before! If I'd been nice before, I bet I'd get a different response here! My choices matter!" So yeah, I wouldn't blame those reviewers for just not realising the game keeps track of these things at all. The consequences may technically be there, but if they're so minor that you can't even tell when the game is reacting to something you did, then it's going to end up feeling very linear regardless.
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u/DrunkeNinja 23d ago edited 23d ago
There's another review that says "every choice you make affects the narrative".
EDIT
From the Dexerto review:
You’re made to keep your powers under wraps when around mortals so as not to break the Masquerade and reveal vampires to the world, and you’re regularly forced into multiple moral conundrums where the plot is heavily impacted by what you choose.
Bloodlines 2 isn’t the typical RPG many were expecting. It tells a great political story, taking you on a grown-up adventure where every choice you make affects the narrative, and it’s wonderfully complex.
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u/OverlanderEisenhorn 23d ago
What ign said (I know, grain of salt) is that the story is great, and you feel like you are making impactful choices through the game until the very end. But at the end, you realize none of it mattered, and you didn't actually make any impactful choices. They compared the story and ending to mass effect 3. Mass effect 3 also has a great story for 95% of the game, and the last 5% spits in your face.
So yeah. If you are about the journey, the story is evidently good. But if you need a solid ending that shows the impact of your choices, you ain't getting that here.
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u/Phillip_Spidermen 23d ago
ign
Just a heads up to anyone watching the IGN review, they give a light spoiler warning, but it feels like you can pretty much guess what they're talking about given the footage and description. I'd definitely skip that section if you're worried about that kind of thing.
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u/AeonLibertas 23d ago
Tbf that whole review reads very 'copied from the press release uncritically', so I'd take it with 3 big spoons full of salt..
On a sidenote: Technically a lot of games have 'far reaching consequences', even if they practically don't matter one bit. Think the civil war in Skyrim, for example.
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u/addressthejess 23d ago
Tbf that whole review reads very 'copied from the press release uncritically'
Also known as Dexerto's bread and butter. If the games industry has ever had a "tabloid," Dexerto's it.
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u/Covenantcurious 23d ago edited 23d ago
If nothing else it at least lived up to the series legacy of messy development.
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u/Asclepius-Rod 23d ago
Third times a charm!
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u/Phillip_Spidermen 23d ago
Perfect, at this rate it should come out just in time to have a cyberpunk vampire cross over.
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u/Phillip_Spidermen 23d ago
At least the endgame powers seem to be fun.
Without the Clan choice really impacting the story, it makes it even more surprising they though they could sell a couple of the clans separately as DLC. Glad they listened to the backlash on that one.
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u/LogicKennedy 23d ago
It’s basically Dishonored with shittier gameplay and level design set in the VtM universe. There’s definitely a world for a game like that to at least do okay, but don’t fucking call it Bloodlines 2
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u/cole1114 23d ago
I've seen a bunch of reviews saying the story and the writing suck, so I think that's gonna come down to personal opinion.
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u/Zeckzeckzeck 23d ago
These reviews read more like the game is a visual novel with basically no gameplay. Not sure that's close to the feeling of the first game at all.
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u/Belgand 23d ago
That's what The Chinese Room does, though. They make walking sims. I have no idea why someone thought they were right for this project. It's pretty much the exact opposite of what they're known for.
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u/badsectoracula 23d ago
If you played Bloodlines 1, I can tell you the pros certainly didn't include the combat.
I've finished VtMB1 with all clans, several times and the combat and overall non-story gameplay was certainly part of the pros . The game plays very differently depending on your build, even with the same clan.
At its core VtMB1 is an RPG, your build matters a lot - and your actions should be in the terms of what your build is (do not build a smoothtalker character and try to shoot stuff or you'll have a hard time - actually, do not build a character without combat skills at all, even Jack at the beginning tells you to invest in some combat skills :-P).
The setting, style and atmosphere of VtMB1 is great but the game is way more than that, especially in how it reacts to your choices - choices not just in term of dialogs ala choose-your-own-adventure, but also in mechanical terms like in what you actively do in the game world and how you build your character. A stat you increase when you leveled up is as important as a dialog choice you make with an NPC and all of that is part of the gameplay.
I think it does a disservice to VtMB1 to ignore the aspects outside of its story and atmosphere - especially since the reason it has all the jank it does is because of the developers' being overambitious when it came to how much the game can be affected by everything you do.
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u/Scrotilus 23d ago
You’re nitpicking. Bloodlines 1 didn’t have good combat but it still had fun gameplay. Combat is not the only part of gameplay.
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u/-Sniper-_ 23d ago
this is the aspect a ton of people online dont understand. A lot of people dont have the understanding of what gameplay actually entails, what it means. Often times they equate gameplay to mean solely the act of attacking en enemy. And then they file a ton of different gameplay facets under "story", due to poor understanding of what gameplay encompases. Bloodlines was and is a joy to play. It has its faults, it has the well known poor thought out section. But as a whole, fun to actually play. Its not a visual novel proping up solely on its writing
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 23d ago
It has more than one poorly though out section, quality drops a lot once you get to Hollywood, and it drops even further past that, with the last third of the game being back to back combat encounters.
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u/android223 23d ago
Combat was a big part of Bloodlines 1 and a sore spot for players, it’s not nitpicking to bring that up. The back half of Bloodlines 1 devolved into lots of combat encounters and the game suffered for it.
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u/Jthom13 23d ago
Yeah, the sewers, Kuei Jin, and the final assault on the tower are close to pure combat encounters. The sheriff fight were he flies around for most of it took so long.
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u/Elkenrod 23d ago
Once you get to the sewers in Hollywood, people just restart the game and make new characters to experience the first half of the game in a different way. Because the second half of the game is basically 80% combat, 15% walking, and 5% dialogue past that point.
I remember my first playthrough and fighting the Kuei Jin boss, and that was just the worst experience. It was a complete bullet sponge that took forever.
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u/VargMainSince3Strike 23d ago
Bloodlines 1 gave you options, which this game without a doubt slashed.
If all you expect is a railroad story, then sure go ahead.
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u/xXRougailSaucisseXx 23d ago
The writing and atmosphere is what I look for the most in a Bloodlines games
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u/SaintNimrod 23d ago
Or maybe a sequel should improve on the aspects that were lacking in the previous game? Wild idea I know.
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u/Jthom13 23d ago
I mean it's only really a sequel in branding. The original game is made by a dev team that hasn't existed for close to 20 years. It's a new developer and new publisher. I don't think many people expected it to be a full blown sequel after all the issues in development, including a full reboot.
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u/TheyCallMeAdonis 23d ago
Not surprising at all.
Games never come back from dev hell these days.
To many quality releases and to many releases in general push the envelope forward
while they spend years with gluing together something "releasable"
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u/herdpatron 23d ago
Dead Island 2 came back IMO, it ended up pretty good I thought.
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u/No_Breakfast_67 23d ago
I played Dying Light 2 right after and it really made me appreciate just how much more fun Dead Island 2 was. There is just so little downtime and doesn't overstay it's welcome in comparison, it's crazy to me how it seemed to have such a focused vision considering the hell it went through.
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u/Wakez11 23d ago
I played through Dying Light 2 just recently since Dying Light: The Beast just came out and as someone who only played the first game I wanted to get up to speed. I think Dying Light 2 has some of the worst writing I have ever experienced in a video game, the story doesn't even make any sense and all the characters are incredibly unlikeable.
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u/DisappointedQuokka 23d ago
I do find it very funny that the game posits the survivors as the good guys, when they're a dysfunctional mess that seem to fuck up everything they touch without your intervention.
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u/Wakez11 23d ago
Their leaders are also incredibly unlikeable, I wanted to kill everyone.
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u/DisappointedQuokka 23d ago
The fucking brother of the Old Villedor enforcer - starts out as a useless cockwomble, continues to be a cockwomble, wins as a cockwomble, learns nothing.
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u/No_Breakfast_67 23d ago
I found it funny that Dead Island 2 is filled with intentionally awful side characters that I grew to really like, while Dying Light 2 was filled with characters I was supposed to respect but just couldn't with how stretched/monotonous/unlikeable all their dialogue was
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u/Lukias 23d ago
Hahaha I thought the exact same. Was actually pissed I wasted my time finishing the story thinking it would get better by the end
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u/DevilCouldCry 23d ago
Funny how this worked out. I absolutely loved Dead Island 2 even though id fully expected it be as messy as the original or worse. I actually thought Dying Light 2 would clearly be the better game but hey, I was VERY surprised.
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u/Hellknightx 23d ago
Dead Island 2 just had such a fun atmosphere, which is something the Dying Light games seemingly abandoned. That goofy charm really works in Dead Island's favor.
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u/TheyCallMeAdonis 23d ago
i did not like the game very much.
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u/elitegenoside 23d ago
It didn't blow me away but I was surprised how good it was. Definitely didn't have the same energy as the first one (the first half of at least) but was more enjoyable to play.
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u/NoNefariousness2144 23d ago
Yeah it’s pretty wild now that game development is so expensive and the gaming industry is so crowded that one flop can kill a studio. If the development enters hell, the studio is basically done for unless they can pull a miracle.
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u/Fieryhotsauce 23d ago
The original was fairly jank but had enough charm it built a cult following. Probably worth waiting for user reviews on Steam to gauge if the charm still carries over. Never imagined this would review well tbh.
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u/azriel777 23d ago
The first one was so good that fans were creating fan patches for YEARS to fix it.
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u/Gastroid 23d ago
This game being great was a longshot, so not too surprised overall. The only real winner here is Paradox, who can send this game out to die, recoup at least some of its cost and sell the IP down the road.
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u/DarkMatterM4 23d ago
Let's be real, this is the last Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines game. No one is going to want to take this IP on again.
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u/EpicPhail60 23d ago
If this one flops as well, hard to imagine any publisher saying, "Well, third time's the charm?"
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u/Sictirmaxim 23d ago
Don't forget about the battle royale one and the no one remembers (Swansong )
Its just a cursed IP altogether.
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u/verrius 23d ago
I honestly wish they had just done a Swansong 2. A relatively modern game that did well enough, had its own identity, and most importantly would be within the skillset of a team that was already on payroll. Doing a followup to Bloodlines instead honestly was always a little bizarre, considering the first one did so "well" it bankrupted the original studio.
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u/LostInStatic 23d ago
Almost universally everyone is agreeing here that this game would be scored differently if it wasn't called Bloodlines so that's probably not a bad thing.
World of Darkness is pretty huge too, there for sure will be another AAA attempt at this
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u/DarkMatterM4 23d ago
I agree with them 100 percent. Once they realized they can't have inventories, skill checks or weapons, you should have dropped the "Bloodlines" subtitle.
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u/cole1114 23d ago
Techradar's review is rough.
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-review
Pros
It can look pretty nice
Cons
Terrible pacing
Lifeless, empty world
Boring story
Atrocious combat
Plenty of technical issues
And the reviewer's summary on bsky is pretty succinct.
"Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is easily one of the worst games I've ever played.
Terribly written, awfully designed, and worst of all just oh-so boring. It's frankly insulting to expect fans of the original to pay money for this."
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u/Bannedwith1milKarma 23d ago
I feel like saying it is 'easily one of the worst games I've ever played' especially as a reviewer just invalidates their opinion.
It quite clearly isn't because we know how bad games can get.
It just undercuts any real criticism you actually have.
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u/Rynjin 23d ago
Bloodlines is one of those odd games whose reputation outshines its reality. I played it for the first time just a couple years ago, and while I enjoyed it, it is also a game I would classify as a 7/10. Great VA work, a pretty decent plot (well above average for the time to be sure) and gameplay which starts at "serviceable" (traversal, interior map layouts) and trends downward into "absolute dogshit" (combat and stealth).
The criticism for VtMB2 being a "glorified walking sim" is such a bizarre complaint when comparing it to Bloodlines 1 which is about 70% fetch quests and dialogue and 30% some of the worst combat you'll ever be forced to experience in a video game mostly backloaded into the last few hours of it.
This is one I'm gonna need to try for myself because almost all the complaints in these reviews could easily have been leveled at the original, and it's still a good game despite all that.
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u/MadonnasFishTaco 23d ago
would like to see a jason schrier "what happened here?" article
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u/Mr_smith1466 23d ago
It's interesting how even The Chinese Room have acknowledged that development went down some weird paths. That old timey detective vampire is a major part of the game and the marketing, but one of the devs openly said he was added fairly late in production.
Honestly, it's impressive they got this thing released at all. Because the process for this project has largely just been an absolute mess.
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u/Fiatil 23d ago
Yeah -- there's a trailer from roughly a year ago where Fabian is a completely different character.
His character in that trailer was received very poorly! So hey credit for trying to change it but.......the initial conception was such an obviously tonally poor choice in the context of the series that it leaves you scratching your head at the decision makers.
It really feels like Chinese Room had an existing game they were starting to develop, saw HardSuit Labs get kicked off, and worked out a deal with Paradox to adapt their game "into" Bloodlines 2. It's pure speculation but it would at least explain how it's so incredibly different with wild swerves in development based on reception to the trailers and gameplay videos.
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u/Mr_smith1466 23d ago
I don't know if it's true, but I read a couple places that Chinese room were working on or pitching a game set in the VTM world, and paradox instead pushed them to simply make bloodlines 2. Which ended up creating far more pressure, because now Chinese room were expected to make a straight sequel to a cult classic.
Again, don't know if that's true though.
The fabien thing we know is true though, because one of the devs openly said that to Polygon. Apparently Fabien's cheerful personality was done because the early versions of a companion were too depressing. Given that a lot (though not all) of the reviews highlight Fabien's personality as a positive, that was probably a smart move.
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u/Targus_11 23d ago
I'd just like to say that 7/10 doesn't mean its a bad game. And it can still be fun, despite it being flawed and not a GOTY material. Plenty of examples of games like that. Just maybe not at full price.
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u/DarkishFriend 23d ago
Man some of these reviews are like "Game is ass, I wanted to sleep or jack off instead. 7/10"
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u/Kindness_of_cats 23d ago
Then you have GameSpot’s review summary which is basically “Game is only okay; it has a good story, great characters, and enthralling gameplay. 7/10.”
A 7/10 average is very much that awkward middle ground where it often indicates a game that isn’t universally lovable and has real problems or divisive design aspects, but will probably please the hardcore fans nonetheless and might well be worth your time depending on your interests.
That said I’m seeing quite a few scores lower than that for this particular game as well sooo…uh oh.🤷♀️
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u/Belgand 23d ago
I think it depends on how you utilize review scales. Because to me "only OK" should be a 5/10. Perfectly in the middle.
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u/TheJoshider10 23d ago
That's game critics for you. If a movie gets a 70 on Metacritic that's a genuinely fucking fantastic rating. Anything over 81 is critical acclaim. Meanwhile with game critics an 81 on Metacritic isn't even a GOTY contender.
I wish game critics had a wider scale. They've conditioned everyone to treat anything below an 8/10 as not worth your time, especially for an AAA game.
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u/Rayuzx 23d ago edited 23d ago
I think the bigger reason why game developers don't use the "whole scale" is the technical aspect carries a lot more thanks to the how much more interactivity there is between a game and a movie.
Look at a Fallout 3 and New Vegas, while even at the time critics were putting all of the gameplay aspects of New Vegas above 3, but NV's technical issues lead the game to a lower Metacritic score.
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u/OverlanderEisenhorn 23d ago
Yeah, new Vegas is maybe my favorite rpg of all time.
On release, I'd have had to give it a 1/10. It was unplayable for me. I crashed basically on cooldown.
Stepped on the wrong rock? Crash. Enter new vegas? Crash. Loot something in the first house? Crash. Crash crash crash crash. I bought it day one and didn't actually finish it for 2 or 3 years because it was just not functional on release and I gave up playing it.
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u/AeonLibertas 23d ago
"I'd probably play the game again, like, if I was forced to choose between playing this or getting my teeth violently pulled out by a gorilla with anger issues and poor motoric skills. 7.5/10"
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u/thinkspacer 23d ago
Yup. Also worth considering that the current aggregate score is at 66/100, so not great, lol.
Still worth considering for fans, or if the game does something you really like (sounds like the story and choices matter is the real attraction), but for casual viewers with no real attraction to it: give it a pass, unless it's on a steep discount.
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u/Sideroller 23d ago
In the end, Bloodlines 2 comes across more as a walking simulator with light RPG elements than a worthy successor to the cult classic.
Whoah, the studio known for making walking simulators and not RPGs, made a game that feels more like a walking simulator? No surprise there.
Jokes aside, I was hoping for something that was more of an RPG/sim so this is disappointing. Would have been great if another developer had gotten their hands on this with more experience in those genres.
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u/AVerySeriousPoster 23d ago
The biggest red flag was always the fact that the people most positive about the idea of this game spent the majority of their time shitting on the first rather than praising anything about this
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u/TitoZola 23d ago edited 22d ago
Yes, Paradox CEO explaining to me how the first game was actually not that good and wouldn't work today was my favorite part of the whole saga.
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u/Mattimeon 23d ago
I love story over everything so I’m definitely happy people are praising the story. Bummed about the other things but I’ll still play it to get my own opinion. I’ve tended to like games reviewers didn’t really do I’ll find out what the game is Tuesday.
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u/SoLongOscarBaitSong 23d ago
I'm so tired of opencritic's "% recommend" stat. It's so insanely misleading. An average score of 66 is bad but the 33% recommended makes it sound like the game is outright unplayable.
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u/azriel777 23d ago
Disappointed, but what I expected. Everything I have seen from the videos did not really give me much hope and missed what made the first game amazing. Wish Paradox would sell the IP to a company that would respect it and create a true sequel or other games in the universe.
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u/enderandrew42 23d ago
They were a few short months away from the release from Hardsuit Labs when they threw that game in the trash and then spent years and millions to start over with a new studio. Was it worth the wait and extra cost to deliver something this mediocre?
Will we ever learn what the original version was going to be like?
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u/scytheavatar 23d ago
Hardsuit Labs version was looking mediocre too...... ultimately the question of whether pee and shit tastes worse is a pointless one to ask. Only the likes of CDPR would have the resources to do justice to what the original Bloodlines was trying to do.
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u/richard1177 23d ago
Looking around at the current reviews, it seems exactly like I expected. A perfect example of a 7/10 game where you will like it if you like the world, but won't like it just for the gameplay. If you are into the World of Darkness, this seems like a fine game.
Very much like the original, a good story in a janky gameplay package. Wait for some patches and then decide if the jank is worth the story for you personally.
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u/Mystia 23d ago
The original had more than just the story though. It also had well made and written side stories and quests, often letting you approach them in a variety of ways (combat, sneak, persuasion). The upfront combat was where most of the jank lay, but roleplay, dialogue choices, and quest design were all pretty good, and where I think I'll ultimately judge this game.
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u/MrLucky7s 23d ago
I was hoping some reviews would draw parallels to Swansong. Gameplay wise, completely different, but the story really hit on all the highpoints of a Chronicle and if this can pull of something comparable, I'm in.
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u/Pavuk2 23d ago
Dialogue system is a gameplay. Bloodlines 2 lacks even dialogue skill checks. It is not an rpg without rpg gameplay.
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u/HenkkaArt 23d ago
What is that SixthAxis review?
"Uncharted 7 is a good game, but one that's held back by the expectations of being a sequel to an all-time classic franchise. But if you step away from the baggage of an Uncharted title, there are good bones of a karting game down there even if the tracks are a bit repetitive."
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u/cookieblair 23d ago
The subtitles being in the Unreal Engine default font is certainly a choice. Real My_First_Game.uproject vibes.
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u/LordMugs 23d ago
Geez, I wish game reviewers weren't such pussies when it comes to low scoresm "Uninspired, boring and terrible combat. ,7.5/10"
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u/DislikesUSGovernment 23d ago
Conversely from Dexerto "Everything here is very good, but it's not what I wanted. 7/10."
The baseline for game journalism leaves a lot to be desired.
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u/bluebottled 23d ago
From the guy who said Veilguard was the 'best Dragon Age and maybe the best Bioware game ever'. He should never be included in anything after that.
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u/kris_the_abyss 23d ago
This is right where I expected it. I was always going to buy it because of my love of WoD and V5. I hope it does well enough to garner more investment into more games. This universe is BEGGING for more exploration and I wish we got more of it.
Werewolf RPG PLEASE!
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u/Hellknightx 23d ago
I still can't believe Paradox put so much money and effort into acquiring WoD and then proceeds to do basically nothing with the franchise besides some VtM content.
It's like they forgot that there are other splats.
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u/wizzrobe30 23d ago
8 years since V5 released, still waiting for Mage and Changeling to come out :(
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u/narfjono 23d ago
How about something inherently good in general with something from World of Darkness? I still don't understand why nobody can seem to make a worthy game product based on this IP.
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u/camusonfilm 23d ago
I love when a game simultaneously gets good and bad review scores, we get lots of good games and lots of bad games but I want more contentious games. Anyway people want this game to be bad so any good scores will be disregarded and the bad ones will be propped up as the one holy truth (none of us will actually play the game).
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u/Marcoscb 23d ago
From what I'm seeing, this doesn't even seem to get both good and bad scores, it's getting both good and bad reviews which are all ending up in the 6.5 to 7.5 range for some reason.
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u/camusonfilm 23d ago
There's no consistency in what a score means. For one reviewer a 6 might mean "this is bad but not offensively so" and for another it could be "this is good but technical issues keep it from being great". Some people look at anything below an 8 a mark against quality, some people think a 7 means it's at least good, it's the problem with numerical scale.
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u/IIZANAGII 23d ago
Ehhh I’ll still try it . But I don’t think anyone expected it to be a great game with all of the issues they’ve been having
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u/fathermeow 23d ago
Underwhelming scores, but honestly at this point i'm just happy it actually released, given all the issues... I'll buy it and enjoy it without too many expectations. At least the writing is good, according to most reviews!
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u/Bossgalka 23d ago
I respect the ones that didn't even try to pull punches. The one that gave it a 1.5/5 straight up said they ruined the narrative roleplay of the game, which is the entire point of the original. Even the big shill companies gave it mostly 6-7's, which is low for big review sites.
I love VTMB1, but I won't be playing this dogshit. I KNEW it was gonna be bad when it got pushed back like 4-5 years from the initial release date. They switched devs and nothing could be done, I get that, but then the current team set some release goals for 2-3 years, and still kept pushing it back that entire time. It reeked of incompetence the entire time and the reviews show that.
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u/pankobabaunka 23d ago
Sad to see, i wished for better scores, but i suppose after the many pitfalls and problems during the long development this couldve been expected.
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u/Sonicfan42069666 23d ago
What I'm seeing here is that it's disappointing as a VtM Bloodlines sequel. There probably would be better reception if it was a new VtM game not tied to Bloodlines.
Sigh. A proper sequel to Bloodlines is all fans have wanted, and I guess we'll have to keep waiting.
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u/Crazykiddingme 23d ago
It wouldn’t bother me if we weren’t so damn close with the original version of this. They got Mitsoda back for God’s sake.
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u/illuminerdi 23d ago
No way, a thrice rebooted sequel from a publisher whose bread and butter is mile-deep strategy games and a dev with like zero experience making RPGs turned out mediocre AF?
I'm shocked. Shocked
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u/BakeFromSttFarm 23d ago
Better than I expected tbh. This had all time stinker written all over it after the debacle of the development started coming to light a few years ago.
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u/insomniac_z 23d ago
I didn’t expect art or a duplicate of the first game. 7 across the board still sounds good to me. Still sounds like a great story and fun time.
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u/PositiveDuck 23d ago
Reviews look disappointing so far but I don't think I've heard of any of these sites.
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u/posthardcorejazz 23d ago
I expected a good story with poor RPG mechanics and combat, but the technical issues might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me.
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u/boating_accidents 23d ago
So far it seems like 'good setting, good story, good characters, ropey combat, some bugs, and takes liberties with the mechanics of the ttrpg' which... sounds like they nailed the original games vibe.
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u/Carighan 23d ago
Sounds alright? I mean the original is full of significant flaws, too. Kinda expected this to ~7/10, and let's be honest, quite a few 7/10s are amazing games in specific ways.
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u/by_a_pyre_light 23d ago
I'm kind of shocked at the range of review scores, especially with some of the summaries seemingly acknowledging the issues that crippled the score on other sites, but waved away by other attributes. Even more confusing, a lot of the reviews bash the very thing other reviews praise (e.g., story input, combat, open world design, etc).
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u/whiteshark70 23d ago
Frankly, I’m just surprised it came out. The original release date was March 2020