VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE: BLOODLINES 2 is a game that was initially announced in 2020 and was set to release alongside Cyberpunk 2077 but was delayed, cancelled, uncalled, and only released this October 21st, 2026. The game’s production has been notoriosly troubled with its original creator, Hardsuit Labs, firing the series creator, Brian Mitsoda alongside Chris Avellone before losing the rights to produce it. The new creator, The Chinese Room, reworked everyone and everything before putting their own stamp on matters.
The premise is an Elder vampire, the Nomad, awakens after a hundred year sleep in 2024’s Seattle. Taking the name Phyre, the Nomad proceeds to get themselves in trouble as they find a Malkavan detective in their head as well as the city’s Camarilla in ruins. The Prince has been assassinated, the Anarchs are in revolt, and there’s a mysterious curse is draining Phyre’s power. The main plot is trying to solve the mystery of this mark, how you got to Seattle, and what faction in Seattle you would like to see rule the aftermath.
The positives first: the game is fun. There’s a lot of joy to be had traveling across the rooftops of Seattle via gliding, stealthing, and feeding. The combat is kind of ass but it’s not so broken that you aren’t able to actually play the game. I was able to begin the game, play the game, and finish the game without any major gamebreaking bugs. It’s a shame I have to list that as a positive but it was supposed to come out when Cyberpunk 2077.
The big appeal of the game is the atmosphere, characters, and world-building, The Chinese Room successfully has replicated the heady Gothic Punk atmosphere of the tabletop gaming. The small segment of Seattle in-game is full of interesting locations and characters. Even so, it still feels pretty empty and could have had more content put in. I do appreciate the side material like Jason Carl as the local weather forecaster and internet personality, Huddie, doing the Bet of Night.
Really, the characters are the best recommendation for this game with Fabien the Malkavian delivering almost an entirely separate game. Roughly a quarter of the game’s content is from his perspective and would have made a decent video game in its own right. I also love Lou Gram, Patience, Prince Ryong, Safia, and Tolly. You will get to know all of them pretty well while the plot twists several times to my genuine surprise.
Downsides wise, the game’s combat is somewhat immersion breaking. Despite being chided for the fact you left a bunch of bodies in the opening level, Phyre will be required to murder a few thousand thugs over the course of the story. Phyre also won’t use guns or melee weapons save with their telekinesis. There’s many places where I wanted to stealth past enemies but the game also made it clear I’d have to destroy them all.
The game also has some areas they could have improved upon with a minimum of effort. Phyre’s customization is poor as you can change your hair to blue but nor your ethnicity. There’s also only one save slot and no manual saving. I’d have appreciated something that listed your Masquerade score as well since I didn’t think that was well-defined. Finally, I think the majority of sidequests for the Primogen were extremely simple and could have been expanded upon a bit.
So is the game good, a worthy successor for Bloodlines, or complete trash? Really, it’s a fine game. It’s a streamlined experience from Bloodlines and would have benefited from having more RPG elements but it is absolutely recognizable as the World of Darkness. I hope that The Chinese Room adds some updates for its systems and maybe a few extra sidequests but I enjoyed the work from beginning to end. I hope its successful enough to have a sequel and has a long modding life too. Still, I can’t help but say it isn’t as great as it could have been.
8/10
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