Hardsuit Labs

Now that Paradox has, after much secrecy, revealed Everybody's Gone to the Rapture developer The Chinese Room as the new developer on Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2, the information floodgates are open, and the studio's latest development update has unveiled a new fully voiced playable protagonist, Phyre.

It's been five months since Paradox Interactive's surprise announcement Everybody's Gone to the Rapture developer The Chinese Room had taken the reins of its troubled Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2; in that time, the studio has been openly discussing its approach to the sequel, with its latest update now focusing on what it's calling «visceral immersive combat».

Keywords Studios has acquired The Multiplayer Group from cloud technology firm Improbable for £76.5 million.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has named its first playable race: the Brujah, who love to settle brouhahas with brutal melee combat. A brief, fifteen second trailer showed a little of that combat in action in The Chinese Room's rebooted take on the RPG sequel. Find it below.

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 (which I'll be calling 'Bloodlines 2' from here on) has had a troubled history. Its initial developer, Hardsuit Labs, fired both the game's lead writer Brian Mitsoda and creative director Ka’ai Cluney in 2020. A senior narrative designer, Cara Ellison, left later that year. Then Hardsuit Labs got booted from the project entirely in 2021.

Following the surprise news earlier that Paradox Interactive's beleaguered Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 is now in the hands of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs studio The Chinese Room, the developer has talked a little about its goals for the rejuvenated project, saying it's building its action around 'doing things only a vampire can'.

The Chinese Room's rebooted version of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 won't be an immersive sim like Hardsuit Labs' version of the game was said to be.

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture team The Chinese Room has been confirmed as the new studio behind the troubled Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2, with an updated release window set for late 2024. It's unclear how much of the work original developer Hardsuit Labs put into the project will carry over into the final version, but you can catch a new trailer above.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has risen from the depths of development hell, two years after Paradox Interactive parted ways with the game's former developer, Hardsuit Labs, and delayed the game indefinitely. The publisher has since recruited Dear Estherand Everybody’s Gone to the Rapturestudio The Chinese Room to work on the sequel to the original RPG from 2004. Bloodlines 2 is now set to arrive in fall 2024.

Paradox Interactive recently re-revealed Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, confirming that the action RPG is now being developed by The Chinese Room (Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture). Of course, until early 2021, the studio in charge of the project was Hardsuit Labs, before being taken off it due to behind-the-scenes development issues– however, the project wasn’t rebooted and started from scratch.

When Paradox Interactive announced in early 2021 that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 had been indefinitely delayed, with developer Hardsuit Labs being taken off the project, many feared the worst, with questions being asked about whether the game would even see the light of day. After all, after the decision was made to take Hardsuit Labs off development, the game almost ended up getting cancelled.

Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2, sequel to the cult classic 2004 vampire role-playing game, has resurfaced in a new version made by a new studio after its development imploded in 2021.

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This certainly isn't what I expected. The troubled Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2, which I'd just about given up on, is now set to release next fall, over four years after its initial intended launch. Paradox Interactive has tapped The Chinese Room, developer of Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, as the studio to bring the fraught RPG across the finish line.

Paradox Interactive has announced that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is back in development with Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs' The Chinese Room.

After several delays following its 2019 announcement, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 hit a major stumbling block behind the scenes when publisher Paradox Interactive announced in early 2021 that original developer Hardsuit Labs had been taken off the project, and that it had been indefinitely delayed. It seems, however, that it won’t be long before we get a long-overdue update on the RPG- and maybe even a release date.