Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 dev diary focuses on the game's storytelling angle

Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer The Chinese Room released a new blog post highlighting how Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will approach storytelling. In a new developer diary, Senior Narrative Designer and Writer Sarah Longthorne shed light on the game's unusual premise, and how it might affect how players interact with its story and the larger world of Vampire: The Masquerade. The post also included some new screenshots and images of characters from the game. This is also the first new dev diary since The Chinese Room was revealed to be Bloodlines 2's new developer, following the removal of Hardsuit Labs and the re-reveal of the game last month.

According to Longthrone's post, which tackles narrative in Bloodlines 2 "from a sky-high perspective, one of the key creative decisions driving Bloodlines 2's premise is the choice to make the player's character not a newly sired Vampire but a once-dormant "Elder Kindred", an extremely old and powerful vampire. The post goes on to liken the player's situation as "Samson in chains" - Elder Kindred are extremely powerful thanks to their age, but the player's character has had their power artificially suppressed to the level of "a mere pawn, to be used and exploited." Players wake up trapped in Seattle, and potentially at the mercy of much younger vampires. These vampires include characters like Lou, Ryong, and Tolly, the last of which is part of the disfigured Nosferatu clan.

Players will need to navigate this new and unfamiliar situation, bereft of power that they'd otherwise have expected to have at the ready. The Chinese Room also worked on establishing particular gaps in the character's knowledge and experience, in part to give players themselves the opportunity to become familiar with life as a Kindred and the setting of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with a tentative release window of Fall 2024.