Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

Like every game announcement, i'm neutral. No excitement, nothing. Not gonna get hyped up and then when it comes out, it's terrible or just below my expectations.

 

First thing that comes to my mind... First Person...
Screw first person! I hope it allows third person.

 

I'm feeling a mix of fear, excitement, and anger.
Mitsoda, Avellone, Cain, and Boyarsky are on staff, which bodes well. But as I'm sure we all know, there are no guarantees these days.

First person, an assload of preorder bonuses, mention of gender pronouns, just some things I've seen so far that fill me with worry.
I'll remain open minded about the game and hope for the best, but I won't get hyped for this in the event it's a monkey's paw situation.

 

Fuck it, I'm actually excited. If the writing is decent and it'll run correctly without 10+ years of unofficial patches, it'll at least start in a better position than the original. As long as it's still Deus Ex with Vampires, I'm on fucking board.

 

I'm hella hype.

If it's gonna be like Bloodlines, it'll be a mix of first and third-person. So we'll see.

 

I'm getting the game regardless, but it's a mistake to not allow 3rd person options when the original did. Fans of the original are going to expect both. Assuming the devs themselves are fans of the original game, they should know better.

They're probably doing 1st person only cuz of the low budget or something and pretending it's due to immerzhun.

 

But must we be a wretched Thin Blood?

Only pure Malkavian blood for me!

 

In 5th Edition, Thin-Bloods came up with a new discipline called Thin-Blood Alchemy which lets them mimic abilities from other disciplines and stuff not from other disciplines like telekinesis and flying.

5th Edition also introduced Blood Resonance which is, I guess, how they're going to let you eventually increase your blood potential to pick a clan or something.

I'm kind of irritated you can't select your clan at the start, but whatever, I'm all in regardless as I said before. Brian Mitsoda coming back is a big deal for me.

 

Not really interested, to be honest.

It was the same with me and Cyberpunk 2077. News of it being in the works made me feel hopeful, after some information came out, I lost interest.

I bet it will be less RPG and more Action. And this is from series based on P&P RPG systems.

While the first VtM:Bloodlines also had it's fare share of Action, the action was still based on the RPG system. I do hope this one will not water down the system even more... But seeing the "latest" trends on videogames (like everything has to be first person for example), I'm afraid my hopes will be crushed (like Cyberpunk 2077).

 

I am partial to third person, but why should a Bloodlines sequel BE third person?
(Granted the original did allow it, and I think that the sequel should too; but it was clearly meant as a first person game.) It was the same with Oblivion; and interestingly... I recall that Bethesda was blindsided by the [mostly European?] players intentionally choosing to use the —limited/barely supported— third person mode.

 

It's not clear to me.

Troika never implemented the option of playing 1st person with melee weapons. If it was meant for 1st person, it would have a melee FP option too (since that would be the default game perspective), but they never made it at all. While using ranged weapons sucks in third person, they do allow it to happen.


I think it was clear it was supposed to be third person, but they tacked a shaky first person system for shooting. Since they had first person for shooting, they also made it so you could play first and third person if you wanted.

Let's also mention that Troika or Black Isle ever made a first person game before. I'm sure they wanted to make it third person, but couldn't make the shooting be any good in that camera, so they also added first person.

Basically, since the game has quite a lot of combat and bosses that have to be fought, they had to make it use both camera perspectives, or they wouldn't be able to have melee and shooting in any good way.

 

The first thing I noticed about the game was that I could play it third person; and was delighted. The second thing I noticed was that the third person PC animations were crappy enough to discourage [even me] from playing it in third person. I took this to mean that the PC body was never intended to be scrutinized during gameplay*, but was there as an off-screen prop that sometimes came into view during actions.

* I don't know that this was—or that it was consistent throughout development, because the some attention was given to the [at least malkavian and Nosferatu] PC's walking animation... possibly later in development?

**It's funny to watch Faith from Mirror's Edge in third person, because they clearly did not intend for that to ever happen, and it shows. ​

The only times in the game that I recall it using third person, foremost were cutscenes, and on the dance floor; and I took it to be a utility mode. Also the Blood-sucking bite pulled back into TPP—again I took this as use of a third person utility mode for cinematic purposes only. The interactions & conversations (that I recall) were in FPP.

This is certainly something one of the team could clarify if they ever drop in... and they might, to promote Outer Worlds.

_________
Dawn of War was a 3D isometric-styled game that —technically— allowed the player to rotate the camera, but the functionality was there for the cutscene animation. The maps did not account for the player ever turning the camera, and had unfinished areas plainly visible to those who did. VTMB of course would expect turning the camera in either camera mode, and the world would not show unfinished parts... but IMO the PC itself (the animations for it) seemed unpolished. I say the animations, because the PC model is seen during character creation; but the animation used then is specific AFAIK.

 

Honestly, I am not excited.

Paradox screwed me over with Stellaris, pulling bait and switch with ftl types.

Their dlc policy is disgusting.

Maybe 2 years after release GOTY edition.

 

Oh boy! I can't wait for Epic Games to fuck me in the ass and make this a Epic Store exclusive too!

 

• Brian Mitsoda is lead writer (just like the original) alongside Avellone and Cara Ellison (who in particular wrote most of the side quests)
• Set in Seattle
• Seamless hub world
• Takes place 15 years after Bloodlines
• Game starts off with a Mass Embrace at Pioneer Square where player is among the new vampires born from the event, brought upon a court of prominent vampires like the first game to recount the events of the mass embrace before being sentenced to death, court is firebombed and you escape, thrust into Seattle to find out who's responsible
• Player is a thinblood at first, later on you can choose a clan
• No quest markers
• First-person with contextual third-person actions just like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.
• Fan-favourite characters from Bloodlines returning
• You can use telekenesis, turn into mist to go through vents and glide
• You can scale buildings, there's an emphasis on verticality
• Way more dialogue than Bloodlines
• Huge emphasis on character creation. You can choose your background, gender pronoun, employment history, body type and fashion
  “We’re interested in providing a very robust roleplaying experience for the player with something were they can really identify with their character by fine tuning and providing lots of options for them to do that,” says Rachel Leiker, UX/UI designer at Hardsuit Labs.
• Loads of secrets and hidden pathways to find
• Seattle as a hub world is described as "very active", crowds gather outside clubs and muggers prey on victims in side allies, all seamlessly done.
• Main side-questline involves hunting down and finding all the other thinblood created from the Mass Embrace, each will have their own story about entering into their new life e.g you might find a married thinblood struggling to deal with their newfound powers
• Blood resonance from VtM 5th edition will appear in this game. Using your enhanced vampire senses, you can see when NPCs are experiencing an intense emotion like fear, desire, pain, joy and anger. Humans give off a bright aura. Drinking a person with a strong resonance will give you an immediate bonus to things like melee power or seduction. If you drink a particular resonance constantly, you will acquire a taste for it and this will give you permanent buffs called "merits".
  “You might determine as a player that you want to focus on this resonance, or these two. That’s going to drive your hunting experience in the hub, and what types of people you’re looking for,” he said. “It’s important for us to make sure that the player can express themselves in a way that is consistent with who they are as a player, both in gameplay and in customisation.”
• If you continuously suck on people's blood in full view of the public, they'll be less wary of going to those areas and you'll see less citizens wandering the streets (!!)
• Game has modding support
• Emphasis on fluid combat, using vampiric speed to slide in and out of melee range and slash people and execute them with melee weapons. You can get special cinematic finishers in combat when you execute people a la Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Counters are in. Guns exist and are treated as temporary opportunities, you pick em up, use it, then discard it and move on.

No news on who's doing the soundtrack so far :[
(c)RetardEra

Given all the details, we're getting Vampyr 2, first person brawler this time. I already hate this game, bravo Paradox.

 

The original was Deus Ex with Vampires and now this one is gonna be Deus Ex: HR with Vampires...