02/09/2023 Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 has been re-revealed at PAX West and The Chinese Room developer is now confirmed as The Chinese Room. This article has been updated to reflect that.
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 has been lurking in the shadows for almost three years now ever since Hardsuit Labs was removed from the project. But, now it has been confirmed that the new developer of Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is little British indie studio The Chinese Room.
Originally spotted by ‘Ros96’ on Reddit in December 2022, an interview posted on The Chinese Room’s YouTube channel shows some monitors at the two-minute mark with a menu that looks almost identical to what we saw in gameplay back in 2019. The purple color scheme and moody streets also fit the gothic Seattle that the game was set in.
While this wasn’t confirmation, The Chinese Room has been hiring extensively over the last year and is still hiring, including for a triple-A project in Unreal Engine 4. A post for a Game Director, which can be seen via an internet archive, listed the role as being suitable for someone “with a background as a Lead Game Designer and experience of and interest in relevant genres such as first-person games, narrative, action-adventure, RPG, horror”. That sounds a lot like the boxes Bloodlines 2 fits into as a first-person RPG.
And, it turned out to be true as at PAX West The Chinese Room confirmed they are now the lead developers on the RPG, with the game set to arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC in Fall 2024.
This will by far be the studio’s biggest project to date, having worked on smaller titles like Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture and Little Orpheus. It will also be the first time the studio has ventured into the RPG genre.
However, reactions on Reddit suggested fans were cautious, especially since there are now almost two decades’ worth of expectations. Questions are also being raised about whether The Chinese Room will be able to handle a RPG of this scale with a title as big as Vampire The Masquerade, as highlighted by old Bloodlines 2 screenshots.
Could Bloodlines 2 be one of the best RPGs of 2024? Only time will tell, but the brutal gameplay shown in the announcement trailer above certainly looks promising.