Paradox Interactive has been hinting at a new Vampire: The Masquerade game earlier this month. The publisher now owns White Wolf Publishing, the creators of the World Of Darkness IP which includes Vampire: The Masquerade.
The tease started with the appearance of an odd dating app called Tender, that looks normal at first glance. But then mentions of the occult and supernatural kept appearing. The app also requires a link to a Paradox account.
This then leads to a long Alternate Reality Game (ARG) where players participate in unraveling puzzles and secrets, including one where players have to go to an escape room in New York, with camera feed livestreamed on Paradox’s Twitch account.
The whole ARG has been documented by the Game Detectives Wiki here.
Leading up to GDC, Paradox’s Twitter account has been promoting the Tender app, and a few days before that, screenshots were posted. Those in the know easily spotted the links of all of this to Vampire: The Masquerade.
Today, one final livestream and ARG event culminated with the launch of Tender, which then led to vampires to appear on stage. The ARG was to announce Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines 2.
This is a full sequel to the cult classic PC game, which is great first-person RPG developed by Troika, founded by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky- the duo behind Fallout and now The Outer Worlds. The sequel is developed by Hardsuit Labs, and has Brian Mitsoda as lead writer, who previously involved with the original game.
Take a look at the trailer:
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will have you roam the city of Seattle this time as the supernatural vampire. Enhanced combat, and a new mechanic called resonance where feeding can yield different bonuses to stats are the first few things we’ve learned from the reveal Twitch stream.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will be out on PS4, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Paradox Store) and Xbox One in Q1 2020.