There’s a good reason why Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was quite a surprising announcement. This is a sequel to a 15-year-old game that is good, but mired with bugs and glitches in an age where such problems at launch really make a bad impression.
Plus, original developers Troika has gone defunct and the umbrella IP it is part of, The World Of Darkness, has switched ownership over the years.
But that didn’t stop the folks at Hardsuit Labs to make “a ballsy move”- pitching a new sequel to Bloodlines to new IP owners Paradox Interactive, which succeeded.
Speaking to Noclip, Narrative Lead Brian Mitsoda explained how Hardsuit Labs, a new development team, landed a deal to make a sequel to the RPG.
“The day that [Paradox] announced that they had the IP, Ka’ai Cluney, who is the creative director at Hardsuit, a great friend of mine, and he just texted me with the ‘What would you think about working on Bloodlines 2?’” he said.
“And I’m like, what?”
As surprised as Mitsoda got that text, he and Cluney started to brainstorm ideas of a possible Bloodlines 2 like the setting and the story.
Paradox bought the World Of Darkness IP from fellow Scandinavian publisher CCP Games (of EVE Online fame) in 2015. Hardsuit Labs then pitched the ideas to Paradox on February 2016 at DICE, which net them the deal.
Despite the simplicity of the process, Lead Producer Christian Schlütter from Paradox, clearly indicated in the interview that that is the biggest, riskiest way to pitch a new game.
“If you know any studios work, it’s a probably a death move,” Schlütter said on the way Hardsuit did that pitch. “You put a lot of time, effort and in turn, also money into creating a pitch that you can pitch to exactly one partner,”
“And if they already have something, or they’re actually not looking for something, or they don’t take it, then you have wasted all of your efforts,”
“So yeah it was a ballsy move. But it paid off,” he concluded. “Yeah, definitely a moon shot,” Mitsoda chimed in agreement.
You can watch the full interview by Noclip here. They also made a good job of explaining why there is so much excitement still about Bloodlines.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will be out in Q1 2020 for the PS4, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Paradox Store) and Xbox One.
Also, for those in Southeast Asia, thanks to Steam’s regional pricing, it’s bloody cheap to pre-order.