Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is a new role-playing game (RPG) set in a Seattle faithfully re-imagined in the World of Darkness.

Players will become the ultimate vampire as they stalk the city streets for prey, maneuver complex political relationships, and balance their need for blood against their withering humanity. 

Created in an act of vampire insurrection, your existence ignites a blood war among the vampire factions who run Seattle. To survive, you’ll choose a clan and enter into uneasy alliances with the competing factions in a world which will react to every choice you make. Unleash your supernatural powers against your prey, but be mindful of your surroundings at all times or run the risk of breaking the Masquerade -- the absolute law of secrecy that keeps Vampire society hidden from humanity.

Paradox Interactive and The Chinese Room shared more details about the second game pillar, the visceral, immersive combat in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. This is a high level look at how The Chinese Room is creating the visceral combat and playstyles. 

The Chinese Room’s Alex Skidmore, Project Creative Director, shared the three gameplay styles: The Strategic Stalker, the Action Brawler, and the Narrative Adventurer. With a focus on immersion, the blog outlines each playstyle’s approach and its unique player experience.

Dev Diary #7: Visceral Immersive Combat

When designing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 combat the goal was to create an action experience that can compete with modern titles. We think of it in three main gameplay styles we want to offer to you all - existing Bloodlines fans, and players who are new to the World of Darkness.

STRATEGIC STALKER

The 1st playstyle we at TCR call the Strategic Stalker: as the name reflects, fans of more strategic combat experiences where staying hidden and using the element of surprise is key will get their vampire predator fantasy. Did you enjoy the Dishonored series, or playing stealth-focused builds in Fallout or Elder Scrolls games? Me too! It gives you time to prepare what Discipline power you’d like to use and when. Once your plan is ready, summoning the powers of the blood, sneaking up on an enemy, distracting them, feeding on them before a fight breaks out or hit and run tactics are options for people who love to play this way.

ACTION BRAWLER

The 2nd playstyle we call the Action Brawler: For players who prefer to jump straight into the action and rely on their fast reflexes and combat skills. Any Clan can brawl but this is where the Brujah shine. You’ll see them in our January gameplay reveal video. Their powers are aimed at dominating close combat. References for this style are action-brawling games like the God of War series, Shadow of Mordor and Elden Ring. It is about being in the centre of the brawl and using your abilities to control the crowd so you can deliver as much damage as possible. We see the above playstyles as two extremes on the same action spectrum, with players being able to play any mixture of the two to find the balance of stalking and brawling that works for them.

NARRATIVE ADVENTURER

The 3rd playstyle we call the Narrative Adventurer: For players who are less interested in combat and action gameplay and want to focus on the fantasy, narrative and exploration elements of the game. We envision that a core of the Bloodlines 1 fans identify with this playstyle and also fans of TCR's titles to date (and a lot of the developers working on the game), so we’re making sure the gameplay pillar doesn’t add action at the detriment of these important players. You can still enjoy exciting battles without having to delve too deeply into the combat mechanics if things like characters and story are more important to you.

So, how do we go about achieving this?

We focus on immersion over complexity: A streamlined control scheme with actions that are easy for all three playstyles to pick up and play. We then build depth on top of these to give longer-term mastery for the players that want it. For example, the defensive mechanic is a dash, allowing players to dodge incoming attacks or reposition. If dodge is used towards an enemy performing a melee attack, it becomes a counter, staggering the enemy - it is fine for players to never do this move, but for those that want a higher skill-ceiling, it is there. How we use abilities is also streamlined, to maintain immersion. Abilities are mapped to the face buttons (on gamepad), limiting the player to 4 available at one time. This is a small enough amount that a player can use them without breaking their flow, but also deep enough, through the different ways you can combine and use them that it keeps combat engaging and fun.

All of this serves our principal of Immersive Combat. We would rather players were thinking about what cool thing they want to do next, rather than how they do it.

Visceral Combat is a stylistic choice we have made as we believe being a vampire should be a bloody business. Feeding plays a huge role in any vampire story and we wanted to give you a cool reason to tear out throats in the middle of a fight. As an Elder vampire, Phyre has become desensitised to violence, and we want the same to happen to the player over the course of the game - maybe being shocked the first time they chop someone's head off, but after a while accepting that violent carnage is par-for-the-course when you are a 400 hundred year old vampire in a city where everyone is out to get you.

The final game pillar in Bloodlines 2 is “Exploring the World of Darkness”. I look forward to talking to you about that in the next dev-diary.

Good night!
Alex Skidmore, Project Creative Director

Key Features:

• You are the Monster: Blood sustains you and powers your vampiric Disciplines. You’ll stalk and feed on the city’s population by night. Use your supernatural powers or raw persuasion on civilians and lure them into deep, dark alleys to sate your Hunger. Beware of breaking the Masquerade though: do not reveal what you are or you risk reprisals - at first from law enforcement and then, well, remember you are not all that goes bump in this night.
• Explore visceral, immersive combat rewarding entirely different playstyles and approaches based on your choice of vampire clan. Will you wade into the fray with supernatural fists, harangue from afar or rebalance your odds by thinning the herd like the apex predator you are? Clan choice supports these playstyles and more
• A World of Darkness: Enter the World of Darkness and rise through vampire society or rail against it. Experience Seattle - a city full of alluring, dangerous characters and factions, not to mention the mortals at stake in the clash of powers beyond their knowing. In this sequel to the cult classic, your choices, plots and schemes will determine the balance of power and what becomes of the city and its people.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX is the official graphics partner of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 and Paradox is excited to work with NVIDIA on bringing real-time ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS technology to the game.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS5 in Fall 2024.