Sorry, Creatures of the Night: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Has Been Delayed

Late last night, news broke that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 would be seeing an indefinite delay as it overcame another hurdle in its long and arduous development: getting a new developer. Paradox Interactive, the publishers who maintain the rights to Vampire: The Masquerade, announced as part of their 2020 earnings report that they’d be moving forward with the tumultuous sequel…just without its original developer, Seattle-based Hardsuit Labs.

Citing that the pandemic has affected the publisher’s “production pace,” Paradox announced they would be delaying a number of titles, before going in depth on Bloodlines 2. Speaking specifically on Bloodlines 2 the earnings report reads, “We have now chosen to postpone the release of the game further, and we will not be launching the game in 2021. We have also decided that Hardsuit Labs will no longer be leading the development of Bloodlines 2, and we have started a collaboration with a new studio partner to finish work on the game.”

Bloodlines 2, a sequel to the 2004 cult classic Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, has had a long and troublesome development period. Initially scheduled for release last March, the game was delayed to the back half of 2020 before it encountered a second, and more substantial, delay to a vague 2021 release.

Between then and this latest delay, Bloodlines 2 has also lost some of its key talent, most concerningly losing its lead writer and creative director last August before losing their senior narrative designer in October. While the writing’s most definitely been on the wall for Bloodlines 2, today’s news seems to solidify that the game’s development has not been as fruitful as we might have hoped.

Today’s delay seems like an indefinite one, according to the language used in a second statement shared on the Bloodlines 2 official website. While the post first assures that the game is still in development, it also states “since we cannot at this time communicate a new release date, we’ve also decided to stop accepting pre-orders for the time being.”

It later goes on to thank Hardsuit Labs for their contribution to Bloodlines 2, stating, “We’d like to take this opportunity to honor Hardsuit Labs for their efforts and thank them for their hard work on the project. The studio has done a tremendous job in laying the foundations for the game and we hope that you, the community, will also appreciate their contribution to Bloodlines 2.” It isn’t currently known how much of Hardsuit Labs work will be present when, or if, the game launches.

It is similarly unknown who will take over development of Bloodlines 2 or when we’ll next hear about it. The statement on the site concludes saying, “As soon as we can, we’ll let you know what the future development team of Bloodlines 2 will look like.