Do you remember where you were when the two-minute teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was first released in 2015? I was sitting in my office watching it online and completely lost it. Star Wars is back, and it looks amazing.
At that time, that flicker of hope exploded into a blazing fire of optimism that never abated. Now, it doesn't matter what you think about The Force Awakens. The movies are the same, there is no changing them or reacting to each movie. But it felt good to be able to live in a place where the fandom had hope again, even if only for a short time.
As a long-time Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop RPG player, I had similar feelings a few years ago when it was revealed that a sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was in the works. It was in 2015, the same year as the aforementioned Star Wars teaser, that Paradox Interactive acquired the company that owned Vampire: The Masquerade along with the rights to Bloodlines. At the time, the company's CEO said a sequel was possible over time.
You could say I've been waiting with bated breath since then. I love TTRPGs and I really liked the original Bloodlines, so this was my time to shine. Now, a decade after the acquisition, on the other side of development hell that saw the original developer Hardsuit Labs snatch the title before The Chinese Room (Still Wakes The Deep) took control, I played the finished version and finally got the taste I'd wanted for so long.
The taste is not good. It actually tastes pretty bad. I can't think of another time I've been disappointed with the outcome of a game I was excited about, including Cyberpunk 2077. Sure, Cyberpunk was incredibly off-putting, but my heart wasn't. I don't understand the whole point of Vampire: The Masquerade, aside from the fact that it likes to throw around almost anything about Bloodlines 2.
Extract the undead heart from the chest of a powerful vampire
The beauty of TTRPGs is that you can build your own character and have a unique experience like no other. This is something the original Bloodlines understood well. The 2004 title didn't go as deep as the tabletop source material, but it was quite notable for its time. Of course, the original Bloodlines wasn't perfect. Combat was repetitive and many of the available builds were incredibly unbalanced to boot.
Still, it was as close as I could have imagined at the time to a TTRPG coming to life. You need to choose your clan, build your character accordingly, and set off.
Now imagine that game. But you just remove all the roleplaying parts. You have minimal control over your player character's appearance (gender, hair, eye color, clothing, etc.). The experience itself doesn't change depending on the option you choose here, so it's already mind blowing.
I chose the male version of the main character, Phyre. Because between the two, he seemed to have the less annoying voice. I was wrong. More on this later.
There is also a skill tree. For whatever reason, there are only 6 of the existing 14 clans to choose from, each of which comes with an introductory set of privileges and some unique interactions. Unfortunately, my preferred clan, Gangrel, was not visible.
But I'm not sure how important my choice actually is. While choosing which clan to partner with (Banu Haqim), I unlocked privileges belonging to other clans fairly quickly, so the starting decisions felt more like a loose framework than anything else.
At the start of the campaign, Phyre, called The Nomad, awakens from a coma (a deep sleep that can last for centuries) to discover the consciousness of a vampire detective named Fabien living in her mind. None of them know how Phyre came to Seattle or why Fabien took up residence in his heart, adding to the surrounding mystery for you to uncover.
Despite my complaints, this setting is very interesting in several unique ways. Because Phyre is a vampire, she can only go out at night. So, as he sleeps during the day, we experience the events in Fabien's life that lead to his death. Doing so will provide context for a number of things you may want to follow up on as Phyre in the future.
Unfortunately, these sequences are very similar to those in which we play as Phyre. Rather boring.
As the story unfolds, Phyre discovers in her hands a mysterious brand that has caused her to forget how to use certain powers (and thus unlock them), and discovers that a group of latent Sabbats are taking over the city.
Sabbath is basically a vampire who has given up on keeping the secret of his existence. They simply kill and eat, fully embracing their inner beast.
As Phyre, you have a lot to do. Your ability to learn, unravel the mystery of the Sabbath, help find out what happened to Fabian, and track down the man who has gone beyond the brand in your hands. All of this could be fun in a game with satisfying depth, but unfortunately not in this game.
Let's talk about Bloodlines 2 itself
I don't know what to say here other than that The Chinese Room misses the mark in almost every way. Bloodlines 2 is a tedious bore to get through. Missions are little more than running back and forth across Seattle in the middle of the night to get up to speed through dialogue with characters or to fend off hordes of generic anarchists.
I didn't time it, but I think I spent at least 50% of my time going back and forth between the maps.
You have vampire abilities, but you can only use each one once before having to drain your blood to refuel. Fortunately, if you time it right, you can bleed your enemies. Unfortunately, doing so is much more difficult than expected, as combat is a pointless attempt at confusing button manipulation.
Except for Vampire Powers, all combat consists of attacking using the right bumper and dodging using the left bumper. This proves to be quite smooth in the opening hours, as the enemies don't swing anything more than sticks. But later it becomes very disappointing. Five or more people, most of them with guns, will jump out at you, and you have to find a way to dispatch them all by running around, throwing punches, and using your telepathy to throw things at people.
The best part of the fight is when you kill the Anarch with your gun. You can use telepathy to pick it up and shoot it at someone else. This is the only time the combat is actually bearable.
Despite being played from a first-person perspective, this heavy focus on melee combat also carried over into Bloodlines 2. The first game allowed players to switch between first-person and third-person perspectives, allowing players to better handle each situation. Not anymore…
The character is not good
As mentioned before, Phyre's male and female voices are comically bad. It feels like a vampire movie from the 1970s, and contains an exaggerated Eastern European dialect. Unfortunately, most of the other characters you meet aren't that strong. ,
I understand that Phyre has been sleeping for a century and is not a Seattle local, but that doesn't make their existence any less ridiculous.
In fact, while I was playing the review, there were only four characters that caught my eye. The first is Fabien, the voice in your head. His sequences take too long to play, but he has the personality of a 1940s PI and is enjoyable. Besides him there were Tolly and Safia, two of the Seattle Prince's closest charges.
The Tolly are a Nosferatu, a clan that sees the vampires being horribly mutilated. Toli has an elongated face, a hunchback, and a sparkling personality. It's very clear that he's queer and talks about his past troubles in San Francisco. He is a very friendly vampire and provides very useful information that you will need throughout the campaign. It was always a rare pleasure to walk out of the building to find him waiting for me.
And then there's Safia, the prince's chief scientist. She has genius intelligence, but is naive when it comes to relationships. And I immediately developed a huge crush on Phyre, making her my closest thing to a love interest in Bloodlines 2. Like Tolly, Safia also provides a lot of information and sends you quests to help you find answers.
Lastly is Katsumi. She is the leader of the Thinbloods, a group of less pure vampires despised by purebloods. She is older, scarred from years of fighting, and the beating heart of this thin story. While almost everyone around Phyre asks him to promote their own interests, Katsumi acts almost exclusively on behalf of his own people. Like Safia, Katsumi is a vampire with a lot of heart.
The rest of the characters are unremarkable. None of the new princes in the city, the various clan contacts you meet, or even the enemies you meet along the way leave a lasting impression.
Do you have any saves for this game?
Unfortunately, I don't think there is one. But Bloodlines 2 has its moments. The biggest of these is the Masquerade itself. In VTM, it is the job of every race (vampires) to keep their existence a secret. They are masquerading as the living world. There is nothing more shameful than breaking up a masquerade and revealing the existence of a vampire to a living being.
In TTRPGs, diablerie, consuming the blood and soul of another vampire, is punished with ultimate death.
Maintaining the Masquerade is a minigame in Bloodlines 2, and it's the only game that remotely lets you travel back and forth to Seattle over and over again. If you are within the gaze of a living person, you cannot exercise any abilities. This will escalate to the point where you will be chased by police who will open fire if they notice. After all, you are a monster.
Don't misunderstand. The way this map is built makes me much prefer a fast travel system, as there are very few points of interest in the distance and there is a lot of distance to cover during missions. I am probably the all-powerful Elder Vampire whose name many people fear. Why do I run down the street again to go to one bar when people tell me I should go to another bar?
Likewise, jumping from rooftop to rooftop like Batman is fun and a great way to traverse the city if you want to avoid Masquerade worries altogether. But most of it has no consequences. Too many times I've jumped off the top of a tall building and landed in front of people on the street with a loud thud and they didn't even notice.
My biggest frustration with Bloodlines 2 is that there's a much better game hidden here. The story is a complex one with many moving parts and guides the player through much of VTM's lore. Under the right circumstances, the Seattle environment can be great.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the epitome of wasted potential. The game is one of the most beloved TTRPG franchises of all time, and the original game has become a cult classic over the years. This is not the sequel we hoped for, wanted, or even expected. It's Vampire: The Masquerade in name only.
- released
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October 21, 2025
- ESRB
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Ages 17+ / Intense violence, blood and gore, sexual themes, nudity, drug references, strong language
- developer
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chinese room
- The narrative and characters have potential, but it's a waste.
- Masquerade minigames provide short bursts of fun.
- Most RPG elements have been removed.
- Character building is limited.
- The map feels large and desolate.
- The voice acting is forgettable or bad.
- Missions mostly involve running around aimlessly.
- Combat is repetitive and not fun
