MULTI Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

Sired in an act of vampire terrorism, your existence ignites the war for Seattle's blood trade. Enter uneasy alliances with the creatures who control the city and uncover the sprawling conspiracy which plunged Seattle into a bloody civil war between powerful vampire factions.

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is set for release in the first quarter of 2020, so it’s early to make any real judgments. But the short demo we were shown has tremendous promise, and while it looks like a game from the present, it echoes its ambitious predecessor from the mid-2000s. Asked if the team had considered designing any elements of the game for Twitch and streamers, the project’s creative director, Ka’ai Cluney, stated with confidence that “at no point was Twitch considered in the design.” It’s totally fine, he continued, if players stream the game, and great if they share their unique experiences. But Bloodlines 2 is a game about players making their own choices, imagining their own backstory, and taking their own path.

Maybe this time, the audience will be ready and eager for such an idea.

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Some of my favorite moments from the previous game where seeing just how far you could push social or combat situations in your favor. Though often times they didn't work out in ways that I intended, I ended appreciating the events that occurred, most of which was very odd. From this early look, Bloodlines 2 looks to be a faithful restart for the series, keeping up the adaptive, and incredibly bizarre storytelling. It'll be interesting to see what passes for strange in the eyes of the developers, fifteen years after the original game's release.

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What's really impressive about this first early look at Bloodlines 2, though, is the city itself. You first emerge at the feet of Miner's Landing - a knowing call-back to Santa Monica pier in the first Bloodlines - and explore a city with a pointedly layered history, from the underground streets left in the aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 to the divided lines on the streets above. "There are multiple factions in the city," explains Mitsoda. "What we wanted to do with the story was really reflect modern Seattle. There's really a struggle for the identity of Seattle right now, the music and cultural place that it was traditionally and the corporate and tech business that's transformed the city. There's this idea of how much Seattle can change before it's no longer Seattle. So we made the factions aspects of the old and the new. You can work for different factions, unlike the first game, you can switch factions and you can piss off factions to the point where they won't work with you anymore. We really wanted to give you the ability to change the story the way that you want it to go - you might see things a different way by working with a faction.

"We're based in Seattle - for me, I really wanted to use the history of Seattle, and bring that in as much as possible and make Seattle a character in this game. When it's shown in movies it's kind of glossed over, shot in Vancouver with a CGI Space Needle. There's really not any actual Seattle identity in there. We want to give people the real Seattle experience. Well, with the world of darkness layered on top."

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Combat looks orders of magnitude better than it was in the original, including throat-punching melee attacks, a backflip over the top of an enemy’s head, and grabbing guns on an ad-hoc basis. There was a very nice animation of the character finding out their shotgun was empty and tossing it aside. But I was assured that, beyond the tutorial level, there are opportunities to avoid combat by figuring a way around it in the environment. We are encouraged to look at the world as a vampire, i.e. 15 foot high walls are easily scaled, chairs can be mind-levitated away from doors, vents can be traversed as a cloud of smoke. You can also try to talk your way out of a tense situation, of course. But because I’m not an aforementioned lame nerd, I’ll be picking seduction to do that every time. Because, yes, obviously, that’s still in there too. Ellison described it as a pretty sexy game.

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Those side quests won’t all be dogmarked for you, and you can pick them up in a number of ways. You have a phone, for example, and can find side quests by texting people you meet. In particular, Ellison is responsible for writing a series of side quests involving your fellow thin-bloods. If you want to, you can track down everyone who was turned at the same time as you, and see how they’re finding the transition.

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While the demo of the early stages of the game I saw hinted at conflict and the politics of warring clans, Clooney says it’s central to Bloodlines 2 that the writers (who include Brian Mitsoda, narrative designer on the original game) are actively taking a political stance in this sequel, with its themes of art versus commerce and technological advances versus tradition.
“One of the reasons why that particular conflict attracted us so much was because it’s an inherently political conversation but it’s one of the few ones where it’s hard to… there are valid approaches. The world has to move forward, right?” says Clooney.

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“It is a political game but I think it’s one of those few opportunities that gives us the chance to let people make their own political statement in a way that’s not cheap. I don’t believe you can look at both sides of a political argument without understanding both sides. It’s easy to say this is good and this is bad. But it’s definitely taking some political stances on what we think are right and wrong. In terms of the main conflict what is interesting is it’s one of those truly balanced issues.”

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It’s not just politics where Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 takes a progressive approach. The character creator, which players get to use twice – once at the start to define your human aspects and then a second time later in the game to flesh out your vampire – goes way beyond basic male and female models. Body type, gender pronouns, employment history and fashion can all be toyed with for a very modular build.
“We’re interested in providing a very robust roleplaying experience for the player with something were they can really identify with their character by fine tuning and providing lots of options for them to do that,” says Rachel Leiker, UX/UI designer at Hardsuit Labs.
“In the first game you start out by picking the clan. With Bloodlines 2 because you’re starting as a ‘thin blood’ we give you some backgrounds to what your human self was before being embraced. They don’t so much have a direct influence on gameplay, there are a few minor influences like dialogue options, but we were really interested in following the progression and having the roleplay experience for the player to get a handle on that side of the game before they get a handle on the political clan-oriented side of it. The gamplay becomes very different later in the game [because you’ve chosen a clan]. You grow into it and consciously choose your clan after you’ve explored them. So it’s an informed decision.”

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It’s still called the Masquerade, so if you eat someone in public or turn into a bat in front of a bar you’ll get in trouble not only with the police, but also some beefier supernatural watchdogs. The humanity system returns, so killing innocents brings you closer to the inner beast. It’s first person, but yeah, you can customise your character (including choosing pronouns separately from your body type) and this time you can choose a human background that might affect how you approach problems or talk to people. The two examples I was given were cop and coroner, but if you want a basic start, with no bonuses, you can be a barista, which Mitsoda described as the default class in Seattle.

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The World of Darkness can be fraught at times. The original game traded in careless depictions of sex work and some tired writing about mental illnesses like disassociative identity disorder. You could play as a member of the mentally-addled but prophecy-gifted Malkavian clan, with altered dialogue that, while humorous, danced a fine line in terms of taste. There was even some racial stereotyping for good measure. Meanwhile, White Wolf’s management of the World of Darkness setting has not been without controversy. Last November, the Paradox subsidiary drew criticism for using the real-life persecution and murder of Chechnya’s LGBTQA population as a plot-point in the setting’s vampiric politicking. Paradox fully integrated White Wolf after this incident. When asked about their approach to the setting, the team outlined how they wanted to handle the World of Darkness in 2019.
“It was very of its time,” Ellison said of the first game. “It approached certain topics differently. How we look at stuff has matured since then.”

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“It’s fifteen years later and things have changed,” Mitsoda said. “We have to be very sensitive about how we handle things like mental illness and that was a concern for us and for Paradox, in how we can make a mature story but if we do anything, we do our homework and make sure that we are punching up and not punching down.”
“We talk about these issues constantly,” Ellison added. “Because we care about including people, we want them to feel powerful and sexy, and we don’t want them to feel like it’s not for them.”

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Trayal schrieb:

Ich hoffe sie übertreiben es nicht mit der political correctness. VtM ist kein korrektes Game, eher das Gegenteil davon. Hier gehts um menschliche Abgründe.

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camahan schrieb:

Den hat doch mittlerweise jedes Spiel

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