Here's how Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 might have looked before its development reboot
The game is now in development with another secret studio
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 screenshots have appeared online, revealing how the game looked before it was given to another developer.
As spotted on ResetEra, one former developer has shared a series of screenshots supposedly from Hardsuit Labs' version of the game on art-sharing website Behance. The screenshots include a menu screen, gameplay screenshots, a dialogue select section of the game, various locations, and a map. As pointed out in the post, "some of these may be conceptual HUDs."
What’s interesting about these screenshots is that they show an almost complete-looking version of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2. From these images, we get a pretty good idea about what the Hardsuit Labs version of the game would have looked like.
Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 was originally in development with the Seattle-based developer, but the studio was pulled from the project by the game’s publisher Paradox Interactive and the game was delayed indefinitely at the start of last year. At the time, Paradox didn’t give a full explanation as to why the decision was made, it just revealed that a new studio had taken over.
What studio is now working on the game remains a mystery but, in an interview in October 2021, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester said that the new development team is "a very reputable and talented developer who has made a number of different games in the past," but doesn’t really give us a clue as to who it is. Wester also revealed in the same interview that the game was close to being scrapped altogether but was saved thanks to a very convincing pitch.
Want to know more about the Vampire series? Find out why Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt devs say they "always hoped" Bloodlines 2 would come out first
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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at 12DOVE before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.