‘Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’ could launch next year, says Paradox CEO

It’s apparently “not impossible” that we’ll be playing the long-awaited (and much-delayed) Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 next year.

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That’s according to Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester who, in an interview with Swedish website Privata Affärer (via PC Gamer), said that we’ll find out Bloodline 2’s launch date “reasonably soon” and that a 2023 release window is “absolutely not impossible.”

Bloodlines 2, the sequel to Troika Games’ 2004 cult classic Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, has had something of a tortured journey over the past few years. The project was originally being developed by Hardsuit Labs, which a release date penned for March 2020.

March 2020 came and went, and while a lot of things were released upon the world that year, Bloodline 2 wasn’t one of them. In August of that year, the game’s lead writer Brian Mitsoda and creative director Ka’ai Cluney were both let go from the project. Two months later, Bloodlines 2’s senior narrative designer Cara Ellison also departed.

As you’d perhaps expect after all of that upheaval, this version of the game was nearly cancelled – almost permanently, until Paradox handed the project over to another, still unknown developer.

It’s maybe a little odd that, with a potential 2023 release window, we still don’t know who’s developing the game. However it seems that Paradox is keen to keep things close to its chest for now – especially when it comes to nailing down an exact release date.

“If you look at the pipeline, we’ve been a little cautious about announcing things because we got burned a little bit on Bloodlines 2“, said Wester. “We’ve said we’re not going to release anything until we’re pretty sure of an absolute launch date or at least a launch month.”

In other gaming news, Ubisoft has cancelled pre-orders for Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time Remake, but insists that the game will still be released.