VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - BLOODLINES 2

The Chinese Room's sequel brings the Phyre

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Take a cursory glance at Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 and you might think the game is in thrall to the cinematic universe of John Wick. Here is another violent, noir-adjacent adventure filled with dapper murderers and delicate alliances. It's set in a world in which a complex network of secret organisations exists beneath the polite urban layer that the rest of us navigate every day. And yet, if you go back to 2004's Bloodlines, not to mention the tabletop RPG game it's based on, all this is in there too.

When he was first approaching development on Bloodlines 2, Alex Skidmore, the game's creative director at The Chinese Room, did indeed go back to the original. He identified this intricate social landscape as the heart of the idea. "When I played Bloodlines, it took me a while to get really what it was," he admits. "And then I got it. It's the dialogue trees, the story, the characters, the politics."

The series had been on a difficult journey by the time Skidmore got involved. The first Bloodlines is beloved, but it was overly ambitious and had shipped in an unfinished state. The sequel was announced in 2019 only to change developers in 2021, moving from Hardsuit Labs to The Chinese Room. Playing through the current build, which covers the early missions, what's surprising, then, is how confident it feels. Bloodlines 2's opening act offers a brisk blend of combat, urban exploration and politicking, all with that rich backdrop of warring vampire clans.