Published on

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 'is done,' but it's been delayed again to October for 'bug fixing, stability, and performance'

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, after years of delays, is finally slated for an October 2024 release. The developers prioritize bug fixing and performance optimization to deliver the best possible experience, calling it a spiritual successor to the original.

Cover

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 finally has a release month, but one that falls outside the previously announced release window of the first half of 2025. Instead, the vampire RPG will launch in the appropriately spooky month of October.

"The status of the game right now is that the game is done," executive producer Marco Behrmann says in a video announcing the news. "We are currently focusing on bug fixing, stability and performance so that we can deliver the best experience to you guys once it releases. Bloodlines 2 will release in October this year."

In the video's description, the devs add that "we believe that ensuring great technical quality is more important than sticking to a specific date," saying that community feedback has "been taken into account." The devs are putting a pause on their recent series of dev diaries to fully focus on making the game.

Bloodlines 2 has been a long, long time coming. The original Bloodlines, developed by Troika Games, launched in 2004, and after Paradox Interactive acquired the rights to the Vampire: The Masquerade IP in 2015, it partnered with longtime support studio Hardsuit Labs on a sequel that was originally set to launch in 2019. And then 2020. The delays kept coming until, eventually, Bloodlines suffered an indefinite delay in 2021.

The game eventually returned to the limelight with a new developer in The Chinese Room, known for first-person narrative games like Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, as well horror spin-off Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Today's announcement marks the third delay for the game since its new developer was announced, but hopefully this October will finally mark its actual launch.

Paradox says Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is more of "a spiritual successor" than a sequel, and it "maybe shouldn't be compared to" the original RPG.