"Paradox Postpones Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Again, Prioritizing Technical Excellence Over Release Date"

“Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, this time until the first half of 2025,” Graham wrote in August last year. Today I write: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, this time until the second half of 2025.

Going by Bloodlines 2’s career to date, I strongly suspect that in the second half of 2025, I or some other lost soul will be writing: “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, this time until the first half of 2026.” Let this news piece stand as a Meeting of the Ways, the profane axle running through past, present and future as the Nine-Eyed Wheel of History bears us down into the mulch.

I would like Bloodlines 2 to do well. It was originally in development at Hardsuit Labs, but Paradox gave them the boot in 2021. The project is currently in the hands of The Chinese Room, who are apparently treating it as a “spiritual successor” rather than a sequel. I like The Chinese Room’s stuff, and while the action-RPG they’re making sounds rather trim and tidy next to the original Vampire: The Masquerade’s scrummage of systems, it also sounds like a game I would enjoy: a moody period adventure with plenty of bloodsucking.

The game is now slated to release in October. According to the above video, Bloodlines 2 is effectively finished and they’re now working on “bug fixing, stability and performance”. It seems possible that the delay has more to do with launching it at the opportune time than a question of tasks leftover. October is, after all, the month of Halloween. That said, the video blurb strongly emphasises the polishing of the tech, which is consistent with Paradox’s past statements about underestimating how much players cared about bugs in Cities: Skyline 2.

“Paradox Interactive and The Chinese Room are committed to delivering this game, and we believe that ensuring great technical quality is more important than sticking to a specific date,” the video commentary explains. “The game is currently in a late development stage, and feedback from the community has been taken into account during this time. TCR is working hard on quality assurance to ensure it is stable and free of bugs that could disrupt the player experience.”

Bloodlines 2 remains one of our most anticipated games of 2025. We told everybody that you’d ship it this year, Paradox. Don’t make us liars. Do not make me use the Mean Girls header again. “It’s hard to be confident about a high-profile sequel to a beloved game when it has been so publicly troubled,” writes Brendy in that 2025 round-up, “but we won’t know until it’s in our hands, and I liked what The Chinese Room did with their Scottish oil rig horror in Still Wakes The Deep. So I can indulge a little cautious optimism.”