Well, there you go. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 publisher Paradox look like they might be sticking a stake in their rather unpopular plans to sell two of the game’s vampire clans as paid day-one DLC. I say “might be” because nothing specific’s been committed to yet, beyond some nebulous making of “adjustments ahead of launch” in response to fan feedback on the gating-off of Lasombra and Toreador bloodsuckers.
In case you missed the announcement of these two clans being packed away into the £18.69/€21.99/$21.99 coffin of Bloodlines’ Shadows and Silk DLC pack, it came right as the long-in-the-works RPG got a fresh trailer and what should hopefully be its final release date. The only ways to get the clans were to buy that pack on top of the base game, or splash out £74.99/€89.99/$89.99 for the premium edition.
On the Bloodlines 2 Discord last night, World of Darkness community developer DebbieElla emerged from the shadows with what looks like the first inkling of an impending change. “We are listening to your feedback about the Lasombra and Toreador clan access, and we’re making adjustments ahead of launch to reflect this,” she wrote. “We will share more information about what this means as soon as possible.”
That was it, aside from a line promoting a livestream on World of Darkness’ Twitch channel at 4PM BST / 5PM CEST / 11AM ET today, August 27th, which I only mention here in case it turns out to be the place Paradox share that promised info.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
Up to this announcement, Paradox and Bloodlines developers The Chinese Room had been sticking by the call to paywall the two clans. Our James grilled them about it at Gamescom, and the response was along the lines of the Toreador and Lasombra being additional work on top of The Chinese Room’s original plans for the game, so therefore fine to charge extra for.
“We’ve made a huge amount of changes over that time, based on that cycle, if you like, including a massive amount of story content and features and all the rest of it. So we have been expanding it from where we originally planned to land it, I think, constantly, and Paradox have been really good when we go, or when the clients go, or when Paradox go: ‘We should add a bit more here. Let’s push the date back.’ As you know, the date has pushed back, but that has been to fatten it out into something that we feel does land where the players want it,” Bloodlines 2 narrative director Ian Thomas told us.
Meanwhile, project design director Jey Hicks insisted that this ‘extra’ stuff is “not all, like, just fluff that we’re chucking in”. We’ll have to see what these promised “adjustments” look like, but a complete u-turn would rightly miff folks who’ve already pre-ordered the premium edition because it includes these extra clans. We’ll let you know when Paradox reveal exactly how they’re pulling their feet out of all this deathhound doo-doo.