Last week, it was revealed that upcoming open-world RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 would launch in October with two of its important, playable vampire clans locked behind $22 day-one DLC. This didn’t go over well with folks online. Now, the devs behind the sequel are planning to make some changes.
On August 19, Bloodlines 2 developers The Chinese Room and publisher Paradox announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live that the long-awaited RPG sequel was finally launching on PC and consoles on October 21. This followed a lengthy and rocky development cycle, so for many fans, it was just nice to know Bloodlines 2 was actually going to come out. However, people soon discovered that two of the RPG’s six playable vampire clans would be locked behind a paywall, which led to a backlash from fans. Now, likely in an attempt to calm everyone down before a scheduled upcoming stream, the studio is promising changes.
On August 27, the official World of Darkness Twitter account posted a link to a Bloodlines 2 livestream happening today and shared this message about the DLC controversy as a reply:
We are listening to you about Bloodlines 2 & the Lasombra & Toreador clan access, & we’re making adjustments to reflect this. We will share more information about this as soon as possible. Until then, join us TODAY on Twitch at 5PM CEST, where we’ll be showing off the game!
This is similar to a message that was posted by a community manager in the official Discord server for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, as spotted by GameSpot and ResetEra users.
Fans were so upset about the clans being locked behind day-one DLC because in Bloodlines 2, vampire clans are a very big part of the RPG. They help determine your playstyle, affect the game’s story, and offer unique powers and abilities. And sure, you can technically get any clan’s powers by leveling up and spending enough resources, but it’s much harder to get abilities that aren’t offered by your selected clan. So locking two of them behind a paywall that requires you to buy an extra DLC or the most expensive version of Bloodlines 2 was a frustrating choice.
Last week, the devs told RPS that the reason for locking some content behind DLC was that Bloodlines 2 had expanded beyond what was planned, and extra work had gone into making more and more content for the RPG. I also imagine Paradox wanted extra dollars after years and years of rocky development and delays. While I get that making games ain’t cheap, locking clans behind a paywall was never going to go over well.