I just want to gush about this for a while. Let me know if there’s someplace else I should post this too.

I wasn’t expecting Bloodlines 2 to be very much of an actual successor, it seemed like it had development roadblocks that changed the scope to something that would resemble a different kind of game. But it really IS the sequel. I wasn’t expecting that, it just keeps hitting on all the notes. I want to talk about those and just say why it’s delivering since it garnered so much doubt.

City Vibe: Seattle is designed with a vibe in mind. I’ve never been to Seattle but the NPCs, the environments, and the dialogue are all evoking a certain perception of the city that even my hodunk yeeyee ass could read. The characters are freezing and complaining about the weather, it flavors every interaction with mortals. The anarchiddies got west coast cant and aesthetics. Everyone is dressed in coastal culture statements. The named characters are serving absolute Cunt. And not just on a level that you expect from vampires, it’s like queer scene within the queer scene. Just very fresh but also somehow what you’d expect when somebody says “Seattle Dracula”. This is an improvement on VtMB1 where you really only saw unique Cali vibes in certain moments.

Facial Animations: Not something I usually give a damn about because it takes way too much work to get right and doesn’t really hold back good storytelling. But holy shit. These are the most living characters I’ve seen in a game. They have TICKS. Their mouths have to move to accommodate their deformities or vampire teeth. Some of the best examples I’ve seen so far is the Bruja Sheriff who’s visibly straining to slowly enunciate hateful threats around his massive jaws. The Toreador primogen has a stutter or a shudder not unlike Parkinson’s that is punctuating her words as she flirts. The former Prince shutters from sarcasm to benevolence to vapid titulation multiple times through a statement in a way that evokes somebody who’s been forcing performative affectations for so long that they now simply let them all run together. These are really cool things just to see from the way a character speaks IN A VIDEO GAME. As somebody who was never really won over by the faces of AAA games, this is a crazy thing to suddenly get to notice

RPG mechanics This was the thing I expected to be lacking the most. It seems like VtM games eschew most of the game system to only focus on a few specific abilities and even as comically simplified as the system for B1 was, no games have reached even that point in complexity. But B2 actually got to that threshold again. Sort of. Your main character’s clan will effect dialogue, your first passive ability, and the ease of which you unlock certain disciplines. It doesn’t affect your physical appearance, sadly. But there are plenty of customizations available to you, and you unlock clothing based on the clan disciplines you purchase. Which I thought was unusual and creative. The disciplines themselves all seem to be combat abilities so far. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be using Vamp powers for dialogue. The second character you play as has a suite of his own clan disciplines specifically for conversations and they’re VERY interesting.

Fabian and the Malkavian problem So if you follow ideological discourse surrounding TTRPGs you’ll know that White Wolf has always had a history of writing progressive concepts into their games since their inception. The games were always woke, die mad. But as our understanding of things like mental health has evolved it gets prickly on how to handle things like mental difference. Malkavian vampires are prickly to write and prickly to handle and after the way Jeannette/Therese Voerman appeared it just didn’t seem like many would be willing to risk trying it again. Because ideas change and sometimes even beloved material ages poorly. Which isn’t bad, it just feels prickly and publishers don’t like prickly. I didn’t think Malkavians were going to be in a video game again for a long time. I didn’t think Malkavians were ever going to be depicted well in visual media at all. Fabian has changed a lot about the amount of faith I have in video games handling of mental difference.

At first he’s too chipper, too accommodating of expository dialogue to fit the idea of a crime investigator in a WoD game. But as time goes on you realize he’s not upbeat just to sell worldbuilding and bounce off the main character with a customer service face. This is his mental difference and it affects everything about how he moves through the world. He expresses grief through his jokes, he brushes off rude remarks with a pained smile that I CAN HEAR. Dude’s attitude is all he has in a world that is much more brutal than him, even as he shuffles through other people’s minds with a cold but chuckling casualty. His powers even reflect his difference, his clan ability allowing him to mentally disassociate as he traverses the city to reach important conversations. 10/10 Malkavian, this was never supposed to look this good in a video game.

The Sleeze If you still love VtMB in our year of our Lord 2025, you probably are either just nostalgic or you’ve developed a taste for grimy, sleezy, cynical, pulp skung the likes that edge lords were making in the early 2000’s. If like me, you are the latter then welcome home King. The sequel has the sauce. It’s got the sleeze. Drink up and enjoy, and may the vibe never be forgotten. I’ve yet to find a club where I can bust it down sexual style to Lacuna Coil but judging based off what I’ve seen so far I know it’s here. There seem to be clubs for all the clans to inhabit so even if I’m no longer GOATing those dancefloors to regain humanity I KNOW that’s not a place where Phyre could ever conceivably not dance.

Anywho, if you read this whole thing thanks for hearing me out. I’m just stoked as hell with this game and didn’t expect it to be this good. If you were on the fence or hopeful but got put off by the reviews, go buy it now. It’s still got it.