[No ending spoilers, mild spoilers for the beginning half of the game-ish??]

Okay so, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is tragically bad, and I say this as a Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines lover. I need to also say now this is my opinion, my personal critique, what I think of the game and how I view it.

This game has been in development for eight years, and in those eight years it was bastertized, thrown against the wall, beaten, stretched, gutted and poorly sown back together, eventually presented on a platter after years of delays, changes and overworkings. It is a tragically bad game, as in it makes me sad to see that this is what the namesake has amounted to. I will preface that if you found joy in this game or dont agree that it’s bad then yeah- I am not an objective source, I just have strong opinions as someone who has a deep connection to the original game, has many hundreds of hours in it and likes to believe I know what makes a good rpg. I am also not saying that it’s the artists or the developers or the people who simply were tasks on physically bringing it to life, most of us understand why the outcome was so poor and it was all because it was overturned by execs, poor writing and a lack of understanding of the source material (and additionally the lack of involvement of the original team that brought the first game to life as expertly as it did).

Before I start talking about why VtM:B2 is so bad, I have to explain why VtM:B is so good. Bloodlines 1 remains as a staple of an rpg that captures its genre the best out of any other rpg game on the market, and don’t get me wrong it’s not flawless (i guess) but it is, for a reason, a cult classic and masterpiece . It exists in its little sphere so expertly and you can tell it understands the purpose of itself, if that makes sense. In its humble existence of not-acting-like-it’s-the-next-big-thing-based-off-the-previouse-years-hottest-new-games, it surpasses it. A role playing game in its most simple form is the allowance of a setting in a video game to give you the reins on how you approach the story it presented in front of you, and it will make you feel like you are responsible for the goods, bads and whichever decision you make to further your characters in-game agenda.

Even with the lack of character customisation as we now would associate with rpg’s like Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age or Cyberpunk (those specific games for a reason, pin those to the side for later), it stands out because it has so much effort put in to who you can be through writing. The world is your oyster in Santa Monica, you choose which quests to do first, which to not do at all, how to build your character, who to buddy with and who to make an enemy of, it is robust maybe not in it’s combat mechanics but it’s masterdom in dialogue and interactions between the player and the world. This game will let you voice your anger, frustrations or glee at any given scenario to anyone for both your joy and detriment. It also represents its namesake, the TTRPG, Vampire; the Masquerade, seamlessly through its character sheet, in-game mechanics and social rules.

The game’s flaws work with the game to its advantage and charm, and I don’t know, I am not a game-reviewer and someone smarter than me can definitely tell me why this game is actually flawed and imperfect, but I am beating my chest and sitting here and getting ready to tell you, wrong. I am going to present my points of why Bloodlines 1 works by noting down and talking about the first few events/quests that go down when you open the game and go into some analysis of their purpose. (This entire writing piece is so disorganized, I am so sorry, no symmetry to be found, yes I will gush about the original bloodlines now for too long before I even get to the second game, trust me this is important…to me and in my head).

The game is mature, sexual, brutal and deeply complex and silly at the same time and that’s what I love about it the most. There is no  better way to start than from the beginning. You click new game, are given the opinion to take a quiz for what vampire clan you want to play (which you can skip and just get into customization). You choose your clan, your gender, allocate your points, and then boom- intro game cinematic plays. The game fads from black and you start the game being turned/sired while having sex with the one that turns you (this is visually presented with the room being covered in underwear, used condom packs and just an overall mess, accompanied by moaning and kissing noises), right after the turning has completed, vampires barge in and subdue you and your sire with a stake through the chest, dragging you to a podium where your sire is killed as punishment for turning you by the camarilla.

This establishes two very important things that immediately teach you something about this world. The relationship of sire and kindred as well as the laws that govern the private relationships between kindred.

So, a sire and kindred’s relationship can be sexual. You get turned during an intimate moment, so we learn that turning, like in some media, can be very intense, sexually intimate and the relationship with the one that turned you can be romantic/sexual. You understand inherently, even after your sire is killed, that some kindred have intimate relationships with their sires, and continue to have a deep connection with them. You are now inherently linked, that’s what’s established first thing when you open the game. And then it’s quickly juxtaposed by having the one that turned you executed.

This goes to our other point, soon after it’s established that there is a group of people who enact laws, the Camarilla, and that your sire has broken this law. You see Prince Lacroix, an authority figure enforcing this rule publicly as a teaching lesson. He said that his permission had not been asked for, and you learn quickly that there is some weird vampire population control thing going on. The facism allegory truly makes itself. And the style of execution is also something of note here. Decapitation is by all accounts an old and outdated method of execution, not to forget the publicity of it all being done in front of a crowd of pretty important looking people. But rather than kneeling at a guillotine in revolutionary France, about to be beheaded in front of a crowd, you kneel in the USA in 2004, about to be beheaded in front of a crowd. It's a  mixture of old and new, immediately showing you what these vampires are all about.  

They're executing you via an old method of death, as they themselves are old, but in a public, urban and modern setting, the only difference being the way people are dressed. They’re making an example out of you and your sire, publicly. History clings to this faction, and you’ve just learnt a valuable lesson, you’re in danger. The juxtaposition of this, the young lies just beyond the stage, in the audience, clad in suits, t-shirts and lingeries. As it looks like Lacroix is about to condemn you to the same fate as your sires, a man jumps up, intersecting, cutting through with vulgar language which clashes with the Camarilla’s older and prissy manner of speech. In short, you get your hide saved (or spared) and are escorted out where Lacroix gives you a quest which you must do to earn his respect- you leave, meet Smiling Jack, are given the option of a tutorial and are pushed out like a naked baby in the woods, welcome to the grubby streets of Santa Monica.

Perfect, what do you know about yourself? You’re a nobody who knows jack-shit about anything, as lost as you are curious in a new nocturnal world, you’re screwed in any sense of the word, but the second you talk to your first NPC on the streets and realise you do have some power, you feel your ego pump itself up a little. The power to threaten, seduce, convince, lie to, scare, all at your fingertips, like, hey? maybe this vampire stuff ain’t so bad.

Okay, you have a mission, find this Mercurio guy, probably has to do with that guy who just crawled up the steps of this building bleeding. Let’s go there, or, actually, what’s over here? You aren’t confined to do this mission just yet, a few steps away and you meet a ghoul, find an arm’s shop, go to a club, flirt with some gals, get flirted with by some gals, get side quests, meet characters that barely feel like NPC’s with how life-like they are in their dialogue. You can almost not touch the main quest for a while while you work your streets through Santa Monica, and it feels anything but tedious.

Talking to Arthur Kilpatrick, getting him his bounty hunter back, finding Lily for the Thin-Bloods, looking into ‘the asian guy’ for Knox, or even just dicking around looking through computer logs, records and sneaking into rooms in the hospital to learn more about what the environment has to offer. This is however not to a detriment to you learning about everything without snooping, everything still feels atmospheric and interesting, but these small things reward those who go through the effort of putting points in that lockpicking, investigation or hacking skill. For example, when you enter the hospital and sneak past the head desk lady you meet a doctor named Dr. Malcolm who is taking care of one of his patients. You talk to him, he tells you to fuck off and that he’s busy, but then you sneak around the back, lockpick open some offices and come across a computer, a bit of snooping through emails gets you the information that he is having an affair, cheating on his wife with this lady. You log out, walk back to him and now, with this information, can blackmail him into giving you money, and with high enough persuasion can haggle him out of even more money.

You’ve walked away from this interaction feeling satisfied because with your own skill and curiosity you have managed to turn a situation into your favor, this shows you that, essentially, a lot of things are possible, and there are many things to get things done your way.  

Honing in different skills gets you different things accomplished in interactions. You might need to bloodbuff your way into lockpicking your door if it's not high enough, but because you dumped some numbers into hacking, you can go through basically all the computers in the region. Maybe you can’t sneak too well and get chased by police officers into the sewers, but because of your raw sex appeal, you can afterwards get a drink from The Asylum with just a few sweet words. All interactions have reason and weight behind them, even if that weight is comedic in nature, you can get information about a lot of things from almost anyone, example being Trip  who works at the pawn shop. He woes about how dead Santa Monica is and how practically nothing happens anymore, but this is a ploy to get your guard down because you know in the back of your mind it’s anything but.

It’s power play, think of it as a crude BDSM metaphor, you have no power and you get walked all over, spat on and disrespected by know-it-all bigshots in big ivory towers, strip clubs and jewellery stores, but by the end, you hold the reigns and you decide what happens to all these shmucks who gave you hell. Or maybe you fuck it all up because you made poor decisions and get sunk into the bottom of the ocean, all in all, it’s up to you and your judgment as player and character, and that is freeing. You might not be able to change the Tremere’s hair, eyes or accessories, but it almost does not matter because of how you (/your character) it is at the end of the day. I could go on about the beauty of this game and it’s specific quests all day but we’re here for another issue:

VtM:B2 manages, expertly, to do none of the good parts of VtM:B right, but excels at doing everything wrong. I have to make another big statement before I jump into this though and that is my utterly strong opinion that this game should not have been a Bloodlines game, it was a critically stupid move to make this a Bloodlines game instead of another VtM game. It was set up for failure from day one when it was being built as a sequel to a game which did not require one. I know the reason for it was because they wanted to capitalise on a cult classic and slap a big 2 on the box so they can sell off their new-and-improved graphics, but even in that sense it fails because this game isn’t made for anyone. Original VtMB enjoyers will see its flaws clear as day because they have something better to compare it to directly, and the games attempt at nostalgia baiting old players falls flat because, believe it or not, the game is still playable and accessible to everyone who has at least 2 GB’s available on their laptop and can get it from GOG, patched and fixed and all. New players who have not played the original will be discouraged from getting into it because of, not only its poor marketing and overall hatred from OG fans, but because it is a sequel. But either way:  The first issue to touch on is the foundation.

You play an elder which is already such a big jump from the original but curious to many VtM savvy ears but nails-on-chalkboard for VtMB/RPG likers. You have prestige and you’ve done nothing to earn it, you exist and that’s enough for NPC’s to regard you favorably without you needing to put in the legwork to convince them otherwise. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone because you are already powerful socially, there are no ladders to climb when you are already at the top, because yes the Prince may be the president but you are by proxy the Demi-God who’s only stifled by the cork put on their abilities for now. And. . . . all this, all that elder power, is not actually like that in game? Let me explain

Strangely enough, this game strays so far from its TTRPG namesake that it would make a new player believe that elders aren’t actually shit. I mean look at this guy, all powerful, woke up from an ancient sleep, roamed the earth for thousands of years and has their name steamed across the world to the point where a kindred can recognize them by sight alone, but still they are a subordinate? I don’t mean to sound hypocritical by putting those two points together but it highlights how odd of a choice this was. You are supposed to be immensely important and feared but also at the same time sent on fetch quests by your supposed underlings? The way they tried to bridge this plot hole was by locking your abilities away so it’s only your name that’s known but you have nothing to show for it, but this story beat is weak at best. It’s a complete imbalance of that power play because who, in any given scene, is the one that holds the power? You? Or them? What tension is there if this is how the character you're supposed to play is established?

So furthermore, it has a pacing problem, it’s ‘death by introduction’. Bloodlines 2 stumbles at the starting line. The introduction drags on with cinematic indulgence that suffocates player engagement before it even begins. What made the original Bloodlines compelling was how quickly it handed the reins over, you woke up as a fledgling, hungry and confused, then immediately thrown into the chaos of unlife after establishing the social hierarchy. Here, the game forces you to sit through its own sense of importance, burying player agency under layers of exposition and cutscenes. The decision to not allow players to choose their clan at the outset is emblematic of this issue. You are told who you are, rather than invited to become someone. Even Geralt of Witcher fame, a fully established character, never had this much of his identity pre-written. Bloodlines 2 mistakes “cinematic storytelling” for “good storytelling,” robbing the player of the crucial first spark of ownership that defines role-playing.

The game’s world feels more locked than lived in which takes us to the point of inaccessibility of the locations on the map and artificial gating. Progression is absurdly tied to arbitrary quest completions, particularly the Benny arc, which drags you through an emotionally hollow chain of errands. Benny himself is a narrative void; the game gestures toward his brutality and reputation but never shows it. This "tell-don’t-show" approach undercuts the stakes of every interaction. Why should the player care about Benny, or anyone, if the game refuses to make them real? This design flaw infects the rest of the game: locations that should pulse with life and danger sit behind invisible walls until the plot allows otherwise.

The Glacier Hotel encounter with Ysabella Moore exemplifies this with a giant red arrow and was what set me off completely when I was playing it like jesus christ. She invites you to the Atrium, a space that could have embodied the seductive, decadent essence of the Camarilla, yet you’re denied entry until her death warrants it. The result? A game world that feels like a museum, roped off until further notice.

This game also suffers from a terminal illness called Tell-Don’t-Show-ism. Almost every major event happens off-screen. Blood orgies, hunts, betrayals, alluded to, never experienced. This constant narrative distancing neuters the gothic drama and sensual horror that defined the original. The player walks through the aftermath of exciting events instead of being a part of them. Ysabella’s cult is something we’re told about in hushed tones, but never witness. Benny’s violence is discussed, not depicted. The game fears its own darkness.

The worst part for me was also what was dynamically my favorite part in the first game. Relationships. They lack emotional or narrative stakes. Choices don’t matter; dialogue doesn’t branch meaningfully; your dynamics with characters remain static. The illusion of choice! Conversations drag on endlessly, bloated with faux-clever writing that mistakes verbosity for wit. Fabian, Lou, and other NPCs talk in circles, taking five minutes to express a single thought or plot or quest to send you on.

Where Bloodlines 1 had razor-sharp writing Bloodlines 2 delivers word salad padded with nostalgia references. It wants to sound like Bloodlines, but without the bite. Dialogue that should feel like verbal combat instead feels like being trapped in a lecture about vampire lore that the characters who speak them should theoretically already know and not need to talk about!

I don’t need to be the one to tell you this but the clothes are so atrocious and I know this out of everything is a matter of personal taste, but i would argue it’s a little bit not because of what sculpture it tries to portray. The fashion is bland, the grit is gone, and the game feels vacuum-sealed for mass appeal. Where the OG Bloodlines reveled in its sleaze and grimey early 2000's fashion, Bloodlines 2 dresses everyone like they shop at Vampire Zara. The punk, fetish, and goth influences that defined the original’s identity have been scrubbed into a soulless “modern” aesthetic, proof of what you call “violent corporate sanitization of alternative subcultures.”

The Nosferatu, once grotesque and subversive, have been neutered into quirky outcasts with corporate tech jobs. Their darkness and tragedy have been rewritten into marketable weirdness, erasing the biting social commentary that once made them iconic.

Also the Nostalgia. Where do I begin. Every callback falls flat. The radio host’s return lacks charm; the “Ivory Tower” elevator sequence has no tension; the Nosferatu haven is so easy to reach that it nullifies the mystique. This game weaponizes nostalgia without understanding what made those moments powerful in the first place, context, atmosphere, and restraint. Even the clan outfits look uniformly uninspired.

While the first game is a masterclass of resource management and tension in that lack of it, this game has it as an afterthought. Resource management is a joke. Blood and health are so easy to replenish that tension never takes root. Even on hard mode, the only real frustration comes from stealth missions, not survival. The game suffers from “dragon age: veilguardism”, the design trend of making sure players are never truly in danger. It robs the vampiric fantasy of its necessary hunger, desperation, and consequence.

Meanwhile, the much-touted “ability tree” system gives the illusion of build variety but offers none. Abilities are easily interchangeable, and progression feels flat. The RPG systems are indistinguishable from any modern AAA template, safe, predictable, and sterile. The game had a unique blueprint but chose to dilute itself into the generic sludge of modern design trends.

And back to NPC’s actually, while I will admit Fabian has funny lines and I think the only memorable character in this game, The “voice in your head” trope is exhausted. It was exhausted when it was done the second time. Johnny in Cyberpunk, The Emperor in Baldur’s Gate 3, and Solas in Dragon Age Veilguard, it’s tired. Rather than enhancing the psychological tension of vampirism, it’s used as an exposition machine. It’s derivative, not additive, and reveals a lack of creative confidence. Bloodlines 2 chooses to imitate other franchises’ narrative tricks, fun.

The game reaches for philosophical grandeur, sunlit visions, cryptic monologues, cinematic symbolism, but these moments collapse because they mean nothing to you or Phyre. There’s no emotional anchor. Worse, the narrative ends up making Fabian feel like the actual protagonist; he’s given more depth, agency, and consequence than the player character when he is Dead and you are Not. When the supposed vessel of your self-expression becomes secondary to an NPC, the RPG has failed at its core premise.

And now the cardinal sin: it’s boring. In the end, the greatest crime Bloodlines 2 commits is not being bad, but being boring. For a game about vampires, it has no bite (badum-tzz). For a world about seduction and sin, it’s chaste. For a story about eternal hunger, it is content to sit, safe and bland, in its coffin of corporate polish.

Vampire: The Masquerade is supposed to make you feel something, guilt, desire, power, shame, awe. Bloodlines 2 makes you feel nothing at all. Even 3k words later I feel like this is abridged and not the eternity of what I want to say, but frankly it’s almost 3 AM and my eyes have gone blurry.

I really wish this game was given to the people who loved what it was from the beginning. Also Rik Shaffer,  I want him back.