It is not a Vampire: The Masquerade RPG, it is a visual novel game with some fighting

This was one of the most disappointing sequels I've ever played for any game. They took every aspect that made the original great, and made it worse. The only thing you could argue was improved were the graphics (even that's up for debate). They should have just updated the story of the original, changed the graphics a bit, and call it a day... it would have been a much better game. This game just ends up being a glitchy action game with crappy combat.

Keep in mind I've never written a review before, but this was so bad I had to write one.

Alt+Tab is the hardest boss in this game.

Minimize once and the engine forgets your resolution, refresh rate, HDR, and possibly its own name. Changing resolution does nothing because remembering settings is apparently a premium feature.

Borderless windowed mode isn’t optional — it’s life support. Exclusive fullscreen exists only to demonstrate what happens when an engine panics.

Cutscenes are unskippable, presumably because the devs were afraid you might miss them while fixing your display for the third time.

Decent writing. Great atmosphere. Technically held together with duct tape and hope.

Verdict:
Nice story. Terrible engineering.
QA was clearly a mythological creature.

First 2 hours is go talk to this or that person. There was very little combat. The combat was fun. That's it. This is not a Masquerade game, or an RPG. It's just an action vampire game nothing more. Not even worth the sale price.

Did jumping jacks in the streets, got a masquerade violation.

People claim this only disappoints because of the Bloodlines name. They're wrong. Strip the branding and you still have a fundamentally unsatisfying game.

Everything else could be forgiven - bugs, combat issues (it's honestly satisfying at times, even if profundly repetitive), technical problems. Other games have survived worse. But Bloodlines 2 fails at the one non-negotiable: choices and consequences and delivering a satisfying ending.

Three ending slides. Two are identical regardless of your decisions. The dialogue wheel regularly misrepresents what your character will say. Choices lead to "endings" with no logical connection to what you actually did. The game doesn't just ignore your agency, it pretends it never existed.

Three bosses only and one of them isn't the big bad, that one's actually vaguely killed in the ending slides. A mystery that resolves like someone suddenly remembered they had a deadline.

The real failure? The Chinese Room made their name on environmental storytelling and atmosphere. Those were supposed to be their strengths. Instead, they collapsed on their home field.

Most of the characters feel bland an stiff (I'd say lifeless/soulless but that would be a compliment), completely unmemorable.

This isn't just a disappointing sequel. It's a videogame that forgot the fundamentals of the genre.

The Bloodlines name just makes it more visible.

This is simply a bad game.

To graphic designers I would give A.
To others related to the game I would give F-.

Almost every aspect of it feels like it was made just to check a box. Aside from the visuals and the B-plot of a noir detective story, the game is hollow.

What you actually get:

- A visually impressive but shallow recreation of Seattle, where most of your time is spent running from point A to point B to move the plot, or hopping across rooftops.

- MMO-style side quests — find, kill, deliver — clearly added just to tick a box. They were made to check a box. The developer did not want any side quests to be in the game.

- Absence of variety in combat encounters: no stealth, no dialogue-based solutions, only brute force.

- Social levels that merely dump plot on you. Nothing you do or say has any impact, even when pop-ups claim otherwise. This makes every NPC in the game shallow and one-dimensional. Dialogue choices were made to check a box. The developer did not want any dialogue choices to be in the game.

- Nothing you do in this game matter: piking a clan, dialog options, choices like betray or stay loyal, nothing you do matters. But there are choises in the game. Choices were made to check a box. The developer did not want any choices to be in the game.

- Tremere teach you blood magic. Vampires don’t turn to ash on death. Diablerie is legal in the Camarilla. World of Darkness references were made to check a box. The developer did not want their game to be in WoD.

Elements carried over from the original game, like the flirty radio host or the talking stop sign, are as shallow and devoid of any humor or soul as the rest of the game. They were made to check a box. The developer did not want any relation to original VtMb game.

This is not a VtMB game.
It is not even a VtM game.
It is not an RPG.
It is not even a vampire power fantasy: every other NPC treats you like a delivery boy.

It is just a bad game.

So as a hardcore White Wolf - WOD Fan, first of all, yeah I definitly regreting preordering this…


It has nothing to do with the VTMB sequal at all, nothing. It is a Action button smashing and running simulator. They claimed the Bloodlines 2 title just to make sells.

WARNING SPOILERS

I played this with a good friend on Playstation 5 and it was a total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. We encountered many gamebreaking Bugs even out of bounce Bugs where we had to Restart the whole game, at some point we decided it's enough cause it was just exhausting. Beyond that our most hated Character was Fabien, an Malkavian detective inside your head who can't shut up. The main characteres protayed felt weak and unrealistic. There is that ilusion of open world but it's not, the map is Pretty small and you can only enter Buildings where side quests are located and it repeats over and over again, absolute boring.

So as I said or many of you realized it has nothing to do with VTMB sequal or any orignal lore of WOD. They just stole lore from White Wolf and pretend it will be enough for thoose subculture people type...
And oh boi… where should I start with Lore fails…

Nothing fits together in any possible way, Clans meant Nothing, Generation meant Nothing, age and bloodline meant Nothing, Background meant Nothing, it was protrayed pointless.
There is no RPG System, no humanity System, no inventory, Character creation limitations, no Logical or cool hunter System, the masquarade is potraided as a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Stealth bar...
We play as an powerful elder kindred and get comanded around like a puppy by younger Generations absolute nonsense… I never heard of an elder who gets his permissions or even made sherif by a younger kindred
I can go further but Im just tired of this game.

Don't think about buying this

What even is this? Flat characters, boring gameplay, and a mockery of the VtM vibe. Sellouts!

sigh
its not...Horrible.
but it is very bad

i had to install a mod that made the game look like garbage just so i could run it at a solid 40 frames. combats rough (especially for tremere (thats the clan i like)), its clunky, movement is nice when it wants to work. i found myself more often than not just struggling up walls. (kinda like Assassins creed 1 movement)

the plot was paper thin, which makes sense as to why they wanted to include 2 different plots, the MC, and Fabian. so they could atleast say there was something in the game
theres also no intruige, like yes you gotta find out who put a mark on you. But you can't play the court, cant really influence your surroundings

you dont have to worry about the masq at all. its not like the first where its like 5 strikes you're out. its like a notice meter. that goes down after 3 seconds of hanging out on a rooftop
so theres no penatly for suckin some poor sod on the street through their jorts

took me ~17 hours to beat. and the last like 6 were a slog
I can't in good faith recommend this game for most people to play.