Bloodlines 2 publisher says it's "making adjustments ahead of launch" in response to "feedback about the Lasombra and Toreador" clans being locked behind paid DLC

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 publisher Paradox seems to be walking back its choice to make two of the highly anticipated RPG's clans, essentially classes, locked behind paid DLC.

In case you hadn't heard, Paradox recently unveiled a few different editions of Bloodlines 2: the $60 base game, the $70 Deluxe Edition that tacks on some cosmetics, and the $90 Premium Edition that crucially includes two additional playable clans, the Lasombra and the Toreador. Those clans, as far as we know right now, aren't available by any other means.

The backlash to the two essentially paywalled clans has been swift and unrelenting, and until just now Paradox has done nothing but double down, recently saying, "It's not uncommon for games to come out with additional content."

It now seems it's changing its tune. Over on Discord, and spotted by the eagle-eyed people on Resetera, Paradox community developer DebbieElla seemed to suggest there's some sort of change of plan.

"We are listening to your feedback about the Lasombra and Toreador clan access, and we're making adjustments ahead of launch to reflect this."

Of course, in an ideal world, Paradox would just come out and say, 'never mind! We goofed. All clans are available to all players day one!', but it seems more likely that it'll come up with some sort of compromise to meet in the middle.

"We will share more information about what this means as soon as possible," DebbieElla said.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced Paradox backed itself into a corner here. So much of the damage, PR-wise, has already been done by the publisher simply showing it's willing to pull something like this, and the only response I can think of that would at least partially earn back that goodwill would be a complete reversal, but pre-orders are already live and have been for a week, which means people have presumably already purchased the Premium Edition expecting those two additional clans as an incentive.

If Paradox decides instead to just give everyone the two clans regardless of how much money they spent, I can imagine Premium Edition adopters won't be happy. I'm definitely curious to see how Paradox wriggles itself out of this one.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is not the faithful sequel I'd hoped to see, but maybe that's a bigger marker of progress than it seems