Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has stunning imagery, but falls flat on delivering on the promise of its presentation

While I was ultimately disappointed by Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 as a sequel to the first game – which is, after all, one of the best RPGs ever made – there are some areas in which it stands up to it. This vampiric portrayal of Seattle, across a narrative spanning almost a century, does feature some striking imagery that'll be sticking with me for some time. It's just a shame that a lot of it feels wasted on this unambitious sequel that heavily de-emphasized the series' RPG elements – this is a world I'd love to get lost in for an epic, goth-tinged adventure. Be warned, opening this coffin has some spoilers for Bloodlines 2 scenario premises, but not outright narrative spoilers.

That's because, for as much as I remember the many different approaches to quests and detailed dialogue of the first game (the silvertonguing matched, surprisingly, by Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong) – the original Bloodlines' locations are just as striking. The bleakness of the Santa Monica starting location and the beach under the boardwalk crime scene, hanging out in The Asylum nightclub, walking the neon-lit Hollywood. These locations were small, but dense – managing to feel like lived-in spaces bursting with possibilities despite having to manage the scope of an overly ambitious '00s game. While Bloodlines 2 is sometimes able to match up to those aesthetics, the same level of ambition isn't felt – which is disappointing. But, successfully, some images will definitely be sticking with me nevertheless.

Welcome to Seattle

Playing as The Nomad – going by Phyre – you're a vampire out of time, an abnormally ancient elder vampire coming out of a century long torpor hibernation. Set in Seattle approaching Christmas in the middle of an equally abnormal blizzard, there's a sense of overwhelm to the environment that carries across in a lot of instances, from the wind-whipped slurry to the glare of neon signs and bright screen advertisements lining every street. Sure, before long, you really notice the small slice of open world you get to run around is painfully empty, but visually it makes a strong first impression.

Which is added to when you meet your first other vampire – one that's not a voice in your head, anyway, as Malkavian Fabien is. Tracking Fabien's corpse, you come fang to fang with Benny Muldoon – a Brujah bruiser and the sheriff of the city's Camarilla faction of ruling vampires, and an immediate asshole. Something happened to the vampire Prince in charge, and this has sent Benny off the rails, hunting personal vendettas with little care for the secrecy expected of the supernatural and no desire to serve the new prince Ryong.

On a rooftop, Benny and Phyre's standoff is tense. Happening in front of a huge neon sign, the lighting is stark and glaring, and you genuinely feel like the thick white snow could be thickly dyed red at any moment. It's a shame, though, that this early framing is the best you get with Benny, his plotline wrapping up with a series of clunky gauntlets in a construction site later on. By the time I'm kiting something like the fifth enemy around a square room while spamming telekinesis to throw garbage at goons, the memory of that neon-lit encounter has already quickly evaporated. Benny's presence in the story even instantly evaporates after that, regardless of the illusion of narrative choice.

Bloodlines 2 has a lot of trouble paying off big moments and characters like Benny. Early on, you have a brief encounter with Ysabella, a glammed up Toreador who invites you to check out her nightclub, Atrium. Buoyed by memories of the original Bloodlines' nightclubs, I was eager to visit, hoping for a quest hub or at the very least to lap up some worldbuilding from supernatural fellows or normies – but it was constantly closed. Ah, it's just for a story mission, nothing I can just poke around. In fact, Bloodlines 2 rarely allows you to talk to anyone of interest outside of story quests or to do repetitive, boring sidequests. Seattle is dead this time of night.

Eventually, I'm allowed inside, through a cumbersomely linear main quest – and I'm pleased to come across some pretty striking visuals and ideas. Entering via private rooms and uncovering what's happened to Ysabella's 'blood dolls', I descend into the bowels of the club where bodies bumping to the music have become an almost literal mass, blocking off staircases and hallways in a kind of trance. There's not much room to explore.

Great, striking stuff – but only briefly. That's about the extent of it. The nightclub funnels you through a downstairs gauntlet against basic enemies, an upstairs gauntlet against basic enemies, and then back down to the first area for a boss fight that also folds in gauntlet waves of basic enemies. The story here comes to a head with a character who I've literally only exchanged a few sentences with because there's been no other way to interact with this part of the world. It's bafflingly poorly paced – and the last we see of this environment. Clubbing is over.

Is it a coincidence that both Benny and Ysabella have upcoming expansion pass DLC slated for Q2 and Q3 2026 respectively? These seem to be prequels set before Phyre wakes up, so won't add much to the bits I found disappointing in the main story, but both quests around these vampires do feel like they're missing a lot at the moment. It doesn't feel like the best decision to me

Old timey

Some of Bloodlines 2's best imagery stems from its century-long narrative – many of the story's beats having been set in motion way back in the 1920s. Playing as Fabien through (way too many) flashbacks, you get to investigate Seattle back in the past, as well as a few days before his encounter with Phyre (meaning there's three time periods in total). The '20s portions are locked only to a scant few interior locations, but it's neat to see how some of these areas have changed.

The highpoint is an early party in the joint ruling Princes' – Rosalind Emmerson and Lou Graham – penthouse apartment. It's a fascinating window into the earlier history of bloodsucking society, something we've not really seen in World of Darkness games before. A particularly striking section of the environment is a blood bar where a dead body lies on a table next to stacked wine glasses and candles, with upside down bodies strung up behind a bartender – all with faces covered in blood-stained cloth. It's like a reverse ortolan bird – a cruelly prepared dish traditionally eaten with a napkin over the head – except here the sin of everyday vampire feeding is revelled in, the vampires' cattle blinded instead. There's also an interesting parallel between this old timey set-up with the red salons of Boston from Swansong.

It's a haunting inclusion in the otherwise decadent and opulent environment. It's also unremarked upon and something you can't interact with. It is, at least, some sort of environmental storytelling in Bloodlines 2's otherwise very sparse and empty world. Instead, Fabien progresses by walking dutifully between characters who are standing around and exhausting dialogue trees until the game tells you that you can move on. Portions of these chats even reference other ones regardless of if you've actually had them yet, assuming you did them in a set order (uh, a quirk of Fabien's memory – I suppose I can headcanon it).

We get to visit the same location in the modern day, where Lou Graham, now only the former Prince of Seattle still resides, now a complete recluse. Out of all the historically split sections of the game, this works the best – the environment itself exemplifying how the splendor of Seattle society has fallen and the cobwebs have moved in by seeing that juxtaposition for yourself.

As Phyre, all these years later, it's believable that no party or barely a soul (cursed or otherwise) has entered since that 1920s party. Sparsely lit in comparison, only a few low, warm lights flicker and moonlight spills in through gaps in curtained windows. It's gorgeous. And it's quite the backdrop for your interactions with Lou herself, veiled yet lit by that same moonlight – literally still working to control vampire society from the shadows.

But, again, her plotline accelerates with reckless abandon as Bloodlines 2 progresses, with many big events for Lou happening entirely off-screen. This is such a strong premise, yet the ball is completely dropped. Forget the haunting penthouse location – have a quick slideshow presentation instead.

So too is the promise of the Seattle Underground squandered, based on the real location where the city literally rebuilt itself over the top of pre-existing foundations. I love the entrance to this location, having Phyre visit the sort of tourist spot that exists in real life before metaphorically ducking under rope to go off the grid and venture deeper into the tunnels. Half-buried trams, and impressive former Chinatown architecture is spectacular to look at – but just ends up bogged down by pushing you through truly miserable waves of enemies through incredibly linear environments. It's quickly just a snoozefest.

I could go on. The dreamy tree imagery that feels like it comes to nothing and refuses to engage in any RPG choice mechanics. The delightfully grimy Haven you take refuge in that simply never evolves. The late night book and coffee shop that teases dark academia blood magic vibes but simply plays home to boring delivery missions sidequests. None of it goes anyway. These moments of promise burst like bubbles, and I want to crawl back into a torpor myself.

I don't envy the developers who had to take on the Bloodlines 2 project. A sequel to a cult classic 2004 PC game, announced in 2019, it was rebooted massively when publisher Paradox Interactive announced developer Hardsuit Labs were no longer working on the game, announcing in 2023 The Chinese Room would be finishing a new version of Bloodlines 2.

The mechanics and story seems to be entirely different between this versions of the project (Hardsuit's revolved around a new thinblood vampire and not an elder), but the Seattle setting and many character designs appear to have returned but repurposed – bending what was left in the toybox into creating a new vision under what appears to be a lot of pressure.

Which means glimpses of the strong ideas had by the many developers who have had time working on the project across the years, and across development studios can still be felt. It's just a shame that they can't coalesce into a game that does them justice. Bloodlines 2 might be a disappointment for me, but it's at the very least an interesting disappointment – even if it hurts that one of my favorite RPGs didn't get the sequel it deserved. But those moments that shine through will stay in my memory, glittering among the sand. And that's not nothing.

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