Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2 pitch was a 'tremendous risk'

When Paradox Interactive acquired White Wolf, hope of a Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines sequel surged again, including at Hardsuit Labs. The studio that was last week revealed to be developing Bloodlines 2 wasn't approached by Paradox, however, and the publisher already had its own plans. 

"When we got wind of Paradox acquiring the World of Darkness IP, within about ten minutes I had my creative director Ka'ai Cluney come into my office and say 'We need to contact Paradox. Do you know anyone there, because we need to pitch them a game?',"Andy Kipling, CEO of Hardsuit Labs, tells us. "We spent November and December and January putting together a pitch that we could show them at DICE. My assumption, for what it's worth, was Paradox had a clear plan in place and that we would be coming in from out of the fold to try and make a hail-Mary pass."

A meeting was arranged, but Paradox wasn't expecting this to be the start of a new game. It was hesitant to give away the keys to White Wolf's supernatural universe too easily. 

"I went into that first Skype meeting with them expecting to watch a burial," says Florian Schwarzer, product manager at Paradox Interactive. But it wasn't a burial. "This was very much Hardsuit Labs taking a tremendous risk and getting us to the point were we made a decision for them. Nothing more, nothing less."

For more details about Bloodlines 2 and the rest of this interview, check out our upcoming cover feature in the PC Gamer magazine, available next week. 

Fraser Brown
Online Editor

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog. 

Latest in RPG
kingdom come deliverance 2 thunderstone quest
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's masterful quest design can be summed up by one wonderfully weird search for a magic stone
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened