Brian Mitsoda fired as narrative lead on Bloodlines 2

[09philj]

Brian Mitsoda, the lead writer on the original Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has unexpectedly been fired by Paradox as a lead writer on it's sequel. No real explanation as to why at this moment. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20...been-fired-as-narrative-lead-on-bloodlines-2/

EDIT - Link to Escapist's own article: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2...ved-from-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/

 

[Samtemdo8]

Now I am worried for Bloodlines 2 suffering the same fate as the first game.

 

[Neuromancer]

Things are looking ever bleaker for Bloodlines 2, it seems.

“Alexandre has been in the industry for more than 20 years and has worked on iconic franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Warhammer 40,000, Far Cry, and more.”




Not to demean Alexandre's skill, but the list of games he's worked on doesn't exactly inspire confidence that he is suited for this particular kind of game. He has no actual experience with RPGs, so working on this, which is a sequel to one of the most celebrated video game roleplaying games, fills me with skepticism.

But really, this really sucks for Mitsoda. By all hear-say, this game was his baby.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I have had no faith in this game since it's announcement. I don't know why, something about it has just seemed....i dunno "off" i guess. Plus all the delay's without ever getting a release date just spells problems.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Gordon_4]

It is going to be really interesting to see if any more details on this surfaces. Firing a Narrative Lead and replacing them with a person mostly known for Game Design is a weird move on its own. Or maybe it is not, it is well known that the narrative part of game development is very front loaded and perhaps it was simply at a point where a high profile executive like Narrative Lead was costing a lot of money and not contributing much to the actual development. Freeing up that money to get a Game Design Lead to shape up the game design (which has been the weak point in all previews of the game so far) makes a bit of sense. But that poses the question why they fire Mitsoda instead of just putting him on another project.

That's all speculation of course, let's hope some journalists do some digging now so we can find out what's what.

Or just making him redundant. Giving him the sack means our assumptions are going to be consumed with wrongdoing or persecution

 

[09philj]

Apparently the creative director Ka'ai Cluney was also fired. What the devil is going on over there?

 

[CriticalGaming]

Apparently the creative director Ka'ai Cluney was also fired. What the devil is going on over there?

A bad game most likely, sadly.

 

[meiam]

Wait, isn't the game well into production? Wouldn't the story be done a long time ago? Do game normally start production with half finished story/script? That seems really strange.

 

[09philj]

Wait, isn't the game well into production? Wouldn't the story be done a long time ago? Do game normally start production with half finished story/script? That seems really strange.

The game's not that far off being ready, it's very unclear why they would need to kick out their creative leads this close to release.

 

[CriticalGaming]

The game's not that far off being ready, it's very unclear why they would need to kick out their creative leads this close to release.

It is possible that the game's story needs a massive rework. Perhaps they had a focus test or evaluation from QA and found that people hate the story, or it's so fucked up that it can never work out the way they want. So they fired the creative team and hired new people to try and fix it, which would explain the 2021 TBA delay.

 

[Nick Calandra]

I was in a press preview for this at E3 last year behind closed doors and it did not look good, at all. The world was super empty and bland, the combat looked real rough...I wasn't surprised at all when it was delayed. Maybe they can do more with next-gen tech, and maybe the writing will prop it up, but the gameplay just didn't look fun. We had quite a few of us in there watching and nobody came away impressed.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I was in a press preview for this at E3 last year behind closed doors and it did not look good, at all. The world was super empty and bland, the combat looked real rough...I wasn't surprised at all when it was delayed. Maybe they can do more with next-gen tech, and maybe the writing will prop it up, but the gameplay just didn't look fun. We had quite a few of us in there watching and nobody came away impressed.

That sounds about right based on everything I've seen revealed to the public. Looks like the studio is trying to shake up the creative team in order to try and make the game something worth while.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this game gets canned.

 

[Nick Calandra]

That sounds about right based on everything I've seen revealed to the public. Looks like the studio is trying to shake up the creative team in order to try and make the game something worth while.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this game gets canned.

I doubt it'll get canned, they've thrown a lot of money into it. I think it's gonna be one of those games where you either love it or hate it and the general critic consensus will be that it's a flop.

I've been weary of it ever since Hardsuit was announced as the developer though, the only game I know them for is Blacklight and Blacklight Retribution...which was janky and ran like crap on the PS4 when I tried it.

 

[Bedinsis]

I was in a press preview for this at E3 last year behind closed doors and it did not look good, at all. The world was super empty and bland, the combat looked real rough...I wasn't surprised at all when it was delayed. Maybe they can do more with next-gen tech, and maybe the writing will prop it up, but the gameplay just didn't look fun. We had quite a few of us in there watching and nobody came away impressed.

Huh, I am reminded of the time Paradox announced Runemaster before they realized that the basic game wasn't any fun. A project they eventually scrapped.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Nick Calandra]

I don't think it'll get canned, Paradox has too much riding on it to allow it to just vanish. At worst they'll release a bad game to recoup investment cost and then declare their foray into WoD as DOA.

Other then that, I can only agree with your assessment that the little gameplay that has been shown did not look good and the cinematic trailers have failed to hit the mark for me (the Come Dance trailer in particular made me cringe really hard). I think one of the biggest things working against the game is that Hardsuit Labs are an A or maybe an AA studio, Paradox is a decidedly AA developer with a strong niche in strategy games and small ventures into strategy adjacent RPGs. Despite this lack of economic power, manpower and experience with massive game projects, they are trying to make a game that people expect will be an AAA game (which Bloodlines was for its time). What's interesting is that Shams Jorjani, Chief Business Development Officer at Paradox, admitted on their podcast that Bloodlines 2 essentially was a huge gamble due to all of the aforementioned issues and brought them up as risks.

Yea that's the feeling I had from the E3 showing is that this game went too ambitious and too big for the team and budget behind it. It's a AA game "ahem" masquerading itself as a big budget title in its marketing and that's really gonna screw it over in the end unless something has really changed since that really bad trailer a few months ago.

 

[09philj]

Making a game that properly replicates the feel of tabletop V:TM is a lot more challenging than other tabletop RPGs. Mixing social interaction, combat, and vampiric disciplines together on the fly is core to the experience, which sort of necessitates making an immersive sim. The problem then becomes that immersive sims are very difficult and expensive to make compared to how many people will want to buy them.