VTM Bloodlines 2 Delayed Until Later 2020

It’s comforting to see more and more games choosing to allow for extra time in the oven these days. Anyone that’s kept up with the AAA gaming industry has probably encountered plenty of examples of games being released straight up unfinished, either ridiculously buggy or lacking in promised content. Of course, even delayed games still end up pretty bad sometimes, but it’s still better to try and polish it up than just spit it out before it’s ready. After the somewhat janky looking footage that’s been shown so far, I’m happy that Hardsuit Labs and Paradox are seeing fit to push Bloodlines 2 back a bit. From the press release:

We have made the decision to shift the launch window for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 to later in 2020. For the last three and a half years, we’ve worked hard to bring you a worthy successor to Bloodlines 1. To us, that meant not only making good on the ambitions of this remarkable game, but also a duty to ensure we would not repeat its mistakes.Today, we have to tell you that we need some more time to get you the game you’ve been waiting for. Although Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will still launch in 2020, we have decided to value quality over making the Q1 launch window.

It’s also possible that the original release window’s competition could have factored into the decision as well. If Bloodlines 2 had stayed the course of releasing around March of next year, it would’ve been releasing head-to-head with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Doom: Eternal, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Watch Dogs: Legion. Those games don’t necessarily fit in the same target demographic as Bloodlines 2, but they’re also games way, way bigger than it, and asking fans to make a choice in an already crowded month is a gamble they probably wouldn’t want to take. Another element worth noting is that, depending on just how late in 2020 Bloodlines 2 releases, it could end up as a cross-gen release on Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5, which would increase sales in what would probably be a small pool of launch games (Xbox One and PS4 had 23 games each at launch, and about half of each were cross-gen).

We’ll let you know when more information about the new release date is available. You can read a longer statement regarding the delay here.