“Get me somebody who’s played The Chinese Room's Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 STAT,” I yelled, barging through the double doors of our seedy news saloon. “I need 300 or more tasty words on these leaked videos of the older, unreleased Hardsuit Labs version.” A grim silence fell across the chamber. Mark furtively donned a pod-racing helmet. James hid himself behind his latest tower of graphics cards, with an apologetic murmur that while he had played a few hours of Bloodlines 2, he was very busy right now building towers of graphics cards.

“If you want something done, do it yourself, STAT,” I bellowed, swivelling on my heel while looking up the origins of the term “stat” on my phone. It turns out it’s something medical doctors say to convey urgency, and comes from the Latin “statim”, meaning “immediately”. “What a perfect way to introduce this video showing a hospital level from the aforesaid leaked Hardsuit Labs version of Bloodlines 2,” I roared to myself. “Why, I’ve accidentally written 177 words of the news post already.”

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 hasn't sold as well as publishers Paradox predicted. As such, the company have announced plans to write-down 355 million Swedish Krona (approximately £28 million/$37 million) of the game's development costs - essentially the financial way of saying something along the lines of 'oops, this isn't worth as much as we thought it was'.

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Honestly, there are a lot of disappointing things about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Having waited far too long for a game that maybe would have been better left to our collective imagination, its performance issues, lack of stakes (pun intended), and weak RPG systems left me cold. But, as I say in my Bloodlines 2 review, the lack of connection to the first game is what kills it dead for me. Bar a somewhat meaningless throwback towards the end of the narrative, there's literally nothing connecting the two games bar disparate lore snippets scattered around the map that no one is really reading. Bloodlines 2 is a sequel in name alone, and sadly not a good enough RPG to move the needle.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Chinese Room co-founder wanted Paradox to drop the 'Bloodlines 2' name, because "no one would be happy" with the final game

The former creative director of The Chinese Room's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has finally said the quiet part loud and agreed that the game really shouldn't have been called Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Have you played Bloodlines 2? What would you have called it? I'm going with Vampire: The Masquerade - Third Cousin Twice Removed.

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