The situation for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 seems to be not great, as only two months after the game lost two of its creative leads, another has left developer Hardsuit Labs and the project.
In a statement to PC Gamer, publisher Paradox Interactive confirmed that Cara Ellison, the senior narrative designer on Bloodlines 2, has left Hardsuit Labs. News of this wasn’t terribly surprising, as fans had taken note that she’d removed all mention of her involvement with the delayed sequel from her social media, but it was more or less solidified that she was no longer involved when it was announced she’d joined League of Geeks as a senior narrative designer on Sunday.
“We can confirm that Cara Ellison has decided to leave Hardsuit Labs and is no longer working on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2,” a Paradox spokesperson said to PC Gamer. “Cara brought fresh ideas to the project and many of her contributions will be present in the game launching next year. We thank her for her work on Bloodlines 2 and wish her the best in all of her future endeavors.”
In other news:
Ultimately, this might not mean much for
Bloodlines 2, as people come and go from projects all the time. But it is disconcerting when senior team members are leaving around the same time, as that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence about the state of things. The distinction here is that Ellison seems to have left of her own accord, while Lead Narrative Designer Brian Mitsoda and Creative Director Ka’ai Cluney were apparently fired back in August according to a statement given to
Rock Paper Shotgun by Mitsoda.
“That this came as a shock to me is underselling it,” Mitsoda told Rock Paper Shotgun. “I’ve worked on Bloodlines 2 for almost five years. The story and main cast was initially conceived in my living room. I helped develop the pitch for Hardsuit Labs and helped pitch the project to Paradox in Las Vegas. I’ve been in charge of the narrative since the beginning, working long days and sometimes weekends to deliver a successor to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and I’ve never been led to believe that I hadn’t succeeded.”
Whatever the situation is over at Hardsuit,
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is currently set to launch on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One in 2021. The game had already been
delayed to later in 2020, but now it’s been pushed into the gaping maw that is next year as studios reckon with issues like adjusting to work-from-home setups in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Beyond that, there’s no real release window beyond that it will be sometime in the 365 days between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021, so without anything to narrow that down, your guess as to when it’s coming out is as good as mine. If it’s not out in the first half, you could probably pick up the
board game based on the series to hold you over?
