Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has suffered another delay, publisher Paradox Interactive and developer The Chinese Room announced on Tuesday.

Most recently scheduled to arrive this year, the game will now be released in the first half of 2025.

The Chinese Room’s Alex Skidmore, creative director for Bloodlines 2, and Mattias Lilja, deputy CEO for Paradox Interactive, shared the news in a development update video which is viewable below.

“Earlier this year, Paradox reaffirmed our commitment to delivering high-quality games to our players, and the launch update is a proactive decision derived from this commitment,” the publisher said.

“Though the game is in a good enough place that we could have maintained our planned release window, Paradox and The Chinese Room collaboratively decided to prioritize polish.”

Paradox said the additional development time will have multiple benefits.

“It will be used to create a quality assurance buffer, giving more time between testing and launch, ensuring we release the game when it’s ready. The extra time gives us an opportunity to adjust certain areas, such as Fabien, and incorporate other community feedback.

“We will also use the time to expand the game’s story, and now Bloodlines 2 will have more than twice as many endings as its predecessor.”

Paradox announced last September that The Chinese Room, which is known for exploration games such as Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to Rapture, had taken over development on the game.

Bloodlines 2 was initially being developed by Hardsuit Labs and was scheduled for release in 2020.

However, in August 2020 the action RPG sequel was delayed to 2021 and both its creative director and lead narrative designer were fired.

In February 2021 Paradox delayed Bloodlines 2 again and announced it had pulled development from Hardsuit Labs.

Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester later revealed that the company came close to scrapping Bloodlines 2 completely after cutting ties with its original developer.

It’s been a difficult year for the Swedish publisher. In April, Paradox announced that customers who purchased Cities Skylines 2’s first DLC would be refunded, with the content set to be added to the base game for free after being “rushed out” in an unsatisfactory state.

Future paid DLC, and the game’s console version, were also delayed again.

Then in June, Paradox announced plans to close its Tectonic studio following the cancellation of life simulation game Life by You.

And earlier this month Prison Architect 2 was delayed indefinitely, just one month before the game was due to be released.