While some very much enjoyed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, it was clear from the criticism that the game didn't match the expectations set by its title. It had extremely little RPG elements, and was more like a Dishonored game with a vampire twist. Developer The Chinese Room seems aware of this, though, as its co-founder Dan Pinchbeck explained they tried to change the game's name.
"There was one of the producers - then at Paradox - I'm still friends with, he's now with another publisher. We used to sit there and go and have these planning sessions of how do we get them to not call it Bloodlines 2," Pinchbeck told YouTuber Cat Burton. "That feels like the most important thing we do here is to come at this and say this isn't Bloodlines 2. You can't make Bloodlines 2. There's not enough time. There's not enough money. And Bloodlines 1 came out at a really interesting period in game development when it was the same time as games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Shenmue when you could ship a really ambitious game that was full of bugs and holes, was totally flawed, but the ambition was really exciting."
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"Trying to recreate that magic in a different environment felt wrongheaded. No one would be happy. You wouldn't make people who love Bloodlines 1 happy and you wouldn't make people who didn't know about Bloodlines 1 happy because they'd never get Bloodlines 2 and they'd always get a flawed game that was built too fast and with not enough money," he continued.
While hindsight is a wonderful thing, it seems from the interview Pinchbeck had a lot of foresight when it came to the project. The team at The Chinese Room simply did the best they could with what they had, and while it wasn't enough to please fans of the original, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 seemed as if it would never do that. The game was delayed so many times it's hard to believe it's real, even if it didn't live up to expectations.