'We're not making GTA': Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is channeling the best part of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided—a dense hub instead of a huge open world

(Image credit: Paradox)

I try to keep myself in check, but I admit it: I'm back to being excited about Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Ever since our Fraser Brown returned as a cautious optimist from a hands-on preview of Bloodlines 2, I've been unable to stop myself from hoping.

As we trudge closer to the game's October release window, the devs at The Chinese Room are chatting more and more about it. Now, they've sat down with Game Informer to talk about their vision for Bloodlines 2's spooky Seattle. It ain't big; it is dense.

Per art director Ben Matthews, it sounds like the Bloodlines 2 dev mantra is "quantity of detail over scope." Which is, I'm afraid, exactly the kind of thing I like to hear. Rather than a huge but sparse city for you to vamp around in, you get a small but (hopefully) deep slice of it to explore, with the protagonist's brand acting up if you stray too near to the boundaries.

"We're not making GTA; this isn't a big, open world, sprawling game where the horizon is your limit," said Matthews. "That was something we really paid attention to, to try to make everything as dense [as possible]."

Boy if that isn't a breath of fresh air in a world of impossibly massive games filled with not much, and boy if it's not the kind of statement that fills me with even more doomed hope than I was experiencing before.

Creepy vampire man snuggles up with a nightmarish figure with hooks in their mouth. — (Image credit: Paradox)

It calls to mind Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (RIP), whose main Prague hub was a masterclass in this kind of design—not especially wide, but filled with interesting nooks and crannies you could spend ages poking about in and uncovering.

It's precisely the right approach for a Bloodlines game. The first one was, after all, kind of an inheritor of the Deus Ex legacy with its imsim-y gameplay, strange politics, and variable character builds. If The Chinese Room is taking after the most recent DX—by fluke or by choice—in its approach to Bloodlines 2? That's an incredibly good sign as far as I'm concerned. And I'm even more hopelessly optimistic than ever.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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