Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2 pitch was a 'tremendous risk'

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"I went into that first Skype meeting with them expecting to watch a burial."

When Paradox Interactive acquired White Wolf, hope of a Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines sequel surged again, including at Hardsuit Labs. The studio that was last week revealed to be developing Bloodlines 2 wasn't approached by Paradox, however, and the publisher already had its own plans. 

"When we got wind of Paradox acquiring the World of Darkness IP, within about ten minutes I had my creative director Ka'ai Cluney come into my office and say 'We need to contact Paradox. Do you know anyone there, because we need to pitch them a game?',"Andy Kipling, CEO of Hardsuit Labs, tells us. "We spent November and December and January putting together a pitch that we could show them at DICE. My assumption, for what it's worth, was Paradox had a clear plan in place and that we would be coming in from out of the fold to try and make a hail-Mary pass."

A meeting was arranged, but Paradox wasn't expecting this to be the start of a new game. It was hesitant to give away the keys to White Wolf's supernatural universe too easily. 

"I went into that first Skype meeting with them expecting to watch a burial," says Florian Schwarzer, product manager at Paradox Interactive. But it wasn't a burial. "This was very much Hardsuit Labs taking a tremendous risk and getting us to the point were we made a decision for them. Nothing more, nothing less."

For more details about Bloodlines 2 and the rest of this interview, check out our upcoming cover feature in the PC Gamer magazine, available next week. 

Fraser Brown
Fraser Brown
Online Editor

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.