Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, publisher Paradox Interactive and developer The Chinese Room announced on Tuesday.
The game was last scheduled for release this year, but is now scheduled to be released in the first half of 2025.
Alex Skidmore, creative director for Bloodlines 2 from The Chinese Room, and Mattias Lilja, deputy CEO of Paradox Interactive, shared the news in a development update video, which can be viewed below.
“Earlier this year, Paradox reiterated our commitment to delivering high-quality games to our players, and the launch update is a proactive decision that stems from that commitment,” the publisher said.
“While the game is in good enough shape that we could have met our planned release window, Paradox and The Chinese Room have jointly decided to prioritize fine-tuning.”
Paradox said the additional development time will bring several benefits.
“It will be used to create a quality assurance buffer that provides more time between testing and release, ensuring we release the game when it's ready. The extra time gives us the opportunity to adjust certain areas like Fabien and incorporate further community feedback.
“We'll 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, known for exploration games such as Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to Rapture, had taken over development of the game.
Bloodlines 2 was originally developed by Hardsuit Labs and was scheduled to be released in 2020.
However, in August 2020, the action RPG sequel was postponed to 2021 and both the creative director and the lead narrative designer were fired.
In February 2021, Paradox postponed Bloodlines 2 again and announced that development had been pulled from Hardsuit Labs.
Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester later revealed that the company was close to canceling Bloodlines 2 altogether after severing ties with the original developer.
It's been a difficult year for the Swedish publisher. In April, Paradox announced that customers who had bought the first DLC for Cities Skylines 2 would get their money back. The content would be added to the base game for free after it was “rushed” to release in an unsatisfactory state.
Future paid DLCs and the console version of the game have also been postponed again.
In June, Paradox announced plans to close its Tectonic studio after the life simulation game Life by You was discontinued.
And earlier this month, Prison Architect 2 was delayed indefinitely, just a month before the game's scheduled release date.