Paradox Interactive has lost $37 million on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 after the game sold well below expectations. In a note to investors, the publisher admitted the entire project was a mistake from a strategic standpoint.
“The game does not fit within Paradox’s strategic focus,” the company stated. The publisher specializes in grand strategy and management games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis. Bloodlines 2 was a narrative-driven action RPG. Paradox said this lack of expertise made it impossible to accurately forecast sales.
The $37 million write-down means Paradox has officially accepted the game will never recoup its development costs. Years of spending across two different developers are now recognized as lost value on the balance sheet.
The admission gets more pointed. If there’s ever a Bloodlines 3, Paradox says it would be licensed to another studio. The CEO characterized action RPGs as something “we don’t know that stuff” about.
The development itself was a disaster from the start. Original developer Hardsuit Labs worked on the game for years, marketing it as nearly complete by 2020. Behind the scenes, the project was falling apart.
Paradox fired key creative leads including Brian Mitsoda, one of the original Bloodlines writers. They brought in an external consultant to salvage the build. He couldn’t. Paradox nearly canceled the entire project.
The Chinese Room stepped in to rebuild the game from scratch. According to industry reports, they inherited assets in hundreds of randomly named zip files. The studio worked under tight budget and time constraints, stripping out most of the ambitious RPG systems.
The Chinese Room reportedly tried to convince Paradox to change the game’s name. They knew they couldn’t deliver what “Bloodlines 2” implied. Paradox refused, wanting to leverage brand recognition to recoup sunk costs.
What shipped was a streamlined action game with minimal RPG elements. No inventory system. No equippable weapons or armor. Hand-to-hand combat only. A skill tree that players describe as fake, offering linear unlocks with few meaningful choices.
The original 2004 Bloodlines was a cult classic known for deep character building, multiple problem-solving routes, and branching narratives. Fans expected a modern successor with similar depth.
What comes next for World of Darkness
The failure doesn’t necessarily kill the World of Darkness IP. Paradox continues supporting the tabletop game line and smaller visual novel adaptations.
But another high-budget single-player RPG from Paradox itself seems unlikely. The company is refocusing on its core strategy games after several external projects struggled or were canceled outright.
Any future large-scale Bloodlines project would need a different publisher or an independent studio willing to license the IP. Paradox has relatively generous licensing terms for smaller developers.
