After 15 years in the grave, Bloodlines 2 brings the vampire-RPG back from the dead, and it’s bigger, darker, and more ambitious than ever.
Here are three words I never thought I’d write: Bloodlines is back. It’s been almost 15 years since Troika Games’ vampire RPG first launched, winning and breaking hearts in equal measure. Bloodlines remains one of the most stylish and intricate first-person RPGs ever made, with a truly remarkable amount of depth and dynamism baked into its dark and seedy Los Angeles. But Bloodlines’ premature launch also meant it was riddled with bugs. After years of community support, it is still a challenging game to grapple with.
Bloodlines is one of the great ‘what ifs’ of PC gaming. What if Troika had been given another six months to sharpen Bloodlines’ fangs? What if the game hadn’t launched on the same day as Half-Life 2? What if the likes of Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain and Brian Mitsoda had been given a shot at a sequel, to capitalise on all the lessons they’d learned?
We’ll never know the answers to those first two questions. But we will, finally, get an answer to the third. “If they’d asked me to do another one back then I would have done it,” says Brian Mitsoda, lead narrative designer on Bloodlines and Bloodlines 2. “I think one of the best things about the World of Darkness IP is that there are – just in one city alone – hundreds of stories. There’s always more stories to be told.”
Denne historien er fra May 2019-utgaven av PC Gamer.
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Denne historien er fra May 2019-utgaven av PC Gamer.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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A New Dawn - The rise, fall and rise again of PC Gaming in Japan
The so-called 'Paso Kon' market (ie katakana's transliteration of 'Pasonaru Computa') in Japan was originally spearheaded in the 1980s by NEC's PC-8800 and, later, its PC-9800.
MARVEL: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE
Enter the multiverse of modness.
SLIDES RULE
Redeeming a hated puzzle mechanic with SLIDER
GODS AND MONSTERS
AGE OF MYTHOLOGY: RETOLD modernises a classic RTS with care
PHANTOM BLADE ZERO
Less Sekiro, more Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
STARR-MAKING ROLE
Final Fantasy XVI's BEN STARR talks becoming a meme and dating summons
THIEF GOLD
Learning to forgive myself for knocking out every single guard.
HANDHELD GAMING PCs
In lieu of more powerful processors, handhelds are getting weirder
FAR FAR AWAY
STAR WARS OUTLAWS succeeds at the little things, but not much else shines
FINDING IMMORTALITY
Twenty-five years on, PLANESCAPE: TORMENT is still one of the most talked-about RPGs of all time. This is the story of how it was created as a ‘stay-busy’ project by a small team at Black Isle Studios