After a long and difficult journey, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is finally mere months away from coming out. But as any ’90s TTRPG fan will tell you, there’s more to the World of Darkness than just blood-suckers, and according to Jason Carl, brand marketing manager of the franchise (and veteran tabletop writer), this may be just the beginning.
Asked by PCGamesN whether we could see similarly big budget games based on other World of Darkness TTRPGs—such as Werewolf: The Apocalypse or Hunter: The Reckoning—Carl replied with surprising confidence.
“Who says we’re not already?” he said. “The answer is yes. All of those supernatural creatures have their own stories to tell, and many of them are just waiting their turn and for the right story to come along.”
He goes on to namecheck Mage: The Ascension, The Dark Ages, and Changeling: The Dreaming as three properties that “we’re spending a lot of time thinking about” in relation to videogames.
“There’s no obstacle or gatekeeping function that would prevent any of these from making it out into a videogame and getting the Bloodlines treatment,” he says. “It’s a question of time, resources, the right development partners, and story. We’re very open to it, and I really hope it happens.”
For the benefit of anyone who didn’t have a goth phase in about 1995, here’s a quick rundown of the original TTRPGs set in the World of Darkness, that could potentially be on Carl’s list:
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Wolfmen as eco-terrorists, fighting to save the planet from corruption both human and supernatural.
- Hunter: The Reckoning: Human monster-slayers try to track down and destroy all the beings from the other games.
- Mage: The Ascension: Secret societies of magic-users vie with each other for power.
- Vampire: The Dark Ages: What were all those vampires up to back in medieval times?
- Changeling: The Dreaming: Fae reborn into human form, who straddle both the real world and a surreal world of imagination.
- Wraith: The Oblivion: Ghosts dealing with unfinished business and self-destructive split personalities.
- Mummy: The Resurrection: Ancient Egyptians brought back from the dead to protect the world from a dark god. They… probably won’t do this one.
- Demon: The Fallen: Angels exiled from Heaven escape their torment in Hell to possess and live among humans.
That’s without even getting into the various rebooted and remixed versions of these, or games released in later eras. Beast: The Primordial, anyone?
It’s a deep vein of ideas to mine, but even with the caveats Carl does mention, the idea of making any of these into another big budget videogame seems a tad optimistic. Bloodlines 2 is nearing the finish line now, and even looking promising, but we’re still yet to see whether it will be a critical or commercial success.
Meanwhile, Paradox Interactive, who owns and publishes it all, seems to be in its own Dark Age at the moment, struggling with disappointing launches, delays, and cancellations across its whole videogame catalogue. And the various smaller projects that have come out since the publisher bought World of Darkness back in 2015, such as Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong and Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, haven’t exactly set the world alight.
So I wouldn’t get too excited about Carl’s statements. It’s always cool to hear that the wider World of Darkness hasn’t been forgotten about, at least, but whether more big games are on the way will likely hinge entirely on how well Bloodlines 2 does—and right now, that seems like a roll of the dice.