This week marks the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, a game that has arguably influenced the modern triple-A landscape more than any other and whose fans remain the most passionate and dedicated of all, even though deep down know that they will never, ever get a sequel.
That also means that this week marks the 20th anniversary of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, a game that flopped so badly that the studio had to close (at a time before that, this was a monthly occurrence), and that also Is However, based on what we've seen of it so far, it probably won't be the sequel that VTBM fans* really want.
*There are dozens of us… dozens!
We've seen this story a few times over the years. A supposed hit is overshadowed by an even bigger hit, resulting in the former being semi-forgotten and becoming a cult classic loved only by modders, video essayists and those with an unhealthy attachment to their childhood (the only finger that… I have). I point in the mirror).
Titanfall 2 was crushed between Battlefield 1 and Infinite Warfare. Mad Max came out on the same day as Metal Gear Solid 5. Alan Wake came out the same week as Red Dead Redemption – although it was recently redeemed thanks to Remedy's sheer force of will that produced the excellent Alan Wake 2. All critical hits and commercial failures, largely thanks to their unfortunately limited release windows.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines differs from the rest in that the initial critical response was quite poor. A heavily overworked studio with unrealistic deadlines (another reason Bloodlines was ahead of its time), the game was released in an unfinished state and was riddled with graphical flaws, incomplete missions, and game-breaking bugs, many of which were not fixed until the fan patch for 2019 filled the gaps. Bloodlines was a bit of a mess at launch, but if fans were willing to fix it themselves 15 years later – a project that continued to receive updates until the end of 2023 – there must be something special there.
There's no doubt that Half-Life 2 ushered in the next generation of narrative, highly cinematic, triple-A games, but I wonder what impact Bloodlines would have had on the industry if circumstances had been different.
Perhaps a more open release calendar would have resulted in better initial sales for Bloodlines, giving Troika the runway it needed to survive long enough to redeem itself. Maybe then it would have been a classic immersive simulation that inspired the industry like Half-Life 2, rather than a cult classic in a genre that historically never sells well anyway.
Bloodlines' combination of Thief-style exploration and Fallout-style roleplaying remains unchanged. There are games with elements of Bloodlines, but there is nothing like it.
We will never know what could have been
This is all speculation, but one thing seems certain: if the original had been a success, we wouldn't be getting a sequel that bears so little resemblance to it. Vampire: The Masquerade is an old tabletop IP and Bloodlines is a household name. So it's no surprise that the increasingly risk-averse gaming industry wants to capitalize on the title, but will the game stay true to the original and aim to please its fans? (Dozens!) with a faithful Lega sequel?
Considering developer The Chinese Room refuses to even utter the term “immersive simulation,” the answer seems to be “no.” It may be a great game, but it probably won't be a great sequel to Bloodlines – definitely not the sequel we would have gotten if Bloodlines had been a hit.
Of course, we can't blame Half-Life 2. But it's interesting to think about how things would have been different for Bloodlines if Half-Life 2 hadn't changed PC gaming forever in November 2004. Then again, Halo 2 came out two weeks earlier and World of Warcraft a week after, so maybe we should just be grateful that anyone even remembers Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines