After 21 years of waiting, Bloodlines 2's Steam reviews are exactly what I expected

I wanted to love Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. It's been my Roman Empire for far too long, haunting my every waking moment, slithering into my dreams. But, as my Bloodlines 2 review attests, The Chinese Room's take on the franchise isn't the game that I wanted, and while I enjoyed it as a longtime VTM fan, it's a shadow of what it could've been and a poorly optimized RPG to boot. Now that it's out in the wild I've been keeping a close eye on Steam to see where it lands. The answer is in 'Mixed,' and honestly, that's probably better than I expected.

There's not much to love about Bloodlines 2. Putting the horribly poor optimization aside, its story consistently falls flat, combat is messy and joyless, and its progression system isn't really a system at all. There's flickers of greatness in its characters, with chatty Malkavian Fabien being an absolute standout, but even his segments start to become blockers as you race towards the finish line.

But my main issue with Bloodlines 2 is the name. While The Chinese Room describes it as a "spiritual sequel," there's absolutely no throughline with the first game. Sure there are lore snippets in random letters, and a familiar face may or may not appear at some point, but they feel more like cheap throwbacks than anything else. TLDR: This isn't a Bloodlines game, it's VTM: Seattle.

That's what appears to be irking people the most. "This 'sequel' is Bloodlines in name only," reads one Steam review, with another stating "if it's not a true successor to the original, then they shouldn't have named it as such." Others hone in on the game's performance, and the lack of in-game options - you can't remove Motion Blur, for example, which is a real pet peeve of mine.

That sentiment is echoed on Reddit, with most players criticizing the lack of basic functions (the game won't let you manually save, for example) given the $60 / £50 price point. All of this has left Bloodlines 2 in the 'mixed' category on Steam, rated 56% positive at the time of writing.

The good news is, however, that it achieved a peak Steam player count of over 27,000 on launch day which, if nothing else, proves that people do love the franchise and want to support it, even after all these years.

In all honesty, I still enjoyed Bloodlines 2 as a VTM fan, but where I can drop into the grimy alleyways of Bloodlines 1's Santa Monica and immediately feel at home, I don't see me returning to Seattle anytime soon. Hopefully a few patches will iron things out, and when the two DLCs arrive I'll probably give them a go, but I'm hoping whatever appears next is a better look for the World of Darkness.

If you're planning a trip to Seattle, check out our list of the Bloodlines 2 clans to help you choose which to embrace. Alternatively, if you're looking for a full rundown of what you're getting yourself in for, here's all of the Bloodlines 2 missions.

Are you playing Bloodlines 2? Let me know your thoughts on Discord, and show us your Phyre.