What a shambles
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Wasn’t the studios fault
They fought to change the name since the beginning because they knew it would be impossible to deliver a real sequel and while this name might get initial sales it would cause blowback killing the game almost immediately…
Which is exactly what happened.
Like, they’d have loved to make Masquerade 2, but they weren’t given the time or funds to make it.
Stamau123@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The worst part is that this failure will probably kill any chance of The Chinese Room getting to actually take a proper swing at this, from scratch, with time and a real budget. It really feels like if they were allowed to do that they would hit it out of the park. Bloodlines 2 is a much better game than the review scores suggest, mostly weighed down by the expectations people put in the Bloodlines name.
Agent_Karyo@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
Chinese Room is clearly a bad fit for Bloodlines. They have zero experience with RPG games.
They make good walking-sim style gaming experiences with strong atmosphere and world-building, but they've never made any RPGs.
Their gameplay also tends to a bit subpar. The original Bloodlines had some flaws with gameplay (combat), but you still had a lot of different gameplay options and approaches.
And why shouldn't people have expectations for a strong roleplaying experience and player freedom for a Bloodlines game?
dukemirage@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The gameplay in their original IPs is only subpar if you think that walking sims are inherently lesser games.
rtxn@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They absolutely are, in terms of gameplay. Ozzy Mandus and The Crankhog Machine sacrificed most of the gameplay Frictional’s Amnesia became known for. There are no light mechanics. Barely any physics puzzles. The pigmen are braindead. Even if it’s a better story and atmosphere than The Dark Descent, it’s a lesser game. Even Still Wakes The Deep only goes as far as “throw the object to make the thing look away” when you’re not just responding to non-diegetic prompts.
You can make the argument that walking simulators have a place in the gaming landscape, and you’d be right, but by their nature, they are the exact opposite of what Bloodlines 1 was and what Bloodlines 2 should have been. Why Paradox decided it was a good idea to entrust with it a studio that has only made things that it never should have been is a fucking mystery to me.
Agent_Karyo@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
It's not like that at all.
I enjoy walking sims (Soma is one of my favourite games of all time) in general and TCR's releases as well.
That doesn't mean one can't recognize that TCR tends to struggle even with relatively simple gameplay and that a game like Bloodlines requires strong gameplay design/implementation skills.
While I loved the atmosphere of Still Wakes the Deep, there were many situations where weak gameplay undermined the ambiance and immersion.