Vampire Bloodlines 2 devs talk strategic sucking and special blood powers in new diary

Deciding when to feed in Vampire Bloodlines 2 and who to feed takes some thought, especially if you want some of the RPG’s special powers

The Chinese Room

Deciding when to feed in Vampire Bloodlines 2 and who to feed takes some thought, Chinese Room creative director Alex Skidmore and designer Max Bottomley said in a new blog post, especially if you want some of the RPG’s special powers. Skidmore and Bottomley explained how draining blood works in Bloodlines 2 in a new dev diary and outlined some of the creative effort it took to make finding a snack feel exciting and powerful.

Most folks don’t take kindly to seeing you drink blood from their friends, so you’re inviting trouble or maybe even extreme violence. You can, however, be a bit cheeky and use your meal as a shield in case bullets start flying, which is a bit gruesome, but I guess that’s life for a vampire. Well, un-life.

• Read more: Paradox says The Chinese Room saved Vampire The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from being canceled

Anyhow, Phyre gets special Heightened Senses to help her track down prey and spot threats before they become apparent. Bottomley said the team went through several iterations of how this heightened sense state should look before settling on something they believe looks appropriately supernatural, while also giving players the visual information they need to make choices.

“We wanted our concepts to reflect the vampiric nature of homing in on your next meal, sensing and smelling blood through the air,” Bottomley said. “We wanted Phyre to feel like a predator stalking her enemies using all her vampiric gifts. To do this we wanted to tap into a striking art style for this part of the gameplay, something that highlighted Phyre’s vampiric lust for blood while also being very clear for the player experience.”

• Read more: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 gameplay reveal: Blood and choices

“Phyre can sniff out these potential dangers and then plan accordingly her plan of action. We wanted the visual language of enemies to really pop out from the drained background in this mode. Phyre is hyper-focusing on her prey, so we wanted enemies to burn brightly in the world, their blood shimmering even through walls.”

You can drain any old human if you want, but the best ones in the right circumstances give Phyre a temporary boost. The Chinese Room calls these “blood resonance events,” where you can take advantage of a character’s emotional state or influence it yourself to get a special kind of blood. The team gave one example where a character is scared after missing their bus, and you can chase them to heighten their fear before feeding on them. 

They call this “social feeding” and said it’s a key part of your time in Seattle, but they didn’t give any details about what it actually influences. It does come with special animations, though, which the developers said took a lot of trial and error working with first- and third-person to find a balance for.

• Read more: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2: Brujah abilities revealed

You can check out the full dev blog on the Bloodlines 2 website if you’re keen. There’s still no release date for Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2, but publisher Paradox Interactive expects it to launch sometime in 2025.