The city of Seattle will have a few familiar faces in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, as it has been revealed that characters from earlier Vampire: The Masquerade video games will reappear in the sequel. The original Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was a cult classic RPG released in 2004 that was based on the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is one of several games in Paradox Interactive's revived World of Darkness video game series. The game was teased with an ARG based around a fake dating site called Tender, which led to the official announcement at GDC 2019 and a tentative release date of March 2020. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has been delayed to later in 2020 in order to further refine the quality of the final product.
Paradox Interactive revealed demo footage of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 at PDXCON, which showed off some of the early parts of the game. Screen Rant had a chance to speak to Senior Narrative Designer Cara Ellison about the game and the question of the Kindred of Los Angeles came up.
Will there be any character cameos from the other Vampire: The Masquerade video games?
Cara Ellison: You will see some returns, but we're not revealing who.
The footage of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 that has been revealed so far has only shown new characters in a different setting, which led fans to believe that it was a sequel in name only. The Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game is currently in its fifth edition, which has drastically changed the lore of the setting in ways that make it incompatible with the story of the original game (such as the Kuei-jin seemingly being retconned out of the franchise). Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 can be great in ways that the original game could not, thanks to a bigger budget and not being a rushed product, so it was easy to think that the old characters could be forgotten.
The recent Vampire: The Masquerade books have confirmed that some of the characters from the video games are still around in the lore, like Smiling Jack, while other characters have appeared in the L.A. By Night YouTube series, including Jeanette and Therese Voerman. It's also possible that characters from an earlier game called Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption could make an appearance. The fans had speculated that some of the characters could return in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 and we finally have confirmation that some of them are coming back, though the exact manner in which they will appear has yet to be revealed.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will be released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2020.