Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’s Writers Talk Creating A Living, Reactive World

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been getting animated teasers to introduce the game’s varied clans over the last month, such as the beauty-obsessed Toreador last week. Today we get something a little different, as the scope goes beyond the characters and to the world they inhabit, and how the game’s writers have tried to create a world that feels alive and actively engaged with the player.

Sitting down with Polygon, Brian Mitsoda and Cara Ellison talked about how they wanted to try and make a world that functioned in a realistic way. Primarily, they didn’t want Bloodlines 2’s world to feel as if NPCs just wait around for the main character, being you, to come in on the scene. A big part of that is how the world changes and reacts to you breaking the masquerade of humanity to feed.

“We do look at it as if you can significantly affect the world,” Ellison says, “and one of the ways that we look at our world is that we are trying to make it really reactive to the way that you play and how you act as a vampire. The more that you break the Masquerade, the more consequences are going to come your way. The more that you’re out in the open, that people realize that there’s a fricking monster on the streets, the more afraid people get and the harder it is to feed.”

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is slated to release next year for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Learn more about the game and check out our interview with the publisher’s senior product manager here.