20 Recent Video Games That Were Sent Out To Die

Though many wanted Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 to be great, pretty much everything pre-release pointed to the game being, at best, a flaming disappointment.

First and foremost, it spent almost an entire decade in development, with original studio Hardsuit Labs being replaced by The Chinese Room in 2021.

Given that The Chinese Room had never made a game of this scale before, many questioned the ability of the team behind more modest, atmospheric games like Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and Still Wakes the Deep to deliver a sequel worthy of its beloved predecessor.

After numerous delays, Bloodlines 2 was finally released last October to largely indifferent reviews from critics and fans alike, most of whom found it to be a shallow, janky action-RPG.

And who didn't see this coming, nor that Bloodlines 2 would fail to meet Paradox Interactive's sales projections? 

Ultimately the game's poor sales caused Paradox to report operating loss of approximately $28 million for the quarter.

Since the game's release, The Chinese Room's creative director Dan Pinchbeck revealed that the studio knew they had neither the time nor money to produce a worthy Bloodlines sequel, and even asked Paradox to consider removing "Bloodlines 2" from the title, which they refused.