The latest Dev Diary for Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 bites a little harder than usual, as it gives us an extended discussion of the vampire protagonist’s concept, plus a teaser of the introduction and ending clips we’ll be seeing.
To start, instead of waking up as a freshly-turned creature of the night, players will be an Elder called the Nomad, who we also already know is named “Phyre.” They arise from a long sleep after being struck down in their Haven in Tunis about a century before, thirsting and covered in new arcane symbols. They’re no amateur either—Chinese Room describes the Nomad as a “legend amongst Kindred.”
The story of Bloodlines 2’s Nomad won’t be entirely defined up-front, like it often is in games. Players get to roleplay out the choices that define the Nomad’s history, reputation, and legacy, and much like other narrative design quirks shown off already, choices will show up down the line in other dialogue and behavior.
There’s also a brief preview of some of the character customization—only the hair is shown for the time being, but the team confirms that Phyre’s gender, hair style and color, and outfit will be changeable.
Plus, the team took a second to give an overview of the aesthetic of the introduction and endings, which are heavily influenced by True Detective, angling at what they call a “neo-noir” look. In this context, it’s shared that the team had to come up with “40 images for all the different ending options in the game,” which means there’ll be that many endings to encounter.
They’ve shown off a small clip of the intro cinematic, though it’s not long for the sake of spoilers.
We still only have 2025 as a current release date for Bloodlines 2, with the team claiming the “first half” of this year in an older blog, but getting more in-depth about the player character at least shows the team seems confident about its progress.