A year ago, Paradox announced the release of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, and World of Darkness fans rejoiced. In the year that followed, Paradox has released tantalizing morsels: developer streams where the team discussed their ambitions for mechanics and graphics, clan discussion, collaborations with the informal leaders of the World of Darkness international community, an intriguing ARG about a Dating App as obsessed with the user's blood as a Japanese Visual Novel and, eventually, three beautifully crafted game trailers.
However, while there have only been three full trailers (the cinematic announcement, the extended gameplay trailer, the recently released and extremely catchy Come Dance trailer), there have also been six playable vampire clan introduction videos. Here's what we've learned from all nine of these trailers.
Who's Who In Bloodlines 2
The three larger trailers make a point to introduce one relevant member of each faction, and each of them happens to represent one of the different playable clans that you see in the Vampire Clan Introduction videos. There's Lou Graham, the leader of The Pioneers -- the old leaders of Seattle, now pushed back by the power-hungry Camarilla. She's also dressed top to bottom like a classy Toreador, the clan of art lovers, and consummate seducers.
Then, there's Prince Alec Cross, the leader of the Camarilla. In the first trailer, he's drenched in bright blue city light -- and blue happens to be the color of the Ventrue clan, the clan of Kings and Shady Business Moguls. His demeanor is noticeably friendlier and more relaxed than Prince Lacroix's from Bloodlines, but don't let his red suede shoes trick you into complacency. Ventrues are masters of Dominate, the art of turning others into puppets.
The other three characters are not technically the leaders of their factions, but they seem to be very important. Samuel the Nosferatu is particularly amiable to the player, even as he tries to entice them to switch allegiances during their very first mission. Fun fact: he's voiced by Andy Milder, the same actor that gave life to Prince Lacroix in Bloodlines. Sam is, for now, the public face of The Unseen, the Nosferatu living in the vaulted underground of Seattle.
Elif Parmak looks like the public relations/study group recruiter of The Newcomers, who are Tremere Blood sorcerers. Dressed in black and burgundy and adorned with alchemical jewelry, Elif seems much more forthcoming, seductive and extroverted than Maximilian Strauss from Bloodlines. Don't let her charming wink and smile mislead you; like all proper Tremeres, she probably carries an empty vial or two to take a sample of your blood before she even tastes you. For science, of course.
Then, there's fan-favorite and soon-to-crossover-to-tabletop Mr. Damp. Mr. Damp is a gleeful murdering Malkavian that looks and acts like the unholy child of Killing Eve's Villanelle and Joaquin Phoenix's Joker. He belongs to The Baron faction, the unseedy thugs-for-sale of Seattle, and seems to be reined in only by his list. The jury is still out on whether he killed that family in the Come Dance trailer or if he just got creative with their bodies.
Finally, there's Dale Talley, your reclusive next-door vampire neighbor who wants nothing to do with factions, politics, conspiracies and missions. He's friendly enough, and the fanbase has speculated that he might be a Thinblood (like the player) or a Caitiff (clanless vampires who are widely disrespected). He could also be a member of the Gangrel clan (the one clan from Bloodlines that is not playable nor represented in Bloodlines 2 so far) or from the almost extinct Ravnos (tricksters and masters of illusion). The one caveat to this theory is that both of these clans are known to be nomadic, and Dale seems to be very attached to his vamp-cave.
Points of Conflict
First of all, there's the obvious one: the blood. As Renfield said in Dracula, "the blood is the life," and the first trailer for Bloodlines 2 opens with "this city will bleed you dry," and follows that up with blood imagery that'a alarming even for a game about vampires -- a faucet leaking drops of blood, Dale and Lou offering the red liquid in vastly different containers, a basement flooded in blood à la The Shining and a tsunami of blood about to engulf Seattle. The voiceover even spells it out, saying "Safety is bought with blood: yours, theirs, ours."
This could be a reference to the three kinds of blood exchanges in Vampire (for feeding, for ghouling or bonding, and for Siring a Childe), or to the factions competing for the control of Seattle's Blood Trade. Given the Tender ARG lead-up to the Bloodlines 2 announcement, this is the most probable option. It could also be a reference to the three kinds of blood in the Vampire: The Masquerade V5 universe: human, vampire and the flexible thin blood of the Duskborn, which is weaker than vampire blood but infinitely adaptable by virtue of blood alchemy.
However, there's a secondary conflict: the fact that you and other Thinbloods were mass-embraced at the beginning of the game, which is considered an act of terrorism by both humans and vampires, as well as a huge breach of the Masquerade. While the final trailer shows five of the Kindred directly responsible for your unlife, their motives and masters remain obscure, and will probably be one of the main mysteries of the game. While in Bloodlines, the player character was likely embraced by a seventh or eighth generation Ancillae, in Bloodlines 2, you start out as a lowly Thinblood. This hints that your Sires were not very powerful or old themselves. Frankly, it would look like an attack of the Sabbat, the vampiric sect known for mass embraces if most of the Sabbat hadn't packed up and moved to fight in the Middle East before the start of the game.
There's also the implicit conflict between your humanity and the Beast. The Come Dance trailer contrasts something as human and lighthearted as dancing with the gruesome reality of having to catch, consume and then clean up humans as food. In Bloodlines, losing Humanity points would cause your character to give in to the Beast and automatically lose the game. The cheery finger-snapping ending of the Come Dance trailer, where the character starts dancing after gruesomely murdering a bunch of people, suggests that the Beast will be much more of a slippery slope here.
Finally, the trailers seem to be hinting that Bloodlines 2 is Lilith's game just as much as the first Bloodlines was Caine's. Lilith and Caine were the first vampires, although Caine abandoned Lilith after she shared her powers with him. Caine was a huge presence in the first game, and the ending hinted that he had been accompanying the player the entire time. So far, the trailers of Bloodlines 2 are ripe with the myth and symbols surrounding Lilith, from hidden gardens, to her wish to have the ocean swallow the Earth, to the strange sight of the usually asexual and structured Tremere actively seducing a victim in a packed nightclub, to the similarities between the floral accessories donned by Lou, Mr. Damp, Elif, the official city of Chicago and the in-universe Bahari symbol for Lilith.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will release in 2020 on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.