TLDR: This game should've never been called Bloodlines 2. It is riddled with poor gamedesign choices and lackluster mechanics that barely work. The game fails to deliver a coherent and smooth experience, instead it frustrates and at times induces rage.


1. Visual and art design is done nicely. The Seatle cityscape is atmospheric - devs have excelled at creating a belivable, dark, gritty and overall nice-looking world which is undoubtedly pleasant to look at. Unfortuantley, it is only an eye-candy.

2. Soundtrack is good. It sets the mood and works well on the overall atmosphere. It does have the "Bloodlines vibe" too it to the extent that I might add some of the tracks to my TTRPG Ambient playlist.

3. Fabien. That said, Fabien is by far the best-written in-character to the point that at some places he's written better than Protagonist. He has charisma, well-rounded-up personality. He is not annoying and interactions with him (not his background banter) are interesting and are worth digging into.


1. Open world. It is empty and lifeless. NPCs wandering the streets are just lifeless husks (pun intented) that do nothing but fill the empty void that the Seatle streets are. There are no meaningfull interactions whatsoever, which disincentivizes the player to go somwhere else but towards the quest markers.

2. The story. Though it piques the interest at the begining, it soon boils down the "Doom and gloom" type of narrative, which in conjencture with WOD and VTM lore feels lazy and unimaginative.

3. Combat. The combat janky, not AS janky as in the first game, but still. Game fails to proved a decent variety of enemy types for the player to tackle, instead it just reskins them. Mechanichally, there is no challange to combat, spamming dodge is enough to avoid most of the damage. Weaving LMB attacks in between does the job.


Everyting else is simply unbearable.

Dialogue choices feels like ripped straigh out of Mass Effect - from "good and empathetic" to downright "edge-lordy". Lack of proper RPG elements kills the feeling of progression and, again, disincentivizes the player from doing anything but main quest. Side quests are a joke. They are worse than those from Bethesda or Ubisoft games: "go kill", "deliver", etc. No narrative elements, no story, just a tedious walk from quest giver to the quest marker. What's more, the quest design creates a strong gameplay-narrative dissonance - a 400 years old vampire doing fetch quests. This is ridiculous.

The game fails spectacularly at making the player feel like the player is controlling the Elder. Discipline powers are weak ("courtesy" to the V5 edition, which is VTMB2 is loosely based on) and don't convey "the vibe" of being and elder vampire.

Overall, playing through the game feels like a chore - thanks to nonexistent progression, dead open worlds, tons of mindless fetch quests and a "tolerable" story. Only buy it on a huge discount, and even in that case think twice before buying.