Community Backlash Hits Bloodlines 2 Loose Cannon Expansion As Players Criticize Short Forty Minute Gameplay Duration And Lack Of Narrative Depth
Community Backlash Hits Initial Expansion for Bloodlines 2 The difficult journey for Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 took another downward turn this week following the launch of its first story driven expansion. Titled Loose Cannon the new content was expected by some to address the lukewarm reception of the base game. However the release has instead intensified existing frustrations among the player base. Early data from the Steam platform indicates a polarized response with only about 80 user reviews resulting in a 50 percent approval rating at the time of this report.
The community primarily criticizes the game for its short gameplay duration and its failure to deliver sufficient content. The complete narrative arc requires approximately forty minutes to finish which multiple players identified as the reason for their complaints about the game price. The expansion does not deliver any new character abilities and its short duration leaves players empty handed. The project uses existing campaign elements together with reused environmental assets to create its content.
$14.99 for 40 minutes of gameplay. The entire story can be summarized in one sentence: Bennie leaves his post as Sheriff of the Camarilla to confront a local Anarch Baron and ends up with a stake in his heart. The end.
The writing and character development have also come under fire. The expansion focuses on a character named Bennie a Brujah who many players found to be one dimensional and unappealing. This narrative choice by the development team at The Chinese Room has left even the more dedicated fans of the base game feeling ignored. One critic noted that the character felt like a caricature rather than a grounded part of the World of Darkness setting.
Who at Chinese Room decided we wanted to see more of this incredibly boring and flat Brujah? I never asked for this. Every plot detail was already obvious from the main game. Bennie is completely useless as a character.
Longtime players report that technical performance and core gameplay experience have both decreased since the game launch. Players report that they experience less movement control and combat responsiveness through the expansion than they did during normal base game play. The security forces in this game have major encounter balance issues which lead to unsettling gameplay experiences at multiple points during combat. The product appears unfinished because users believe that the expansion functions as a sequence of deleted scenes which creators fused together to make a final product.
Despite the negative reception a small segment of the audience consisting primarily of those who pre ordered the Deluxe Edition expressed less dissatisfaction. The players who received the content through their original purchase experience relief about the game costs because they already owned the game. The publisher now faces uncertainty about post launch support for Bloodlines 2 because they must evaluate investment possibilities for a project that has not achieved commercial success or critical acclaim.
