14 DAY TRIAL // Hardsuit Labs, the studio behind the sequel to the cult game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, recently announced that their game will no longer be released in Q1 2020. The decision is based on the feedback received from players, so the studio now believes that quality is more important than releasing the game if the first quarter.
Apart from the fact that Hardsuit Labs feels that the game won't be ready for a Q1 2020 release, there's one other reason that the studio's decision to postpone it is the right one. Q1 2020 is one of the busiest periods for the video gaming industry with at least three triple-A games coming out around the same time.
The first one is Naughty Dogs' The Last of Us Part II, which is scheduled for release on February 21, 2020. Then, Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Remake will land on PlayStation 4 on March 3, while Animal Crossing: New Horizons should be outed on March 20.
Last but not least, Cyberpunk 2077 will arrive on April 16, so February – April will be a pretty busy period of gamers. For those who don't know, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was initially slated for a March 2020 release.
In a long blog post, Hardsuit Labs explains that it wants to offer players a deep, branching storyline, fascinating and amazingly acted characters, as well as the rich universe of the World of Darkness.
Also, there's a studio realized over the last few months that to stick to its original date would risk launching a game full of bugs. Even though Hardsuit Labs improved its workflow and the team, at some point during the development process it became clear that these alone will not allow the studio to provide players the quality they want at the date promised.
That being said, Hardsuit Labs confirmed they will be in Berlin for PDXCON and that they will be sharing more about the delay of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 during the PDXCON Announcement stream on October 19.