That is still so fucking mysterious to me. The Chinese Room makes exactly one type of game, which is “guided-interactive narrative experience” to be diplomatic. The exact opposite of Bloodlines 1. Dear Esther, Ozzy Mandus And The Crankhog Machine, their entire portfolio follows the same formula: strong in art direction, atmosphere, and story; weak in gameplay. Even a hit like Still Wakes The Deep only takes gameplay as far as “throw object to make the thing look away”. Their gameplay systems are not just middling but comfortably average, just enough to keep the player engaged while moving through the (admittedly beautiful) environments.
So why the fuck did Paradox choose them for Bloodlines 2? Are they stupid?
The only explanation I can come up with is that they’re a studio that reliably ships finished projects, and maybe that was all Paradox was looking for.
After VtM 1’s tumultuous release, not to mention the drama surrounding the sequel’s development, that makes sense to me.
That being said, I don’t think it’s quite as big a leap as the person above is making it sound. To use their words, The Chinese Room are known for “strong art direction, atmosphere, and story, [and] weak gameplay”. They also suggest that the games TCR make are “the exact opposite” of Bloodlines 1. Which is kinda boggling my mind, cause I’m pretty sure the critical and user consensus of that game is that it excelled in its art direction, atmosphere, and story, and fell comparatively short in its gameplay. In fairness, I think he was referring to the limited open world nature of VtM 1 vs the straight linearity of the “walking sim” genre, but still. I’d argue the most memorable section of VtM is the Ocean House Hotel, which is, basically, a linear walking sim level, and it’s not as though the og game did a ton with its open world.
Now there’s an argument to be made that Paradox made the wrong call by doubling down on the peripheral elements of the game, rather than hiring a team that has ARPG gameplay bonafides, but I think that’s only an argument that can be made with the benefit of hindsight. Additionally, is it true that the gameplay/combat of VtM2 is glaringly bad? I can’t speak for myself, but the handful of reviews I read characterize it as serviceable at worst. Which, again, seems right in line with the first game.
They have been working on an unannounced city builder for a while now. Maybe not on the same scale as cities skylines, but at least it’s the same genre. So hopefully they have gathered some experience in the area already? Can’t speak to the results yet, though.
I’m more worried they don’t have the capacity to meaningfully improve anything about cities while also working on that new thing.
I don’t need anything from City Skylines 2 other than a fully fledged custom 3d asset importer. Then it will be as if the game has thousands of unpaid staff making content. Though if this next team picks up from an unfamiliar location it might still be a long time before we could even think of getting it.
I think this means that the game won’t ever be fixed and they abandoned the dump fire that the cities skylines 2 is. What a shame, but was to be expected after how it went down with the release. It’s been like two years now and they didn’t improve the game much at all…
Yup. I’ve tried the game during their recent free weekend, and even with an empty map the FPS went below 30 FPS. Granted, that was at 4K with high settings, but still very much inexcusable considering it’s running on a 9070XT and again, a completely empty map.
After all, even putting all the other problems the game has aside, why shouldn’t I just play the first game if this one doesn’t manage to either look or perform dramatically better?
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