This past March at GDC, Paradox Interactive announced the return of a long-dormant franchise with the reveal of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Nearly 16 years after the original game was released on PC, the narrative-driven RPG showed off some new gameplay footage from E3 this week, showing players how missions, combat, and narrative decisions will be handled in this long awaited sequel.

The developer has released a 20-minute hands-off demo for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, which sees the player being tasked with trying to locate a creature named Slugg in order to acquire information. Throughout the demo, examples of how the game's dialogue options change the shape of the mission can be seen, with certain choices opening up the opportunity for optional objectives. These narrative branches continue all the way to the end of the mission, where players have the choice to either spare or execute Slugg upon his capture. These choices, like many narrative-driven games, look to have major consequences for the player as the story progresses.

Some smaller features seen include a weapon wheel that shows how players will manage switching between physical and supernatural abilities, as well how users can use infrastructure such as air vents to access blocked off areas. The beginning of the demo also shows three different disciplines to choose from, with the Chiropteran, Mentalism, and Nebulation skill branches focusing on supernatural, manipulation, and stealth skills, respectively. Given the story is expected to last around 25 to 30 hours, these skills and abilities will surely be built upon further in the game.

The story behind the Vampire: The Masquerade franchise is one riddled with development turbulence and a poor release plan. Back in 2004, the original game was forced to compete with Valve's Half-Life 2, which is considered by many as one of the best first-person shooters of all time. The game was left without a producer for over a year of the development process, and with publisher Activision forcing the studio to release the unfinished game the same day as Valve's critically acclaimed title, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was a commercial flop, and the studio was shut down just months after its release.

For a brief moment, the Epic Games' Mega sale on its digital market had discounted pre-orders for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 despite it not having an official release date. Epic Games has since reversed the ability to reserve a copy of the game at a discounted price, however intends to honor the sale for those who were quick to jump on the deal. Given the prequel failed to sell many copies when it released back in 2004, the last thing this cult classic franchise needs is to give fans to a reason not to look forward to its narrative-driven open-world RPG.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is expected to release in March 2020 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.