Vampire Masquerade: Bloodhunt is a live service game, which means it doesn’t have the luxury or burden of just coming out and relying on its initial popularity to succeed. Instead, it’s a game with a future already planned for it. Future seasons, ever-changing content plans, and new additions based on community reception and feedback.
To try and determine the team’s current thoughts on their title, I sat down with producer David Sirland to discuss what we can expect, future anti-cheat support, and how they plan to appeal to players already invested in other games in Battle Royale.
iGamesNews: You’re releasing Battle Royale, which is a hyper-competitive genre where a lot of the big games already have their own deep game library. What do you hope will catch the attention of battle royale players who may have invested in these other games? Or even someone who doesn’t pay for battle royale at all?
David: I mean, here are two ways to get them.I think one is what it looks like, from [perspective of a spectator]. You might not like Battle Royale, but you might say “Oh, it’s a vampire. Oh, that looks cool. I want to try it, it’s free!” So we hope we can be a portal to the masses.
It’s important that you hear about the game and see the game that’s been played, which is why it’s so important to us to have an organic growth setup, including things like influencers and streaming — because it’s itself can be streamed.It’s fun to watch others play [our game], especially when they are really good! You can do weird, cool things – things we haven’t figured out yet! – With this game.
Another way is to feel fresh. Especially the city; the city is really the protagonist of this game. So the city and some mechanics, and how you play with both, turns it into a vertical playground. I feel like a lot of games are missing the vertical aspect. And there are some recent changes, probably nothing else important. I think we basically have the complete package.
iGamesNews: What kind of late-stage support can players get from this life services game, such as seasonal support?
David: I mean, when it comes to how we communicate with them, they should expect the best. And how we will communicate what the future will look like. I mean, we’re obviously very invested in this. I think just swapping out anti-cheat is a good testament to how much investment we’re seeing in this area. Because this is our first game, it’s also a branding exercise for the studio. So we really wanted to show, you know, ‘We’re making great games, this is our first game, this is our baby, and we’re going to take care of it.
I mean, there’s no set schedule or anything, but the turnaround time is pretty long for a live service battle royale. When it comes to your basic master plan, we’re looking into the future because we have to, or we won’t be able to get to Season X.
iGamesNews: When I play the game, you get some typical things from the game – whether it’s the personal progression system or the battle pass etc. But as a vampire masquerade game, there’s also an ongoing quest-centric narrative. Can we expect updates with new missions and new storylines?
David: Yeah, of course. So what I mean is that we have a basic narrative start with a season-specific questline that reveals what happened and drives the core story forward. You’ll get to know these NPCs in Elysium, and that’s where it starts. We really want to see how many players are interested in this, and then we can go deeper. Apparently we have an entire IP to fish! There are also ways to move us in a completely different direction, so we are now planning scenarios not just for the story, but for various features of a larger nature.
iGamesNews: You mentioned the Bloodlines IP – that’s obviously a huge source of inspiration, maybe even a direct implementation! But setting the game in Prague is a little different from the old-school RPG games that many players are familiar with, did you see the team draw a lot from that background?
David: I think by the nature of the game, it’s a combination, right? There’s the legacy of previous games and what they’ve done, obviously with notes and winks at what’s happened. And, yes, we’re going to get creative licenses because that’s the multiplayer aspect. We need to listen to what players like, but we always do it in a way that fits. For example, our ability might expand some knowledge a bit (like a healing ability), but we sell it in a way that isn’t magic, because vampires aren’t really magic, they affect the surrounding environment.
It’s a bit of a bend, but it’s something we’re very careful about. We want to do it well, but also try to keep a very open mind about what we can do in terms of games. That’s why we chose Prague. Because then we have fewer direct connections. They obviously have their own vampire type in every city since they’ve always been around, but it’s a different group than we’ve seen before.
iGamesNews: So you talked about anti-cheat earlier, which is an important topic in real-time service multiplayer. The game has moved to using simple anti-cheat, but what other measures will the team take to curb this future problem?
David: I think there are two aspects to anti-cheating, or actually three aspects. But one is technology. Obviously, that’s a big part of it. Then it’s how you use it and how you communicate how you use it. The last one is the flow when something goes wrong. This does require manual labor and requires that we actually have a localized locale and a place where we deal with the problems people have.
Also, you have to keep this in mind when you think about new features as well as when designing the gameplay. How exploitable is this in a worse case? So I think if you’re serious about doing these things longer, it needs to allow everything.
We’re also trying to be honest and admit what I mean, we’re never going to win this battle – it’s endless! We wanted to tire of cheaters, and one of the keys to Season 1 was our ranked mode. It requires you to be player level 10, which means you have time to sink in here. So at least you can’t rank duplicate cheats.
iGamesNews: How long do you think it will take on average to reach level 10?
David: I think the average is 22 hours or something like that.
iGamesNews: You’re definitely trying to impress this mature audience, but the genre itself is young – what’s the balance between appealing to those who want this mature game versus the larger mass or battle royale players?
David: I mean, I think there’s a sweet spot here, the first generation of battle royale players are getting older now and they want things that aren’t what they’ve always played. It would be a great place if we could play together as a friend group’s new battle royale.
I think for us, we don’t need it to be everyone’s first game, or the game they play the most. This is where they can get together and have some competitive fun. For example, we want the game to be competitive. We wanted to feel that winning was important, but it was fun.
iGamesNews: How does it feel to be the first new Vampire Masquerade game now? Isn’t this the original plan?
David: No, we’re not supposed to be number one in a new series of games. Honestly, I mean, it feels great because I think the product stands for itself and can carry that, and our testing has proven it. So I’m really eager to keep it going and see how far it goes when we actually live.
iGamesNews: I guess the planned shift must have added some extra pressure as the first game in a new wave of vampire games?
David: Release is always stressful. But, I mean, thanks to early access, we’ve also practiced it a lot now. Plus the team is really the most important thing and when we have issues we are really fast and that’s what I think is the most valuable thing when you’re in field service is how fast you can respond and how fast you can How quickly to fix things or turn them off.
I’m confident that we have a community that keeps us informed in a way that doesn’t break the team’s heart. So I think that relationship combined with the day’s building has made me fairly at peace with this version.
For more on Vampire Masquerade: Bloodhunt, check out our beginner’s guide for early game tips, and our other interview feature on why the former Division devs chose Prague as the classic setting for Vampire Bloodhunt.
