Hardsuit Labs has been removed as the developer of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, which has now been delayed indefinitely.
In a short statement released earlier today, publisher Paradox Interactive confirmed the title is still in development, but explained it has made the “hard decision” to pull Hardsuit from the project.
It’s currently unclear exactly why the project has been taken away from Hardsuit, with Paradox briefly explaining that a change was needed in order to meet its goals for Bloodlines 2.
“We have made the hard decision that Hardsuit Labs will no longer be leading the development of Bloodlines 2 — which also means that we will not be releasing in 2021 as previously planned. Since we cannot at this time communicate a new release date, we have also decided to stop accepting pre-orders for the time being,” said Paradox.
Separately, Paradox Interactive CEO Ebba Ljungerud confirmed during a quarterly earnings call that an unnamed new studio has already been hired to finish work on the game.
“This game is very important to us and it has been an ambitious project from the very start. In order to meet our goals for it, we’ve come to the conclusion that a change is needed and, as a result, more development time is required.”
Paradox thanked Hardsuit for “laying the foundations” for Bloodlines 2, and said it would issue an update explaining what the future development team will look like as soon as possible.
The news comes a few months after Paradox and Hardsuit chose to fire Bloodlines 2 creative director Ka’ai Cluney and narrative director Brian Mitsoda.
No reason was given for the dismissals — which itself came shortly after the game was delayed until 2021 — although Mitsoda told Rock Paper Shotgun they hadn’t been part of the conversations that led to that delay, and denied the narrative design team was responsible for the pushback.