Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive, acknowledges that there were «high expectations» with Bloodlines 2. The optimism is due to the fact that the company considered that it had on its hands «a good game» from a solid intellectual property, Vampire: The Masquerade (World of Darkness), which belongs to an attractive genre such as vampire fantasy. However, a month after the launch, Wester regrets to see «that sales do not match our forecasts», which is why a write-down is necessary.
The amortization is 355 million Swedish crowns, about 32 million euros, on the development costs of Bloodlines 2. In this way, Paradox Interactive recognizes in its accounting that the value of the game is less than what it will be able to recover through sales. On the publisher's balance sheet there are still 40 million Swedish crowns, about 3.6 million euros, to be amortized.
«The entire responsibility falls on us as publishers,» says Fredrik Wester about the commercial fiasco of Bloodlines 2. The executive recognizes that it is a game that is not part of the genres that dominate (strategy and management), and says that in retrospect «it is clear that this has made it difficult for us to evaluate sales.» In 2021, when Wester took over (for the second time) the role of CEO of Paradox, he said that the publisher would leave experiments behind to focus on strategy and management games. There will be no more role like that of Bloodlines 2.
Initially Bloodlines 2 was in the hands of Hardsuit Labs, but after several delays and changes in the team Paradox came to consider canceling the project. However, The Chinese Room made a «compelling enough» proposal and the company decided to move forward. With this new team at the helm, development was completed and the title went on sale last October for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC. Now The Chinese Room is working on a post-launch content plan (ratified by Wester) that includes updates and expansions.