First reported by Eurogamer, Paradox announced this weekend that PlayStation Store preorders of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 are being refunded with the instruction that customers renew their preorder after planned "adjustments" to the game and its price.
This is in response to the backlash over core content being locked behind a $30 DLC, an unforced error at the end of a long, challenging development across two studios. Paradox noted that PlayStation customers will be able to place a new preorder for the game after it finally announces those adjustments on September 17th.
Some type of price change seems imminent, but it's still up in the air how much. The PlayStation Store refunds are the latest update on Paradox's controversial announcement last month that two of the six playable clans in Bloodlines 2 will be paywalled inside a $30 DLC—on top of the $60 price tag on the base game.
Unsurprisingly, that idea didn't go down well with players. Clans in Vampire: The Masquerade are effectively a combination of race and character class, and the original Bloodlines offered seven to pick from. To put it in perspective, just imagine if Baldur's Gate 3 locked one third of its classes—say, the Warlock, Bard, Monk, and Barbarian—behind a $30 DLC at launch.
But one third of the game's playable classes being locked behind a $30 DLC at launch—raising the price of the full game to $90—has effectively killed Bloodlines 2's new momentum and positive word of mouth. The best case scenario here would be a full mea culpa, folding all the clans into the $60 base game and lowering the price of the Premium Edition to reflect its relative reduction in value. However, a simple price drop with two of the clans remaining separate DLC isn't out of the question—no matter how inadvisable.
