Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Gets New Lead Narrative Designer

In a Twitter announcement on Monday, narrative designer Samantha Wallschlaeger stated she’d taken on the role of lead narrative designer for Hardsuit Labs’ Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.

Guess what, y’all? I’m now the lead narrative designer at Hardsuit Labs!!” Wallschlaeger wrote.  “At this point, I’ll just be supporting my new team in whatever tiny ways I can. But I’m so excited for future stuff, and so happy to be working with these wonderful folks!” Wallschlaeger previously worked at Monolith, ArenaNet, and Bioware in writing and narrative design positions.

Hardsuit Labs has not, as yet, made any official announcement either on their Bloodlines 2 website on or through a general press release. Wallschlaeger’s appointment to the position comes two months after former lead narrative designer Brian Mitsoda and creative director Ka’ai Cluney were abruptly terminated from their positions. It also comes only a week after the departure of narrative designer Cara Ellison, who left the project to work at League of Geeks.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is slated for release sometime in 2021.

Food For Thought

Wallschlaeger’s announcement seems to have generated a good amount of congratulations from peers and former colleagues. It also appears to have engendered a degree of small scale hostility, with a number of replies proclaiming they would be cancelling pre-orders and foretelling the commercial failure of the game. A lot of the replies seem to be basing their discontent on the lackluster writing in Mass Effect: Andromeda, which Wallschlaeger worked on while she was at BioWare (She also did work on the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic). And while it’s tempting to chalk the discontent up to trolls on the Internet, the conditions under which Wallschlaeger comes into this position are decidedly troubling. Without knowing exactly why Mitsoda and Cluney were fired, whoever stepped into their shoes would likely face similar scrutiny.

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