page_title: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
section_title: Release
hierarchical_section_title: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines / Release
caption_attribution_description: English: Taken on May 15, 2003 Dowtown Carrier Annex, Los Angeles, CA, US Sony Cybershot
context_page_description: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a 2004 action role-playing video game developed by Troika Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows. Set in White Wolf Publishing's World of Darkness, the game is based on White Wolf's role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and follows a human who is killed and revived as a fledgling vampire. The game depicts the fledgling's journey through the early 21st-century Los Angeles to uncover the truth behind a recently discovered relic that heralds the end of all vampires.
  Bloodlines is presented from first- and third-person perspectives. The player assigns their character to one of several vampire clans—each with unique powers, customizes their combat and dialog abilities and progresses through Bloodlines using violent and nonviolent methods. The selection of clan affects how the player is perceived in the game world, and which powers and abilities they possess; this opens up different avenues of exploration and methods of interacting with or manipulating other characters.
context_section_description: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was released on November 16, 2004 in competition with Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Halo 2, and several other titles. Valve's contract for Troika's use of the Source engine guaranteed that Bloodlines could not be released before Half-Life 2, and could not be introduced to the public until after the announcement of Half-Life 2, over eighteen months after development began. In February 2004, the game was scheduled for release in spring 2005, partially to avoid competing with Half-Life 2 and the competitive Christmas period, before Activision moved the date to November 2004. Activision obtained model Erin Layne to play Jeanette in promotional material for the game. Layne worked with Bloodlines artist Tim Bradstreet for a day to provide the poses chosen by Activision to represent Jeanette in the game's posters, clothing, and other items.
  Despite generally favorable reviews, Bloodlines' initial release sold 72,000 copies and earned approximately $3.4 million in sales, below Troika's other games, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (234,000 units, $8.8 million) and  The Temple of Elemental Evil (128,000 units, $5.2 million). In comparison, Bloodlines' release competitor Half-Life 2 had sold 6.5 million copies by 2008. Bloodlines‍' relative failure contributed to the demise of Troika Games.
  Shortly after its debut, most of the development staff were laid off; the remaining staff tried to patch Bloodlines and develop game concepts to secure funding to keep Troika in business. Troika, unable to obtain further funding from Activision or other publishers, released its employees in two waves: the first in November 2004, followed by the remaining staff in December, except for its three founders Anderson, Boyarsky, and Tim Cain. Some employees worked without pay to fix the game. When the company closed in February 2005, it had secured no other game development deals. That month, Boyarsky confirmed that Troika had not been working on a patch for the game since most of its staff were gone since December 2004.
  In a 2006 interview, Anderson said that although Troika Games' library had been critically well received, consistent technical issues had marred the perception of the company's games, contributing to Troika's difficulty in obtaining new projects. In 2013, Mitsoda said that Bloodlines was released at "the worst possible time - most people didn't even know we were out ... fans and the Troika [developers] are always going to wonder what the game could have been like with another six months." In a 2017 interview, Boyarsky echoed Mitsoda's sentiments, saying that a further three to six months of development time could have allowed Troika to address many technical flaws, but he was unsure that they could have resolved larger issues. He said "I feel the second half of the game isn't as good as the first. I feel like we devolved into relying too much on combat at the end." Boyarsky noted that it was impossible to know if the fixes would have made Bloodlines more successful, or if it would have remained a niche product. He said, "it might have been too early for people to appreciate it, but we'll never know." The game fared better following its release on Valve's Steam digital distribution service in March 2007, where, as of 2015, it has sold 492,000 copies.
  Unofficial patches have been created by the game's fans to address Bloodlines' technical problems, and restore missing and incomplete content. After experiencing problems with the first versions of an unofficial patch created by Dan Upright, analytical chemist Werner Spahl continued patching the game from version 1.2 with permission and instructions. The game community tested Spahl's patches, providing reports on bugs and spelling errors. Although the game's complexity meant that repairing one aspect often broke another, as work on the patches progressed Spahl began restoring removed and incomplete content in the game files, adding quests, items, weapons, and characters, with fan help to provide voice acting, models, and reinsta
caption: Models as some of the game's clans during a promotion for the game at E3 2003
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