I totally understand the fear. Their history definitely doesn’t indicate they’re the best studio for the job. That said, I did enjoy Dear Esther and Korsakovia for what they are. Korsakovia is just a really creepy idea that I really dug, and I played Dear Esther shortly after my sister died so it hit close to home for me.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by studios stepping out of their comfort zones before, and I’m so desperate for Bloodlines 2 that I’m not capable of being anything but blindly optimistic.
I’ve played the first Bloodlines game so much (it’s #3 as far as hours played in my Steam library) and absolutely love it and am in a similar boat that you are, except I know Chinese Room through Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (which I also love). I’m doubtful it will do well but optimistically hopeful that I will be proven wrong.
It’s not really the same Chinese Room any more - they basically closed the studio after Little Orpheus, and have restarted it with a new team.
Now, whether you think a bunch of randoms might make a better or worse job of it than Hardsuit Labs, who for reasons still unclear were dropped by the original publisher, is a reasonable question. I don’t see why they shouldn’t make a better job of it. If they do turn out something with great promise but a slew of game-breaking bugs, it’ll be exactly in the spirit of Troika’s original, for sure, and we can have another twenty years of fan patches trying to put it right.
Handing the game to Chinese room was a death sentence. Why play a vampire when you can walk around while a narrator talks about being a vampire?
I totally understand the fear. Their history definitely doesn’t indicate they’re the best studio for the job. That said, I did enjoy Dear Esther and Korsakovia for what they are. Korsakovia is just a really creepy idea that I really dug, and I played Dear Esther shortly after my sister died so it hit close to home for me.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by studios stepping out of their comfort zones before, and I’m so desperate for Bloodlines 2 that I’m not capable of being anything but blindly optimistic.
Hope is the first step on the path towards disappointment.
That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always disappointed.
I’ve played the first Bloodlines game so much (it’s #3 as far as hours played in my Steam library) and absolutely love it and am in a similar boat that you are, except I know Chinese Room through Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (which I also love). I’m doubtful it will do well but optimistically hopeful that I will be proven wrong.
It’s not really the same Chinese Room any more - they basically closed the studio after Little Orpheus, and have restarted it with a new team.
Now, whether you think a bunch of randoms might make a better or worse job of it than Hardsuit Labs, who for reasons still unclear were dropped by the original publisher, is a reasonable question. I don’t see why they shouldn’t make a better job of it. If they do turn out something with great promise but a slew of game-breaking bugs, it’ll be exactly in the spirit of Troika’s original, for sure, and we can have another twenty years of fan patches trying to put it right.