VtM: Bloodlines - Retrospective @ Eurogamer

Eurogamer has a retrospective article for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It also talks about Werner "Wesp5" Spahl, and his famous unofficial patch that keep the game alive.

It even has a catchy opening parargragh.

On November 16, 2004, two games powered by the Source engine were released for the PC. The first was quickly heralded as a modern classic, leading to its creators becoming one of the most influential companies in the games industry. The second was largely ignored, resulting in the closure of its developer and the scattering of its designers to the winds.

"It was dumped on the market at the worst possible time - most people didn't even know we were out," says Brian Mitsoda, the former lead writer on Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines "Both fans and the Troika devs are always going to wonder what the game could have been like with another six months."

Bloodlines was sent out to die. An unfinished game released prematurely by its publishers Activision, it didn't stand a chance on the shelves, especially alongside the hotly anticipated Half Life 2. But the commercial death of Bloodlines wasn't the end for the game. Thanks to a German analytical chemist with a passion for fixing broken things, Bloodlines has received not six months of additional work, but nine full years.

This is the story of two men who breathed life into the same game - one before it was born, the other after it died.