Paradox Writes Down €32.25m of Capitalised Development Costs for Bloodlines 2

Paradox Interactive writes down MSEK 355 (~€32.25 million) of capitalised development costs for the game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 in Q4. This write-down is in addition to the scheduled degressive amortisation of MSEK 346 (~€31.43 million) for the quarter. MSEK 40 (~€3.63 million) of the capitalised development costs will remain on the balance sheet at the end of the year. This decision is based on an updated sales forecast made 30 days after the game's release.

The game's long and turbulent development history led to a significant accounting gap for Paradox Interactive. Thirty days after its release, the Swedish company has a clearer idea of what can realistically be recouped, and has written off the rest as a loss. Initially, the project was worked on by Seattle-based developer Hardsuit Labs (rumoured to have started in 2015), and was supposed to be released in 2020. Several delays followed before Paradox Interactive announced its separation from Hardsuit Labs in February 2021. The Chinese Room then took over development. The game was released on 21 October 2025 and failed to meet the expectations of many players and members of the press. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004) was a classic, story-driven RPG with multiple solutions to quests and meaningful decisions in a dynamic world. In contrast, Bloodlines 2 was a more modern, significantly more linear action-adventure game with a reduced role-playing element.

Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive, was quite clear in his statement: "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is a strong vampire fantasy and we are pleased with the developers' work on the game. We've had high expectations for a long time, since we saw that it was a good game with a strong IP in a genre with a broad appeal. A month after release we can sadly see that sales do not match our projections, which necessitates the write-down. The responsibility lies fully with us as the publisher. The game is outside of our core areas, in hindsight it is clear that this has made it difficult for us to gauge sales. Going forward, we focus our capital to our core segments and, at the same time, we'll evaluate how we best develop World of Darkness' strong brand catalogue in the future."

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is set to receive two more expansions and additional updates. "Our post-release plan remains firm; we will deliver updates and the promised expansions to the game in the coming year", Fredrik Wester continues.