Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is locking core content behind a day-one DLC, sparking outrage among fans. Read on to learn more about what the Shadows & Silk DLC contains and what fans are saying about it!
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Announces Shadows & Silk DLC
Shadows & Silk DLC Locks Two Playable Clans Behind Paywall
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 publisher Paradox Interactive just announced that it will be making two of its playable clans available only via its launch DLC Shadows & Silk, and fans of the franchise are making it known that they are unhappy with the decision.
The second Bloodlines game is set to have a total of six vampire clans, but two of those are locked behind the Shadows & Silk DLC, which will be available for an additional $30—half of the base game's price. In contrast, the first Bloodlines had seven playable clans available at launch for no extra cost.
With the launch DLC, players can choose to play as a member of either the Toreador and Lasombra clans in addition to the base game’s Brujah, Tremere, Banu Haqim, and Ventrue. The Toreador are beauty-obsessed, hedonistic vampires, while the Lasombra are ruthless, power-hungry masters of the shadows.
Having the Toreador, specifically, accessible only via a paid DLC has perplexed fans, with many citing them as foundational to the lore or simply too basic to be monetized in this manner. "Locking Toreadors behind DLC is like if a new Elder Scrolls or D&D came out, and you had to pay extra to play as an elf," said one redditor.
Paradox Interactive Losing Fans
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has had a tumultuous path getting to where it is now, having faced multiple long-term delays and even a developer change, and fans are calling this DLC announcement yet another stumble before the game finally reaches the finish line.
Six years post-announcement, fans have started to pull support, with several online stating that they have removed Bloodlines 2 from their wishlist or they will be waiting until a significant drop in price to purchase the game. "Scummy practice. I won't buy this, ever. You shouldn't either," wrote one gamer on the game’s Steam forum, leading dozens to chime in in agreement.
Over its long history, Paradox has repeatedly come under fire from fans for "milking" its playerbase. Some of Paradox’s questionable monetization practices include Europa Universalis IV’s DLCs totaling to approximately $500, Crusader Kings II locking essential factions behind DLC, Hearts of Iron IV requiring DLC for its ship designer, and Crusader Kings III retroactively increasing the price of its "Flavour Packs."
With Shadow & Silk offering no story expansion and instead monetizing core aspects of the game and its lore, Paradox Interactive has gamers questioning its motives and decisions once again. "I have never seen business practices so utterly deranged as this," said a redditor, prompting another to respond with, "Welcome to Paradox's insane DLC practices."
Making the bad look even worse, a perceptive redditor noticed that the deluxe and premium editions of the game were being advertised on the official website with a "Get the Full Experience" tagline. "The base game should be the full experience," the livid redditor said in an expletive-riddled rant.
The Chinese Room Responds
When asked about the rationale behind Shadows & Silk, the game’s developer, The Chinese Room, said that the DLC would help get even more players through the door. "It's not uncommon for games to come out with additional content, and given the nature of the game as it stands, where it's been through a lot, this is a way to get additional players in that have been asking for that content, and asking for those clans, on day one," they told PCGamesN.
Narrative director Ian Thomas also said that Shadow & Silk’s content was not originally planned to be in the game and is instead the result of the studio’s constant desire to add more content. "We’ve made a huge amount of changes over [the development cycle]," Thomas told Rock Paper Shotgun. "We have been expanding it from where we originally planned to land it."
In the same conversation, Thomas also added context for Bloodlines 2’s numerous delays, stating that part of the reason for pushing it back so many times is to "fatten" the content to get to a place where they think players would be happy. He even stated that new content was still being added as recently as the past few weeks. "It's not all just fluff that we're chucking in. It's all got that same quality there."
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is officially slated for release on October 21, 2025 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. For the latest on Bloodlines 2, check out our article below!
Sources:
Paradox Interactive | Pre-Order Trailer Announcement
PCGamesN | Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 studio responds to paid clans controversy
Rock Paper Shotgun | The Chinese Room defend Bloodlines 2's paywalled vampire clans: "we have been expanding it from where we originally planned to land it"
Reddit | Is Paradox smoking crack?
Steam Community | Day 1 DLC? Removed from wishlist.
Reddit | This sucks: you'll have to pay for two clans in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2
