I'd bet it's a business decision. Studio is running out of money, the writing is mostly done, brilliant idea, fire the writer! Problem solved!

Don't know exactly if they were "let go" or just decided to bail/jump the ship but two of the original producers and advocates (at least back then) for a "true" sequel to Bloodlines are no longer with Paradox or attached to the project too.

Christian Schlütter, who quit(?) Paradox altogether around the beginning of July, moved back to Germany and is now a producer for Yager in Berlin
and
Florian Schwarzer, who apparently is still with Paradox but reportedly not working on Bloodlines 2 anymore (probably since around the beginning of July as well?)

The director too? Firing members of the creative team holding the two most important positions seems like a recipie for disaster, and it's a really odd move looking back at all the pre-release advertising with Brian Mitsoda sporting his trademark fingerless gloves. We were led to believe he was integral to the project.

do not buy this game !
i bet they fired the guy to push political agenda into the game probably this too , hope their company will go bankrupt preordering is bs ,digital item it wont run out of stocks , you can buy it anytime anyway probably even with discounts
and no need to play lucky bag
after news like this we can be sure that is true

This is what I'm guessing: they're hiring the former-Ubi guy who shipped key open-world titles (even though Bloodlines is likely a semi-open world game) to try and wrap up whatever they have here.

I'm hoping all of the content was done here, they change nothing content-wise, and are just...trying to wrap things up. I'd hate to see Brian and HSL's game changed for creative differences w/ the publisher (Paradox).

I'd hate to see..if the story and narrative stuff...is unfinished, without Brian any longer on board. And now, the team has to say find ways to...wrap stuff up.

I'd also not want to see said Bloodlines 2, which likely is more Bloodlines 1 - having now added grind-y side missions and stuff, like we see in Ubi games. I hope this doesn't happen, as I'm hoping they brought the Ubi guy in...to wrap it up and polish stuff.

Bloodlines 1 was kicked out the door early (and still somehow turned out great for the most part, despite everything - and it is my favorite game of all time) by Activision; and it sounds like Bloodlines 2 is likely & probably also in the same situation here with Paradox.

Also, about Paradox - they also published Tyranny. I loved that game, but...I do wonder if that game was also wrapped-up and kicked out the door early (i.e. before the dev's were really done with it), since the end felt like there should've been another chapter, DLC, expansion, or sequel...to wrap the story up. It felt like that game, at the end...was setting up for the next part.

I'm also wondering here - if games like Dragon Age 2 had...the best approach for their publishers, for RPG's. Namely, what I mean is: DA2's own Chapter approach - where each Chapter (there's 3 here) where each feels like its very own 10-20 hour story separate from each other (even if it all took place in the same city over numerous years)...instead of say one super-epic big arc going over 40-100 hours.

What I'm saying is this: they (BioWare) with DA2 probably easily could've say cut-off a chapter...and saved it for DLC or expansion, if publisher stepped in and said "Okay, wrap it up! We need to make money and already pumped a lot into what you guys so far have done. Save the next chapter for DLC, if it ain't done yet!" It wouldn't hurt to cut off a chapter, since...they would be independent story-wise from each other, as each chapter had its own arc.

In a world of expansions, DLC's, Live Services - it really would not surprise me to see more games get shorter and more chopped-up...to have DLC's, expansions, Season Passes, etc etc all sold as extra content.

I hate to say all of the above stuff - especially since I do love a big, long epic RPG and all; like DAO and BG1+2 - but it seems like game companies & publishers don't want their games in the cooker forever. And often open-world games and/or RPG's often are in the cooker for a very long time; and/or have really huge teams working on them.

And I think Bloodlines 2 has been in the cooker for about 5 years, IIRC.

I simply don't understand what is going on with this game. Browsing the Paradox forums didn't inspire much confidence. In browsing across multiple sites, I can't seem to get a solid answer as to how much of the game is completed.

Fair enough. I agree and I rarely pre-order anything anyway. I just had the money at the time it was announced and treated it as an investment, since you never know if the money will be in your pocket later on.

I could play the hypocrite and say "I won't do it again", "don't believe the hype", "never pre-order", but then again I took my refund money and pre-ordered Cyberpunk 2077 :P. So I'll pull a Heineken and say "pre-order responsibly".

well if you can refund it and would use it if the game is crap then it is fine, but many just preorders and even keeps the game if it is bad and funding this bad practice

It’s paradox, you can expect bits and bits of news to drip fed out for the next 10 years...

It was originally planned for early this year, then delayed to this Fall, so theoretically it should be near done despite another delay. The community manager yesterday said they're in the "polishing phase." Like I said above, I would guess current management was having a problem getting the game to a good release state and they brought in someone to more ruthlessly wrap it up.

That said... there's also a chance the development is a total clusterfuck, who knows.

Considering how bad a game the original is, I'm impressed that there are so many fans willingly to mindlessly pre-order this one. The great writing is about the only good thing about it. It was a straight up bad game.

I saw a post on a different forum saying the reason for the firings was something to due with microtransactions...however, this wasn't sourced with anything as far as I could tell. I am not trying to incite panic or anything by bringing this up. It's just something I'm curious to see how it plays out. Hopefully it is just speculation or someone being a troll, rather than the truth.

If it has microtransactions, they surely wouldn't be able to release it on GOG (as it's not a stand-alone game). At that point, my interest levels would be effectviely zero anyway (they're not far off that atm).

And there goes my interest...