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The Complete Enshitification of the World of Darkness
3 weeks ago
Okay, so somehow, somehow, we have reached a point where the World of Darkness brand — once the goth kid’s bible, the TTRPG equivalent of The Cure’s Disintegration — has been hollowed out, stuffed with sawdust, and is now being dragged around by Paradox Interactive like Weekend at Bernie’s. Whatever spark (ha) the IP had has been smothered under years of baffling decisions that feel less like stewardship and more like a slow-motion hit job.
Let’s just talk about the current era, because honestly, the past sins (2016-2020) now look almost quaint. Today’s World of Darkness exists as a Twitter account that posts corporate memes, a half-dead stream of half-hearted lore drops, and promises of video games that keep getting delayed, cancelled, or delivered DOA. There’s no creative vision left — just a long, low corporate hum as the IP is milked for whatever nostalgic residue is still clinging to it.
The tabletop line? Basically in stasis. The few books that do come out are locked behind a mess of licensing decisions that feel like they were made via Ouija board. Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition has been reduced to a trickle of supplements that can’t decide if they want to be edgy, woke, or marketable to LARPers in their 30s — so they end up being none of the above.
And oh my god, Bloodlines 2. This game is the Duke Nukem Forever of the goth set, except somehow less charming. Development hell doesn’t even begin to cover it — we’ve had dev teams fired mid-production, lore rewrites that make less sense than a Malkavian haiku, and trailers that promise something gritty and cool only for the actual gameplay footage to look like a Unity asset flip with slightly better lighting. Every time they announce a delay, it’s like watching a beloved relative on life support get wheeled out for another photo op.
And that’s not even touching the glut of cheap visual novels and “interactive fiction” apps that have been vomited out over the past decade, all with the production value of a mid-tier DeviantArt commission and the writing chops of a 14-year-old who just discovered eyeliner. The franchise has been diluted to the point of homeopathy — there’s technically still vampire content, but you’d have to run ten thousand copies through a centrifuge to get anything resembling soul or atmosphere.
What we’re left with is an IP with no pulse, no plan, and no confidence — just a nostalgia-powered zombie brand lurching forward on the fumes of its own past glory. And it’s painful, because World of Darkness was the place for messy, queer, goth storytelling, and now it’s reduced to a hollowed-out logo on a Discord server no one checks.
At this point, the most World of Darkness thing about World of Darkness is watching its slow, tragic degeneration in real time — a perfect Malkavian metaplot twist where the game itself has become its own personal Jyhad. Paradox didn’t just enshitify it. They turned the Masquerade into a marketing plan, then diablerized their own fanbase.
Press F to pay respects.
Let’s just talk about the current era, because honestly, the past sins (2016-2020) now look almost quaint. Today’s World of Darkness exists as a Twitter account that posts corporate memes, a half-dead stream of half-hearted lore drops, and promises of video games that keep getting delayed, cancelled, or delivered DOA. There’s no creative vision left — just a long, low corporate hum as the IP is milked for whatever nostalgic residue is still clinging to it.
The tabletop line? Basically in stasis. The few books that do come out are locked behind a mess of licensing decisions that feel like they were made via Ouija board. Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition has been reduced to a trickle of supplements that can’t decide if they want to be edgy, woke, or marketable to LARPers in their 30s — so they end up being none of the above.
And oh my god, Bloodlines 2. This game is the Duke Nukem Forever of the goth set, except somehow less charming. Development hell doesn’t even begin to cover it — we’ve had dev teams fired mid-production, lore rewrites that make less sense than a Malkavian haiku, and trailers that promise something gritty and cool only for the actual gameplay footage to look like a Unity asset flip with slightly better lighting. Every time they announce a delay, it’s like watching a beloved relative on life support get wheeled out for another photo op.
And that’s not even touching the glut of cheap visual novels and “interactive fiction” apps that have been vomited out over the past decade, all with the production value of a mid-tier DeviantArt commission and the writing chops of a 14-year-old who just discovered eyeliner. The franchise has been diluted to the point of homeopathy — there’s technically still vampire content, but you’d have to run ten thousand copies through a centrifuge to get anything resembling soul or atmosphere.
What we’re left with is an IP with no pulse, no plan, and no confidence — just a nostalgia-powered zombie brand lurching forward on the fumes of its own past glory. And it’s painful, because World of Darkness was the place for messy, queer, goth storytelling, and now it’s reduced to a hollowed-out logo on a Discord server no one checks.
At this point, the most World of Darkness thing about World of Darkness is watching its slow, tragic degeneration in real time — a perfect Malkavian metaplot twist where the game itself has become its own personal Jyhad. Paradox didn’t just enshitify it. They turned the Masquerade into a marketing plan, then diablerized their own fanbase.
Press F to pay respects.
PurpleStar21
~purplestar21
As an urban fantasy and modern monster horror enjoyer, this has honestly just be the worst. I have sworn off 5th edition in its entirety at the point.
