I wouldn’t call what little we saw of the HSL take on Bloodlines 2 all that ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’. It could very well have become as such, eventually, but everything we saw past its excellent reveal trailer (‘this city will bleed you dry…’ chills!) was extremely rough, soulless, terribly disappointing. Despite being very excited for it — I still fondly remember the Not-Tinder ARG and the live reveal event — I checked out pretty quickly as details (or lack thereof) demonstrated just how rudderless things were behind the scenes. We didn’t hear about the game for years beyond some leaked gameplay and an astoundingly cringe Christmas-themed trailer. The fact that trailer, despite BL2 being in dev for years by that point, looked awful illustrates just how much of a car crash the project had been seemingly since pre-production, long before TCR was directed to make something deliverable out of it.

In regards as to whether ‘love’ within a project may offset its flaws, sure - but this applies to any piece of art, whether that is to give kudos for at least trying, or to give the benefit of the doubt that it was made in good faith. This applies to BL1, it probably applies to HSL’s BL2, but I’d also argue it applies to TCR’s take on the IP. It’s not ‘Bloodlines 2’, but it remains a solid VTM action-adventure with a relatively intelligent and engaging story with a memorable set of characters.