How An Infamous Reload Bug Changed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt’s Approach To Seasonal Content

thegamer.com:

Sharkmob has announced that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is changing how it approaches releasing content, doing away with the typical 12-week seasonal approach to instead focusing on delivering necessary bug fixes, gameplay improvements, and content additions on a more timely basis.

Since its release earlier this year, Bloodhunt has followed a release schedule similar to other battle royales, including offering a battle pass over the course of a season. While this formula has become standard for games like Fortnite and Apex Legends, Sharkmob has had difficulty balancing gameplay improvements alongside the content expected of a battle pass in a way that benefits both player expectations and the game itself.

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“We started out Bloodhunt’s launch with a cookie-cutter approach to how long a season is with around 12 weeks to try and have a starting point and figure out what we need for the game”, Bloodhunt producer David Sirland explains. “It showed us that we can’t really support that kind of setup as a direct competitor with the big guys.”

The solution to this, according to Sirland, is to “do away with seasons” and let Bloodhunt run on its own schedule, focusing on gameplay first and trying to provide consistent updates every month instead of releasing at the start of a season. On top of that, the team will also be releasing smaller bundles of cosmetic items in a more timely fashion outside of a typical battle pass format, something players can get a taste of with the most recently released pass.

“One big thing that we had previously thought hampered us and made our updates slower is the big content drop