Activision said 'no' to Skyrim modders 3 years into remaking a semi-obscure vampire RPG it published a lifetime ago, so now those modders are reworking it into a new story
The modding team behind Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption Reawakened was in a weird spot. Hoping to avoid the DMCA/C&D death punch so many fan projects receive, they took their in-progress Skyrim remake of the 2000 RPG to Activision and Paradox, each of which owns the rights to part of the game. With a "yes" from Paradox and a "no" from Activision, the crew is now revising the mod into a "reinterpretation" of the original VtM: Redemption, cutting out everything Activision could sue them for and making it into more of a new story.
Redemption was the first Vampire: The Masquerade videogame, preceding the better-known Bloodlines by four years. It's a much more sprawling, melodramatic story than Bloodlines, following a crusader knight's doomed romance as he gets vamped up in medieval Europe, put in stasis, then awoken in 1999. Redemption's story, characters, and imaginative use of a vampire's immortal lifespan make it worth checking out, but it had some truly horrible early aughts RPG combat—just the sort of game that might benefit from a remake.
Enter Redemption Reawakened, led by modder Galejro. The mod team has made impressive progress bringing both the medieval and modern day portions of Redemption to life, but has struggled with getting the full permission (and attending security from being shut down) they wanted. Bethesda and Paradox—which owns the Vampire: The Masquerade setting—were on board, but Activision, which published Redemption and holds the rights to its specific characters and story, proved squirrely.
In the team's latest development update, Galejro revealed that they were making headway before their contact at Activision was caught up in one of Microsoft's mass layoffs after the acquisition. When Galejro and crew got a hold of someone else at Activision, the answer became a flat no. Redemption Reawakened was dead, long live Vampire: The Masquerade - Reawakened.
Anticipating this outcome, the mod team had focused on building assets and systems that could survive the removal of Activision's IP, with the team now convening a vote to determine Reawakened's new direction: Hew as close as they can to the source material without stepping on Activision's toes, use the premise as a jumping off point into an all-new story, or something in-between?
The modified version of Skyrim they're building certainly seems flexible enough to handle any direction they decide to go in: While the medieval bits are still undeniably Skyrimmy, the modern nights they've created are looking pretty fantastic, and Reawakened supports a number of in-depth and systemic rules from the tabletop game. My favorite is that there's a small chance of your vampire blood feeding being spotted by an unseen witness if you do it in front of a window—that's the kind of freakish attention to detail I crave in a game.
I'm hoping the team moves in a less faithful direction, personally. The original Redemption is a bear, but you can always chop through with the help of cheat codes, and it remains available for sale on GOG. This lack of permission from Activision could very well be a blessing in disguise, unshackling the Reawakened team from having to be slavishly faithful to the original game. At the very least, the slimmed down name is a definite improvement—"Redemption Reawakened," what a mouthful! You can follow lead modder Galejro on YouTube for updates, and also check out Reawakened's Discord server if you want to participate in the vote on the game's direction or otherwise contribute to the mod.