Yeah Paradox bought White Wolf in 2015, a couple of months after the previous publishers announced they were working on 5th edition. White Wolf brought the development of the game in house, underneath Paradox.
Then shortly after the release of V5 in 2018 there were a few scandals within White Wolf, and Paradox dissolved the company, handing off development to Modiphius with Paradox retaining final approval rights.
In late 2020 they partnered with Renegade to do the publishing of future V5 products. Paradox Interactive were the developers of Werewolf W5, and Renegade published it. It’s unclear to me who exactly is developing W5 and V5 supplementary material, but I think it might be a mix of Paradox, Modiphius, and maybe others.
Then earlier this year, Paradox announced they were re-forming White Wolf to be the company in charge of licensing and publishing of World of Darkness content.
It’s all super complicated, but the bottom line is that since before the release of 5th edition, Paradox has been the big business daddy.
When you lay it out like that it does sound like a mess.
But actually looking at what they’ve done, from the outside, it wouldn’t be obvious at all. They’ve had a steady pace of what seem to be fairly well-received books, and accompanied them with decent media such as the Jason Carl–storytold LA By Night actual play series. A lot of the old folks don’t love the changes to lore and mechanics, especially in Werewolf, but more broadly they seem to have attracted relatively positive reviews.
Didn’t know they bought out the license owner. That makes it even worse.
Yeah Paradox bought White Wolf in 2015, a couple of months after the previous publishers announced they were working on 5th edition. White Wolf brought the development of the game in house, underneath Paradox.
Then shortly after the release of V5 in 2018 there were a few scandals within White Wolf, and Paradox dissolved the company, handing off development to Modiphius with Paradox retaining final approval rights.
In late 2020 they partnered with Renegade to do the publishing of future V5 products. Paradox Interactive were the developers of Werewolf W5, and Renegade published it. It’s unclear to me who exactly is developing W5 and V5 supplementary material, but I think it might be a mix of Paradox, Modiphius, and maybe others.
Then earlier this year, Paradox announced they were re-forming White Wolf to be the company in charge of licensing and publishing of World of Darkness content.
It’s all super complicated, but the bottom line is that since before the release of 5th edition, Paradox has been the big business daddy.
Ha! Seems like development on the TTRPG side is just as much of a mess as with VTMB.
When you lay it out like that it does sound like a mess.
But actually looking at what they’ve done, from the outside, it wouldn’t be obvious at all. They’ve had a steady pace of what seem to be fairly well-received books, and accompanied them with decent media such as the Jason Carl–storytold LA By Night actual play series. A lot of the old folks don’t love the changes to lore and mechanics, especially in Werewolf, but more broadly they seem to have attracted relatively positive reviews.