More than anything, I'm shocked by the lack of leaks regarding this mess. There are potentially well over one hundred former employees and an unknown number of current developers on top of past and present personnel on the publisher's side and we haven't heard a fucking peep about what went down.
Does make you wonder if there's more to the story than the easy assumption of Hardsuit botching development and Paradox giving them the flick. The situation might be more complicated or difficult for parties to talk about without making it obvious. Plus they might be worried about burning bridges. Hardsuit isn't exactly know for big AAA games. They're a small dev and this was their next big thing. If shit immediately started leaking out right after the collapse of a major project I can imagine Paradox would bring the hammer down hard.
I just don't why things are secretive about the new team handling the game. Everything prior, sure, no need to poison the well in a tight industry and at least give the next hands a chance to get their vision out there and regarded by its own merits than to be running interference in the public eye.
But there's nothing advantageous or worthwhile, as far as I can determine, to keeping the studio identity under wraps.
Honestly? My guess is that Paradox aren't even sure if they wan't to continue it, and are probably seriously considering of Bloodlines 2 is a sunk cost, alongside all the logistics of handling pre-orders and whatnot. They'd be asking themselves three things;
1) Do we continue Bloodlines 2 at a new developer, or do we assess it as a sunk cost and move on?
2) How do we ensure the new developer is able to complete the project?
3) How much of Bloodlines 2 do we preserve, or do we reboot the entire thing?
The last thing Paradox would want to do coming off bad press for Bloodlines 2 is announce a new game that gets shitcanned again, a new studio that is swapped out again, and keep showing existing content for a game that ends up entirely rebooted.
