Cara Ellison, senior narrative designer on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 before Paradox switched developers, discusses her love of Troika's original RPG: 'Everyone on the team helped really make that maximum goth'

Cara Ellison, senior narrative designer on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 before Paradox switched developers, discusses her love of Troika’s original RPG: ‘Everyone on the team helped really make that maximum goth’ | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Puzzle Devs behind GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and TimeSplitters are done with big shooters after getting burned by Embracer, so their next game is a Balatro-like twist on Scrabble—and you can try the demo now RPG You’ve never heard of it, but a Russian studio made a fantasy take on original Fallout way back in 2001, and it honestly kind of rules Puzzle Obsidian Moon is a Lovecraftian noir detective game about moving bits of paper around your desk and making sure you’ve got enough money for whiskey and beans Gaming Industry Nightdive Studios’ Stephen Kick has 8,544 hours in Dota 2, and just clocked his 5,000th win: ‘I think it’s made me a better leader’ Games The best free PC games Card Game If you’ve ever had a crippling Vampire Survivors or Slay the Spire habit, avoid Vampire Crawlers at all costs Third Person Shooter Arc Raiders full interview: ‘Nobody whatsoever thought we’d have this many players’ FPS Occult deckbuilder The Killing Stone is introducing a ‘dynamic’ scare system originally considered for BioShock 2: ‘It’s very fun as a gamedev to be surprised by something in your own game’ RPG The new game from Disco Elysium’s studio feels like the first Christmas after your parents’ divorce Roguelike To celebrate 2 years of Balatro, creator LocalThunk reflected on dropping out of an engineering program to make games: ‘Even if I could warn myself I’m not sure what I could have said to prepare for the insanity’ Gaming Industry Doom co-creator John Romero adores Ghost Recon and has over 3,000 hours in World of Warcraft: ‘God, I lived in that game every day for five years’ RPG ‘We lost things such as physics in games:’ The dev behind my most anticipated RPG thinks players are craving more interactive games, not just ‘moving around in a static 3D environment’ RPG Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy might just have everything I want from a CRPG Adventure I’m obsessed with detective games, and I think these 9 prove that 2025 was the best year for the genre ever Games PC Gamer’s Game of the Year Awards 2025 PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Resident EvilArc RaidersBest PC gearGame Quizzes Games RPG Cara Ellison, senior narrative designer on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 before Paradox switched developers, discusses her love of Troika’s original RPG: ‘Everyone on the team helped really make that maximum goth’ Features By Rick Lane published 1 March 2026 The narrative designer of Void Bastards and Ghost Town walks us through what’s on her PC. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Cara Ellison/Activision) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 1 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Disk CleanupWelcome to Disk Cleanup, our regular weekend column delving into the PCs of PC gaming luminaries. Come back every weekend to read a new interview, digging into the important questions, like “how tidy is your desktop?” and “what game will you never uninstall?”Narrative designer Cara Ellison got into gaming via the BBC Micro her father had stolen from work. “He was like ‘I’m borrowing it so I can work from home.’ He wasn’t. He stole it and he never gave it back”, she says. The first game to grab her attention was the 1987 narrative adventure Acheton. “I couldn’t read or write at the time, and I was determined to be able to talk to the computer.”After growing up on games like Grand Theft Auto and SimCity 2000, Ellison spent several years working as a games journalist, including for PC Gamer, before transitioning to game design, writing for titles like Dishonored 2 and the comedy immersive sim Void Bastards, with more recent projects including God of War: Ragnarok and the VR mystery game Ghost Town developed by the creators of The Room series of 3D puzzlers. Ellison was also senior narrative designer on Bloodlines 2 before Hardsuit Labs and Paradox parted ways.Currently, Ellison works as senior narrative designer at independent studio Gravity Well Games, as well as on Sleight of Hand, a deckbuilding stealth game inspired by Metal Gear Solid and Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines. “I feel like it i