After the cease-and-desist shutdown of the unofficial Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines "recreation in Unity" by then rights-holders CCP (as in the islandic video game developer, best known for the EVE franchise) back in 2014 there's now a "reconstruction" of Bloodlines' predecessor in development, or has been for a couple years(?) already.

First VTM: Redemption Reawakened Dev Report from November 2021

It's developed as a total conversion in Skyrim's iteration of the Creation Engine, and since that is available now on GoG might be of interest, not only in general but also for maybe hosting the finished total conversion on GoG alongside the base game, like it's been done with last year's The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos for Gothic 2 (which, by the way, turns 20 on the 29th of November this year).

VTMR Reawakened London and New York Walkabout
Cappadocian Monastery Test
Vampire the Masquerade Redemption Reawakened Dev Report 2

That would be a horrible idea that, if done, would leave GOG wide open to being sued for intellectual property rights violations.

Although I'm sure GOG would never even do that in the first place, for exactly that reason.

While I appreciate Redemption is getting some love after being forgotten the past 20 years, I can't help but feel like this is just "VtMR but as a Bloodlines game". Not that I'm complaining, I think straight remakes are kind of pointless in the first place if it doesn't do serious revamping. Using Redemption's ideas in a new package can work wonders.

Since it's in fact got released here, GoG must have done its due diligence and not just gone ahead and added Archolos to the catalogue but instead asked both THQ Nordic and the Chronicles of Myrtana devs beforehand if they could host it.

For Reawakened it'd be the same process, just with Paradox/Activision and Galejro in place of THQ Nordic and The Chronicles of Myrtana Team.

Daggerfall Unity is similar case too. And even for VtM Bloodlines they include unofficial fan patch/mod.

However VTMR is nowhere near as popular title as any of the above.

The difference is the Chronicles of Myrtana is an entirely new IP by the mod creators, while reawakening is completely copying the plot of an existing game. There's no real threat of being sued by the devs who wanted their project distributed, but rather by those who owned the original IP.

Calling Archolos an entirely new IP isn't exactly correct either, since it heavily borrows from the Gothic universe in various aspects (references to the island of "Archolos" for example go back as far as the original Gothic). An unofficial non-canon spin-off is what I'd call it.

As long as Reawakened itself, just like Archolos, would be distributed in a completely non-commercial fashion (as in offered for free) it shouldn't matter either way? Activision/Paradox, of course, could possibly, for whatever reason object even to that.

Would be beyond stupid though, since it could be set up in such a way that owning the original Redemption would be a requirement for claiming a free copy of Reawakened in the first place. Just like it was done in Archolos' case, where you had to own Gothic 2 in order to be able to add Archolos to the library.

Not how copyright works, at least in the US. I don't know about other countries specifically, but profit is a small part of determining fair use, and ultimately, there'd be enough that someone may have to fight it in court as a fair use. It seems obvious to me that it is, but the courts don't always work with the obvious. Just recently here, a woman who made a tattoo for WWE Superstar Randy Orton sued over the tattoo appearing on his likeness in a game because she didn't receive any royalties, and she has (at least for now) won her case, despite the fact that a tattoo seems to be an obvious case of work for hire, therefore transferring the rights to that particular instance of the art to the recipient, but then... no.

Dev Report 3

"Our 3rd Development Report where we cover the progress, advancements, changes and vital developments in the project over the past 15 months spanning mostly 2023."

Looks like an interesting project.