Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

I played Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines almost 20 years ago. That's how seasoned I am, and that's how strong my fondness for this particular universe remains all these years later. I played it when it came out, and the game was definitely not fully developed. I loved the whole premise of being part of this vampire society, which consisted of different clans and races that had to live by a set of rules called "The Masquerade". If you couldn't live up to these rules, you were exterminated. There was no mercy here; either you followed the rules, or you were cast out. In other words, as with so many other well-told games, I accepted the "jank" in favour of the atmospheric mood and well-constructed narratives.

Since then, I have played it many times, especially after fans made updates and fixed the many bugs the game had at release, and my love for it is just as strong as it was back then. Now, the sequel is finally out, after what feels like an eternity, during which the game has been rebooted, changed developers, and been delayed countless times. So let's see what awaits those of us who like vampires. The game is developed by The Chinese Room and published by Paradox Interactive (with White Wolf as co-publisher). The game will be released on October 21.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is a very faithful sequel to the first game. You can clearly sense that the developers have a genuine love for the original. The entire format, structure, and atmosphere feel familiar.

The game starts in Seattle at Christmas time. The city is cold, snow-covered, and bathed in neon lights that glitter in the white streets. Here you choose your clan. I chose the Toreador clan, just as I did in the first game, and each clan has its own abilities and strengths.

The story begins with you waking up in a box in a warehouse, and when the box is opened, you attack the person standing in front of you and rip out their throat. This turns out to have major consequences. The person you killed was also a vampire, a detective in the police force, and for reasons I won't reveal here, he and the player end up being connected throughout the story. You play as the so-called Nomad, a legendary vampire who has been asleep for hundreds of years and suddenly wakes up in Seattle during Christmas. Your task, together with the aforementioned detective, is to navigate the city's hidden vampire community and avoid breaking the Masquerade, while trying to figure out what is going on and what the mysterious mark on your arm means.

Let's not beat around the bush here. The story is fantastic. You meet many interesting characters as you move around the complex hierarchy that rules the city. If there is anything negative to mention, it's that everything outside the main story is a bit thin, and this is not the first time that relatively open games have encountered this problem. The side missions feel like filler. They usually involve fetching, delivering, or killing something. But the main story and the missions associated with the most important characters are exciting and well-written and they are that way throughout.

There are many cool characters. Lou Graham, Seattle's former Prince, is the former leader of the city and one of the most fascinating characters in the game. She is plagued by hallucinations and sees omens of the vampires' demise, known as Gehenna. She has passed on her power to her so-called "childe", but she still has a great deal of influence on city politics. And Tolly, a Nozferatu, is both clever, intimidating, and surprisingly charming. Each character has their own distinctive traits, and most of them are fascinating to get to know.

You even play as Detective Fabian between chapters. He investigates a case called The Rebar Killings, where both mortals and supernatural creatures are being murdered in Seattle. These sequences function almost like a noir detective story and are interwoven with the main narrative. Fabian has the ability to read people and, even more interestingly, to question objects about their position and history. For example, you can have conversations with a flirtatious filing cabinet or talk to the deceased. It sounds strange, but it works, and the dynamic between Fabian and Nomad, who is called Phyre (Fire) here, works really well.

In previous reviews, I have talked about what I call "euro jank", the special feeling some European games have, where the ambition is enormous, but the execution lags behind. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 suffers from this a little. For example, the story and characters are strong, but the combat system is only reliable. The controls feel a bit loose and imprecise. When you punch or kick, you often miss, and you can't lock onto enemies, and this makes close combat frustrating. I can't say whether it feels better with a controller, but with a mouse and keyboard, it feels clunky. I don't know how many times I ended up running past my opponent in my eagerness... Nothing is completely broken here, and perhaps with a little buildcrafting you can reach a point where you can chain together sufficiently satisfying abilities, but it's not quite right. It's a shame, because the number of abilities is solid, and they all create versatile playstyles and possibilities. For example, I learned to sneak up on enemies and kiss them, briefly turning them into my allies. Once they had done their job, I picked up their weapons and continued shooting. It quickly became a much more fun and tactical way to play. Once I finally cracked that code, the combat system began to open up and became entertaining despite its messy nature.

To upgrade your abilities, you have to drink blood. But here, the emotional state of the victim matters. For example, you can drink blood from a loving, melancholic, or aggressive person, and it gives you different types of points. At first, it felt a bit rigid and cumbersome to have to find people in specific emotional states, but after a while, I began to see the strategy in it. It quickly becomes risky, because if you are seen while biting, you break the Masquerade. In addition, you can provoke people into that state of mind by scaring, complimenting, or criticising them. It's pretty cool that you can manipulate an NPC into having the blood you're looking for. The Masquerade has three stages. Green means standstill, yellow means you have to be careful, and red means the vampire hunters are coming after you. So you have to plan carefully, choose your victims, and preferably find them where no one can see you. I think it's a cool system.

And finally, immersive sim elements. Yes, they're here. Seattle is filled to the brim with alternative routes to exciting locations that offer extra information, resources, or more central goals. The main missions in particular offer this inherent freedom of movement, but it's not fully reflected in the game's side content. However, for those of you who are thirsty for more immersive sim experiences, I would like to emphasise that the game leans heavily on these design conventions.

I have learned that you should never say never when it comes to performance. We can only comment on our own experience, and this may not end up reflecting the experience many of you end up having. I have a similar feeling here. So okay, let's be brutally honest here again. I have an RTX 4090, and the game only ran properly when I turned on frame generation. That's a warning sign in itself. So I won't say that the game runs perfectly for everyone, but if you have powerful hardware, you're in good shape. I can't and won't comment on the console versions, nor can I go deeper into performance, as my observations and conclusions could suddenly be proven wrong by a single patch or a blind spot.

However, the graphics are truly beautiful. Running through the city with snowflakes dancing in the neon light is an experience in itself. Seattle feels alive, cold, and atmospheric. The music disappointed me a little at first. I loved the soundtrack from the first game, and it was difficult to accept the new one. But gradually I began to understand that Bloodlines 2 is trying to create its own identity, and when you consider that the first game took place in sunny Santa Monica, while this one takes place in winter-cold Seattle, it actually makes sense. The music fits the new tone well. The voice acting is a bit uneven. The main character, Phyre, has a somewhat strange delivery, but most of the supporting characters do well. They don't quite reach the level of the original, but the voices grow on you as you play.

Can I recommend Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2? Yes, especially to those who played the first one. The story is strong, the characters are good, and the atmosphere gets better the longer you play. The two games are very similar. The first was messy but beloved, and the same can be said about the sequel. It has its flaws, especially in the combat system, but it also has soul and charm. If you can look past the technical flaws and focus on the story and the abilities instead, this is a refreshing breath of fresh air in the genre.