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Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines is a first-person action RPG that came out in 2004 at the height of the FPS RPG boom, when titles like Deus Ex and The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind were flying off the shelves. The franchise has been dormant for a while, but it has risen from the grave – but personally, I hope it stays buried.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2from developer The Chinese Room, brings back the FPS RPG, but it misses a lot of the marks. It offers players beyond the experience of playing a vampire in downtown Seattle in the near future. I only played a short period of the original game, which offered more story, customization, and a sense of grit than all my time with its successor.
In Bloodlines 2, players take on the role of Phyre, an elderly vampire known as Nomad, awakened from a century-long slumber by Fabian, a vampire detective. In what seems like a clear copy of Cyberpunk 2077, Phyre has torn apart Fabien’s body, and the detective’s soul is now embedded in Phyre’s mind. The two must solve who put the mark on Fire and the conspiracy involving a vampire serial killer from a century ago.
The idea sounds interesting until you realize how somewhat insignificant the RPG and detective elements are. The “role playing” and “crime solving” parts that should form the core of gameplay are barely there.
Even for a vampire game, this sucks
Perhaps the only positive aspect of the game is the titular Masquerade mechanic. Vampire: The Masquerade, which began as a tabletop RPG in the early 1990s, focuses on vampires hiding from humans in a world very similar to our own, following the rules known as the Masquerade.
Bloodlines 2 includes this like the system required in GTA. If you’re in a public place, double jumping, using powers, or biting someone makes the meter go from green to red. You can hide or stay away from humans to reduce it. Extremely, and the vampire enforcers assigned to support the masquerade will take your risk without any notice. This system works well for Phyre, who is trying to blend in with humans, and it helps with the idea of trying to live a life in the modern world as a vampire.
The rest of the game is kind of sparse. There is no leveling system or statistics. Experience points only unlock abilities associated with the clan of your choice: Brujah, Tremere, Banu Haqim, Ventrue, and Toreador, all of which cater to different playstyles. If you want to punch people super fast, follow the aggressive Brujah clan or be able to stay hidden with the Bani Hakim. As an elder vampire, Phyre can actually learn other clan abilities as well, but that’s the extent of the roleplaying options available, as Phyre will be powerful no matter which clan you belong to.
Despite the large number of abilities, combat is quite boring. You can hypnotize, freeze time, or make your blood boil, but other than that it’s just punches and kicks. Phyre has the telekinesis to throw knives or fire weapons, but never equips weapons. Dodging and parrying are available, and with enough training, enemies can be dealt with quite easily. Overall, the combat is much more limited and offers fewer options than its predecessor, which was released over 20 years ago.
Phyre can do some damage with his claws.
Enemies are mostly low-level vampires called ghouls, which are cannon fodder that can overwhelm you when you’re surrounded. There are stronger enemies, but you won’t see them until almost the end of the game. Boss battles are present but unremarkable.
The police aspect is worse. After some quests, Phyre must return to his haven to sleep. While asleep, Fabian relives parts of his life, solving murders using skills such as tricking people, reading minds, or communicating with inanimate objects. Later, the filing cabinet provides all the criminal records that might be relevant to the case, as no one seems to use computers in Seattle.
At first, this seems like an interesting sort of side quest for the game, but solving these puzzles mostly just involves going from place to place, talking to anyone, exhausting dialogue trees that have hardly any consequences for saying the wrong thing, and then moving on to the next place until you’re told what happened.
These memories are linked to the plot: when Fabian returns to the 1920s, he remembers a specific event that gives some backstory regarding the current overarching mystery that Fire is trying to solve. But it’s just mind-numbing after a while because none of these characters are interesting at all, and like I said before, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of failure mode, where it seems impossible to not solve the puzzle since the only obstacle you’re faced with is someone or something you need to use Fabian’s powers on.
One of the elite enemies in Bloodlines 2.
Jam peg in my eye
I want to say that the characters look at least visually interesting, but that quickly disappears. You’ll notice how devoid of emotion or detail the animation is.
Seattle has a cyberpunk vibe with blizzards, but nothing changes over time. NPCs are wandering down the street, either screaming about the cold, looking to start a fight with you, or trying to have sex with you. There are about ten locations you can visit, with one or two important NPCs in each. The whole city looks empty and bland.
Across the board, Bloodlines 2 is just a letdown. It should be full of elegance and gothic vibes that will make you want to paint your nails black and put on some My Chemical Romance. Instead, it’s the same thing over and over again that feels uninspired and unchallenged. It also doesn’t help that the game crashes multiple times when playing on my PS5. If you’re desperate to spend the rest of October playing as a vampire, pick up Baldur’s Gate 3 and play as Astarion instead.
Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 is scheduled to release on October 21 for $60 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series.
