- 2 days ago
We waited over 20 years for this RPG sequel but Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the definition of a crying shame. Clumsy writing and flat, repetitive world design expose a handful of good ideas that never take root, while its poor technical quality and unstable performance will render it unplayable for some.
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00:00It's clear the Chinese Room had its work cut out for it with Vampire the Masquerade
00:04Bloodlines 2. As the long-awaited sequel to a cult classic RPG, I see evidence of that
00:10immense pressure in every single pixel. It's woven through a thinly cobbled plot so fragile
00:17even the slightest tug at a loose thread sends the whole thing unravelling. It's hidden
00:23beneath the dreary funeral pool hanging over the snowy streets in what's supposed to be
00:28a seedy and bustling Seattle. The empty silence occasionally interrupted by a line of recycled
00:35NPC dialogue as you run back and forth between the same five buildings for the first 20 hours
00:40of the 30 it takes to finish it. I feel it in the wet paper bag punch dash punch dash monotony of
00:47every combat encounter. Cringe at it whenever Fabian spouts another corny detectivism that
00:53sounds like a film student's first go at a noir script. These stress fractures run
00:58deep through Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2, breaking it before it even has a chance to go
01:04anywhere. It reveals both how rushed this game must have been, and how high my own expectations were
01:10too in order to feel so bitterly let down. From the bottom of my cold black heart, I wanted to love
01:19Bloodlines 2. But this isn't a case of great ideas with poor implementation. Rather, it's a fundamentally
01:26flawed experience from conception to execution that has me wondering why it was ever made in the first
01:32place, never mind why it was released in this state. The problems start at the beginning. After finishing
01:41the prologue, I exit the streets and suddenly my computer is buckling under the onslaught of particle
01:48physics despite me meeting minimum specs. Swapping to a fancier gaming laptop, it doesn't even boot.
01:58Finally, switching to PS5, performance fares much better, but even then it crashes during exploration
02:05at times and constantly frame dips when transitioning between locations. The game starts as Fire, an elder
02:13vampire recently awoken from a deep hibernation-like torp asleep takes a few confused steps into an
02:19abandoned warehouse. She punches an NPC and sends it splattering against a distant wall. But then,
02:27a voice cuts through her consciousness. It's Fabian, the other half of our duo protagonist serving,
02:34and he has no idea how he ended up in your head either. So begins the curious bisection of Bloodlines 2.
02:43Most of the time, you play as Fire, grappling with a new world in downtown Seattle as you try to make
02:49nice with the local Camarilla Vampire Council. These sections largely involve pummeling enemies,
02:55most of the time half-blooded ghouls and renegade vampires of the Anarch faction,
03:00and making seemingly important decisions that actually make little to no difference to the story.
03:06The rest of your time is spent in dream flashbacks as Detective Fabian,
03:11chasing leads and investigating the rebar killer in 1920s and 2023 Seattle. He's the textbook stereotype
03:18of a gumshoe, cracking wise guy jokes and flirting with filing cabinets when he could probably just
03:24read their contents instead. The painful script is one of my most glaring problems with Bloodlines 2.
03:32Fabian's attempts at being a cheeky yet motivated detective come off phony, his jovial tone jarring
03:39against the old school noir edge of what he's actually saying, but he's not the only one who rubs
03:45me the wrong way instantly. The tone of the game is all over the place. Bloodlines 2 is set in 2024
03:52Seattle, Washington, yet everyone speaks like they crawled out of Pulp Fiction. Every character is a
03:59cookie-cutter stereotype with zero substance, be it the queer-coded henchman, chin-stroking villain,
04:06or lovestruck nerd, and it's hard to care about any of them. I can only assume the Chinese room was
04:13targeting a modern LA noir with vampires feel while also gunning for Bloodlines 1's camp theatrics,
04:20but by splitting that focus so literally, the two never find confluence. Ultimately,
04:27anything that would have made this the gritty vampire RPG of my dreams is cheapened or glossed over.
04:34If Bloodlines 2 is an RPG, I'm not sure the Chinese room knows it. The developer has never made an RPG
04:42before, but only so much can be excused as a rookie mistake. There's simply no role playing to be had
04:50here at all. As memories, Fabian's dialogue choices carry zero weight in his selections. Instead, you
04:58pursue investigation leads by harnessing his telepathic abilities, adding some context to a modern day
05:04storyline that's still peppered with plot holes. Meanwhile, Fire's chapters play more like a linear
05:10action game with slight variances, depending upon what Fire chooses to do with a total of two
05:16characters. Nothing feels weighty. It's impossible to roleplay in a narrative that's already set its
05:24course. You're told when you make a dialogue choice that upsets or pleases a given NPC, but without a
05:30relationship tab to keep track of them, these reactions are totally superfluous. As for romance,
05:37forget about forging a meaningful vampiric bond. Flirting with the right people enough times sometimes
05:44treats you to a blackout sex scene, complete with lewd slapping, moaning, and a few strings of ham-fisted,
05:51kinky dialogue. This is truly the most unsexy piece of vampire media I have ever encountered. At the
05:59end of the day though, it doesn't really matter who likes or dislikes Fire, as everything is plot
06:05armoured to funnel the story toward a single outcome. It's not just the lack of meaningful branching
06:11narratives. Bloodlines 2 also refuses to interact with many other RPG staples. The ability tree is a
06:19misnomer. The four combat and manipulation skills ascribed to your chosen vampire clan are
06:25progressively unlocked within the first few hours, and neither your stats nor skills can be upgraded,
06:31with others unlocked by visiting Fire's clan contacts. The logic here is that as an elder,
06:37more powerful vampire, Fire already has access to abilities outside their clan, but has forgotten
06:43them from spending so long in torpor. There's one NPC for each of the playable clans,
06:49capable of teaching Fire the four skills attributed to their respective clan once you accrue enough
06:55blood resonance points in exchange. Note that you still need skill points to purchase them from the
07:00ability tree after unlocking them. Completing missions, side quests, and engaging in combat earns
07:07experience, and eventually new skill points. Blood resonance points are gathered by drinking from
07:13certain citizens emitting the corresponding coloured aura. Sounds pretty simsy, but at least it folds in
07:20some World of Darkness lore and makes an effort at stylising the unlocking system. Talking to an NPC
07:26with a red pulsating aura causes them to chase after you in a rage, while pink, sanguine NPCs will follow
07:34fire blindly into dark alleyways, usually full of homeless people who may or may not react. You can also chase
07:41blue melancholic NPCs after they run away from you screaming, though more than once I've seen them
07:47run straight through brick walls or try to lead me out of bounds. But unless you actually want to sample
07:53another clan's combat, you never need to purchase these new skills at all, let alone feed from the people
08:00of Seattle for blood resonance. I finished the game with 38 unused skill points, which feels like a huge waste of
08:08time and the mechanic itself. Considering my default clan skills synergised well enough, there's little
08:14need to experiment, as you can only equip four at a time anyway with no ability to hot swap loadouts.
08:21When it comes to the setting and style of the game, I'm let down on both accounts. The city of Seattle is a
08:29barren shell, built in the direction of the neon and grime of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City,
08:35but with none of the menace that makes it feel threatening, exciting or compulsive to explore.
08:41Edgy ads peppered everywhere end up more cringe and outdated than seedy or exciting.
08:48Yes, there's even a Hoctur reference. You better believe Dialogue also references Twilight
08:55and High School Musical too. It doesn't help that the single map, while larger in scale than any from
09:01the first Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines, is emptier, with only a handful of interior locations
09:07to explore. Aside from some late game set pieces that actually had me intrigued, you're in for a
09:13grating 30 hours spent plodding through the snowy streets or leaping across ghoul studded rooftops.
09:19Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that there's no fast travel at all? And no cars to speak of,
09:26neither ones you can drive, nor any actually driving down the roads of a supposedly thriving major city.
09:33NPCs walk up and down the street and do little else. They're also either uncannily observant,
09:39able to see fire supping from a victim around corners and through walls,
09:44weird considering the lack of population density, or noticeably oblivious when I chow down on some
09:50throats on the kerbside. What counts for side quests in Bloodlines 2 are a simple, repetitive slew
09:56of kill or fetch quests for certain clan leaders, which are only good for grinding skill points.
10:02It all speaks to a world that's trying to look dark and brooding, but is no scarier than a disinterested
10:09kitten. Least terrifying of all is fire's combat potential. Forget any hopes of a gun arsenal or
10:16picking up and wielding a melee weapon, because no matter which clan you pick, fire mainly fights
10:21with their fists. You can telekinetically pick up dropped weapons and shoot or throw them at enemies,
10:28but these are so hard to spot in the middle of a horde encounter that I end up just spamming R2
10:33and praying for an Uzi. Biting enemies is a good way to replenish health and ability charges mid fray,
10:40and I do enjoy how the two trigger buttons mirror fangs as the bite command, and you'll also come
10:46across armour, power, blood and health potions dotted around the city. Most of the time I don't
10:52need to think about anything fancy when punching and dodging gets the same job done regardless.
10:58Combat had the chance to be really, really good. There's definitely a tier list when it comes to the
11:04best skills in bloodlines too. The Tremere blood daggers are great for stealth, the Toreador's
11:11kiss turns hostile enemies friendly for a spell, and it's amusing to dominate enemies with the Ventrue's
11:17possession skill to make them leap to their deaths, but there's just not much reason to actually mix
11:22and match with how limited the abilities are, especially when punching, dodging and occasionally
11:28throwing things gets the job done 90% of the time. It's a sad fact that the vampire power fantasy
11:34plays second fiddle to the melee brawler playstyle you're boxed into, and if not for the lengthy
11:40bite and finisher animations, I'd probably have forgotten I was playing as a bloodsucker at all.
11:47Between the frustrating performance issues, clunky combat, shallow RPG tools and a thoroughly
11:53meandering story, I find it hard to recommend Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 at all. This is a game
12:00that had so much promise, and maybe that's why it had to fall so spectacularly short of every expectation.
12:08It reaffirmed my opinion that the visual novels are the best video game iterations of the World of
12:13Darkness you can play right now if you're after an atmospheric gothic vampire tale, or maybe Shark
12:19Mob's Blood Hunt would be your blood bag if you wanted something more vamp combat oriented. Either way,
12:26Bloodlines 2 is neither the best of its ilk, nor even a passably good interpretation of its source
12:32material, and I've come away with bile on my tongue instead of blood red RPG goodness. We give Vampire
12:41the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 1.5 stars. But what about you? Will you be picking it up? Are you a fan of
12:48the original game? Let us know and stick with GamesRadar for the latest reviews, news and more.
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