More action than RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 struggles to convince after a few hours' play
I can’t hide it: I’m a little disappointed. The wait for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been an excruciating one. This is the long-awaited follow-up to the flawed but respected Bloodlines 1 from 2004, and it was originally announced in 2019 with a release date of 2020. But it was systematically delayed, then full-on suspended, before being resurrected at The Chinese Room (Still Wakes the Deep) where it’s been reshaped for release. Bloodlines 2 has had problems. The question is: does it still have problems and has it been worth the wait?
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2Developer: The Chinese RoomPublisher: Paradox and White WolfPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Releases 21st October on PC (Steam, Epic, GOG), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S
Having played Bloodlines 2 for a few hours in a preview build my answer – frustratingly for you – is I’m not sure. I have mixed feelings. There are things I really like about it – I love how powerful it makes you feel as a vampire from the very beginning of the game; the action feels great – but I’m concerned by how narrow the game is as a role-playing experience. Too often I feel led through metaphorical corridors from point A to B, as though I’m playing a predetermined experience rather than shaping one of my own. I think it’s telling that Paradox is leaning into the “action” part of the “action RPG” descriptor; from what I’ve played, this is more like an action or stealth game, with some RPG elements, rather than the other way around. And given the extensive and exhaustive resource material involved – a tabletop RPG that’s been running for decades – that disappoints me. But there are upsides to this approach.
The things I like, then: Bloodlines 2 wastes no time making you feel cool. You do not wake as a fledgling vampire but an elder one who’s been asleep for a hundred years. From the moment you take control of this character – a character cringingly called “Phyre” (“fire”), and who likes to announce their name at every given opportunity – you can already do incredible things. You can scramble up walls like a spider, even entire buildings if you plan your route right, and leap off the other side, to the ground, and take no damage. You can move with blur-like vampire speed, float through the air, and punch people so hard float – well, fly – through the air. You can telekinetically grab at objects and then hurl them wherever you want. You can even telekinetically grab people. There’s no gradual build-up of power here: you are, from the beginning, a beast.
It great. There’s a snap and a pace and a wallop to everything you do. Even a small thing like climbing up a ladder is sped-up so that it’s like doing it on fast-forward. And as you start to unlock more powers as you level up, which differ slightly depending on which of the game’s six clans you join – I joined the Brujah clan, which are brawlers – the action gets more ridiculous still. (Note: two of the clans you have to pay to unlock, which is grubby.) I have a Lightning Punch ability that rapidly strikes, countless times, anyone who I ‘mark’ nearby to be punched. I pulverize them in a blur of action. I have a charge that makes me thunder towards anyone in my path and pick them up and slam them into whatever I’m running towards. Tactility: there’s a lot of it here.
