Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Review

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It feels surreal to have actually played Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, given how legendary it became as a game that might never exist. When it was announced in 2019, it began a long and troubled development process, and many people thought it would remain unfinished.

After a long and troubled development, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is finally complete and will be released shortly. Similar to Shenmue 3, it’s moved past being just a talked-about project and is now a fully playable game.

Bloodlines 2 is a video game inspired by the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game. It takes place in a hidden world where mythical creatures, like vampires, live among humans in secret. Vampires fiercely protect their existence with a strict rule called the “Masquerade,” and anyone who reveals their world to humans faces severe punishment, even death.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 takes place in Seattle during Christmas 2024. The game centers around Phyre, an ancient vampire who has just woken up after a hundred years of slumber. Phyre is haunted by a voice in their head named Fabien, another vampire who is just as confused about how he ended up sharing Phyre’s mind.

Fabien and Phyre must work together to discover why they’re connected and what the mysterious mark on Phyre’s hand means – a mark that’s keeping them trapped in the city.

I’ve been a long-time fan of both the Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines video game and the tabletop role-playing game. I’ve been following the development of this new game for years – all the way back to the early ‘Tender’ app stage. I even got a sneak peek at a previous version before it was cancelled, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating its release for six years now.

A Dishonored Vampire Is Trapped In Seattle

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is an action-focused stealth game played from a first-person perspective. While it has some RPG elements, they aren’t as prominent as in the original Bloodlines. The game emphasizes direct confrontation and combat, meaning you’ll usually solve problems through fighting rather than dialogue or persuasion.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 takes place entirely within a single, detailed Seattle location filled with quests and explorable areas. The game world is visually stunning, with each district feeling unique and full of personality. The developers have successfully recreated the dark and atmospheric feel of the World of Darkness, including memorable and suspicious characters you’ll encounter throughout the city.

Seattle is a fantastic city to explore, especially with a character like Phyre who can effortlessly climb walls and leap across rooftops. However, remember to maintain the Masquerade – keep your vampire abilities hidden from the public and be discreet when using them.

In Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, your actions are tracked by a ‘Masquerade’ meter. Normal movement, like double jumping, will slowly increase it, but openly attacking people or feeding on them in public will cause it to rise quickly. If the meter fills up, you’ll instantly die – impaled by a stake. Similar to the way it works in Grand Theft Auto, you can reduce the meter by going into hiding, so breaking the rules is only a problem if you’re careless.

The game’s creators have brilliantly recreated the dark and mysterious atmosphere of the World of Darkness, including convincingly suspicious characters you’ll encounter.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will give players many chances to disrupt the secrecy of the vampire world, largely because it’s a very action-focused game. Combat is a strong point, letting you feel like a truly powerful, ancient vampire effortlessly defeating enemies with both close-range attacks and special abilities. The game also features a dodging mechanic similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – perfectly timed dashes can parry enemy attacks.

At first, it seemed odd that Phyre couldn’t use typical weapons like knives or guns. Instead, they have a natural ability to move things with their mind – telekinesis. They use this to grab weapons and objects from enemies and the environment, and then use those against their opponents. This creates a unique and rewarding combat experience, as you need to carefully choose which enemies to target first in order to acquire useful weapons.

As a vampire, you need blood to use your powers, and you can regain energy by feeding on enemies during fights. Be careful though – you’re vulnerable while feeding, leaving you open to attacks. This mechanic adds a new layer to combat, making it smart to use stealth to get close enough to feed and replenish your energy.

The game’s combat system shines during boss battles. There are several truly impressive bosses that let you fully utilize your abilities and require you to use every advantage to win. If you’re more interested in the story and find the bosses too challenging, you can lower the difficulty to ‘Casual’. These fights can be lengthy and have multiple stages, so it’s helpful to have options.

The Bloodlines Have Become Diluted

In the game Vampire: The Masquerade, every vampire character belongs to a Clan, which defines their unique abilities and drawbacks. Bloodlines 2 also features Clans, but simplifies the system. After a short introduction, players choose one of six Clans, each offering different powers to use throughout the game.

In Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, the different vampire Clans don’t have any specific weaknesses. Plus, after finding all the quest givers in Seattle, you can learn powers from other Clans. This takes time and resources – you’ll need experience points and special blood for each ability, so you have to make thoughtful choices about what to unlock.

As a fan, I’m a little disappointed with how the Clan choices play out. It feels like they don’t really *matter* in the long run. Because every Clan’s abilities become available eventually, and there aren’t any real drawbacks to picking one over another, it mostly just affects what skills you get early on and some conversations that don’t have much impact. It kind of takes the weight out of what should be a big decision!

Clan skills will help you specialize in different ways of playing. If you like close combat, the Brujah Clan is a great choice – they excel at fighting with their fists. For stealthy players, the Lasombra offer powerful shadow abilities. And if you prefer fighting from a distance, the Tremere Clan’s blood magic will be very effective.

Honestly, this character is just *so* strong – they don’t really have any obvious flaws! Plus, they can learn abilities from every Clan, which is amazing. It basically means your decisions early on – what skills you pick up and a few conversations – are what really shape things, even though those conversations don’t end up mattering much in the long run.

It’s strange that new outfits are unlocked by gaining powers instead of completing quests. Earning outfits through side missions would have felt more rewarding, but instead, the character just gets new clothes whenever she learns something new. Given how few good side quests there are, it would have been better to unlock outfits by finishing missions.

The Problem With Fabien In Bloodlines 2

The most significant problem with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the character Fabien. He’s a ghostly presence inside the player character’s head, acting as a narrator. Fabien is a detective from the 1920s who was investigating a vampire killer and has somehow reappeared in the present day.

I rarely criticize voice acting, as game development is a huge team effort and no single person is responsible for a character’s overall impact. However, in this case, the voice actor just wasn’t a good fit for the role. His performance was so dull that it made me lose interest in his parts of the game.

Fabien is a detective set in the 1920s, and his job is to help vampires with their issues. However, he’s incredibly awkward and ineffective – he just can’t get information out of anyone. He feels out of place and disconnected, and unfortunately, this brings the whole game down.

The game also features sections where you play as Fabien, revisiting events from his history. These parts tend to be very slow-paced, focusing on examining objects and lengthy conversations. A particularly annoying part is managing Fabien’s vampiric abilities – if you make mistakes, he runs out of blood, forcing you to find and feed on people, which further slows down an already tedious experience. Allowing him unlimited use of his powers would have made these sections much more enjoyable.

Fabien is the incarnation of “Sir, this is a Wendy’s,” and the game as a whole suffers for it.

Fabien can’t climb, glide, or run like Phyre, and the game tries to compensate with a fast-forward button. This really highlights how slow and frustrating those parts of the game are.

One frustrating thing about Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the lack of a New Game+ feature. If you want to play through the game again, you’re forced to repeat the sections with the character Fabien, and there’s no way to skip them. This is a major deterrent for me to replay the game, and I’m hoping a future update will allow players to skip Fabien’s flashbacks.

A Story Of Straight Lines & False Corridors

Vampire: The Masquerade revolves around different vampire groups constantly vying for control. Bloodlines 2 continues this tradition, pitting the traditional, law-focused Camarilla against the rebellious Anarchs, all as humans who hunt vampires become a greater threat.

A major disappointment with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is that your choices don’t really matter. While the game presents a lot of dialogue options, it quickly becomes clear that the story follows a fixed path, and you have little to no control over how things ultimately turn out.

One of the biggest problems with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is its poor dialogue, particularly in side quests and when talking to characters involved in those quests. It’s especially cringeworthy when the game tries to be shocking or edgy, seemingly trying to recapture the tone of the original. The romance scenes are the worst offenders, and one line – “The young people call this ‘edging'” – is already being called the worst voice acting of 2025.

The romance scenes contain some truly awful dialogue, and the line “The young people call this ‘edging'” is a strong contender for the worst line delivered in 2025.

The game’s sidequests aren’t very engaging. They mostly involve collecting items or fighting the same common enemies you encounter everywhere else. And the rewards you get aren’t worth the effort, as they just provide more materials needed to upgrade your abilities.

Despite making very different choices throughout the game – in both actions and conversations – you’ll ultimately arrive at the same outcome. Many of the decisions that affect the ending don’t appear until the very end. When you add in the sections with Fabien and the fact that your choice of Phyre’s Clan doesn’t have a significant impact, the game offers little reason to play it again.

Closing Comments:

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 promised a lot, but unfortunately, it falls far short of expectations. While the action and boss battles are decent, the game feels underdeveloped in almost every other area, and a problematic character significantly detracts from the experience. It feels like a watered-down version of what it could have been and doesn’t do justice to the rich World of Darkness setting that the original Vampire: The Masquerade is known for.

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2025-10-17 16:53