Vampires take up a commonplace fixture in our minds, fiction, and pop culture. They are almost as big as zombies in terms of how many different genres use them as our mortal enemies. Yet while zombies are good cannon fodder for games, a good vampire experience is much more elusive.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong hopes to change this by combining a good story, some likeable RPG elements, and by putting you in the shoes of three different vampires to play with. There is even a blood-sucking mini-game in the middle of it. What’s not to like?
I loved the developer Big Bad Wolf’s last game, the episodical tale of The Council. It mixed fantasy with actual historical figures beautifully and had a very unique visual style and dynamic RPG gameplay. And straight away, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong feels very familiar in terms of the menus and the looks of the game, however I think I might have enjoyed it more had it gone back to those episodic roots, because there is a hell of a lot of storytelling to be had here and the exposition sometimes gets in the way of a good thriller; the heart of the game.
The story is set in the same universe as the 2004 game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, but you don’t need to have played that game to enjoy this one. Swansong is set in a Boston Vampire court, like a sort of safe house for bloodsuckers. The place is run by a character called The Prince and she tasks three of her kind on a sort of detective journey to find some answers. The three vampires are the characters you get to play as: Galeb, Enem, and Leysha, each of whom have different skills and abilities to play with. Galeb is like the nobility of the vampire sect with loyalty to the hierarchy of the system and the notion of what is right and wrong. Enem is more of an outcast rebel who questions the authority and the whole structure of the vampire order. Leysha – and her daughter – have had problems and we learn about her mental well-being, haunted by premonitions of what might be to come. It’s an outstanding part of the game, moving between these three different personalities and seeing the campaign and story through their eyes.
The storytelling is full of deep lore, complicated politics, relationship dynamics, and issues that will grab you in from the beginning – at least they did for me. Others might find the pacing a problem and if you are not a fan of the narrative then you might have a major issue here. The story is a long one, around twenty hours or so, and will take you on a deep journey through darkness, murder, and intrigue. You will have important crossroad choices to make that affect the outcome of the narrative and this is employed very well indeed.
Gameplay puts the focus on exploration, dialogue trees, and using your special abilities to shape the course of the game. On your screen in the left-hand corner, you have two stats which are the skill points, along with your bloodlust gauge. When this starts to flash you really need to feed on some humans fast. This can be done in Vampire safe areas where there are some willing human blood bags wandering around; lure them into a comfortable safe area and then the biting begins. What occurs now is a sort of mini-game in which you have to make sure you get enough blood from the victim without killing them, but also get enough so you don’t starve. It’s a tricky balance.
Exploration is engaging and is all in the third person. You walk around different locations in this world, interacting with items and pieces of lore, gathering clues to help you in your quests. You end up chatting to people – a lot – in order to get information or persuade a fellow vampire to do your bidding. This sometimes results in a section called ‘Confrontations’, giving you several chances (three mostly) to get the right information in the dialogue options you choose to get the desired information or result. Your skill tree upgrading choices will aid you in this little game.
Each of the three vampires has skill trees which include Intimidation, Psychology, Persuasion, and rhetoric. How you focus each character in this skill tree is up to you and what you want to try. The more you add points, the more dialogue options will open up, furthering the skills you can unlock like hacking computers or understanding certain lore for clues. It can seem a bit overwhelming and convoluted at first, but I think it’s a system that is interesting and inventive.
The visual design of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is one with some great highlights – in particular the facial animation – along with some brilliant set design in its location. The menus are well presented, clean and concise, although I have found some clipping in-game, here and there when it comes to the complex decorations of some of the characters. A few characters don’t feel right in their design either; overly fussy. The soundtrack is very good though, as are all the voice-over actors who bring the characters to life.
Personally, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong could well have done with utilising The Council’s episodic nature, giving players the chance to dive into the game every few months or so. You see, this story is quite an in-depth experience, but it does occasionally feel like something is missing, needing a recap. However, when you’re fully immersed, the narrative, characters and detective thriller nature of it work well. The skill trees are a good device too, as are the exploration/puzzle parts of the game. That said, the blood-biting isn’t something I particularly cared for and could have done without.
If you are after something action-based then I don’t think this is the game for you, yet those looking for an original story-based, fully realised, world with loads of vampires should get playing Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is available at the Xbox Store
