Vampire Whodunit
Vampires are back, but don’t call it a comeback; they’ve been here for years just watching and waiting in the shadows for the interest in zombies, to dry up. And with that it really feels like that we are getting quite a bit of Vampire the Masquerade releases as of late. A near endless cycle of text adventures, the ill-fated Bloodlines 2 which lies in limbo and with the recent release of Blood Hunt; the vampires have entered the world of Battle Royale. With all these varying types of games, I am glad to report that developer Big Bad Wolf’s Vampire the Masquerade – Swansong focuses on a killer story *ahem*, three playable vampires and some decent RPG elements to a great deal of success.
Straight away the story in Swansong takes players on a deep dive into this world of Vampire’s. Taking place in the same universe as the original Bloodlines game from 2004, Swansong does a great job of explaining the high notes of vampire society so that it isn’t necessarily needed to have played the older game. Being set in a vampire safehouse in Boston, Swansong will have players take control of three different vampires over the course of it’s twenty hour or so story. Under orders from the leader of the safehouse, The Prince sends out three vampires Leysha, Galeb, and Enem; to unravel a mystery that threatens the very security of the masquerade itself. You see, the titular ‘masquerade’ is the vampire law that ensures their way of life remains secret. For a vampire to break the masquerade by revealing themselves or their powers to a non-vampire is punishable by final death.
MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $49.99
Over the course of the adventure each of the playable characters get some shine; and it was really the highlight of the adventure to me. Each of them is so nuanced and well written, it made it a tad bit easier to overlook the awful facial animations (more on that later). Galeb represents the vampire nobility and with that believes wholeheartedly in the system and has a very black and white why of looking at things. Whereas Leysha has some mental issues and has visions of things that could be the future and it’s explored over the course of the game. Lastly is Enem, who represents the outsider, the loner; she’s a club owner and has no love for the politics. Each of the characters allow players to see various sides of this mystery and go deep in the vampire lore and political system, which surprisingly is more civil than the American system. That might not really be a surprise to anyone.
Each of the three vampires have skill trees which include Intimidation, Psychology, and Persuasion. The freedom that this gives for players to build their characters ‘their’ way but also control how deep they go down the rabbit hole is a nice system. As players unlock various skills and abilities it will allow them to choose different dialog options, which in turn can lead to really digging into the lore of this world. For those people like me, who are fascinated by this world and enjoyed the original Bloodline; this was very enjoyable. But if I just wanted the facts, I could bypass a lot of the unneeded questions.
Exploration in the world is done in 3rd person which gives a fantastic view at the characters costumes and designs and the environments; some of which are extremely overwhelming in a good way. Being an adventure, murder mystery players will walk around gathering clues and questioning people. The voice artists all did a fantastic job from a performance stance, I just wish that the facial animations matched the excellent vocals. One more than one occasion where an emotional situation was occurring, the voice artist would convey the emotion in spades, but the face would simply just raise an eyebrow. While this didn’t happen with all the characters; it did happen with enough frequency that it would just pull me out of a scene and was disappointing.
The storytelling is king in Swansong and players will find a world that is full of complicated politics, a deep lore, relationship juggling that can be overwhelming. Luckily the game does an excellent job of slowly revealing this world to players, but those who are not a fan of slower, adventure games they should look elsewhere. While there isn’t much in the way of the tradiontial vampire violence that some players may be looking for; those that give this a try will find a journey through a world of darkness, intrigue, murder and decisions that can shape the outcome of the narrative leading to multiple endings. While I am still waiting with bated breath, hoping that Bloodlines 2 will see the light of the moon, Vampire the Masquerade – Swansong is a great introduction to the lore of this world, and despite the issues I had with the facial animations I enjoyed my time here.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
