I'm always annoyed when developers feel the need to fill every silence with a player character's commentary.

The immersion isn't helped by pedantic internal monologues. When so much of the game focuses on minute character interactions and the nuanced conversations, convincing movement and expressions are absolutely essential, and that's not what I found here. I wasn't expecting it to compete with big-budget games like Horizon Forbidden West, but the stiff animations certainly don't sell the drama. There's not a lot of flash and high-speed gameplay to Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, so I'm a little disappointed that the visuals aren't better. It's branded as a roleplaying game, but behind the character stats and skill checks, it's more of an adventure title.Ĭonversations take tact, brute force, and dumb luck to navigate. Swansong is a largely linear experience that plays out much like developer Big Bad Wolf's The Council. Those hoping for the lively open world of Bloodlines should look elsewhere. Once a new leader becomes targeted for assassination, you have to deduce the person (or persons) behind the attacks from the perspective of three different characters, each sporting fangs and supernatural powers. Swansong immediately throws you into the heady factional politics of a vampire elite that rule over Boston from the shadows. But while Swansong offers more dynamic play than the previous Coteries of New York, it's unlikely to whet a fan's appetite for long. It's the latest in a drip-feed of smaller franchise titles while we await the huge Bloodlines 2, a long-delayed sequel to the 2004 cult classic. New video game Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong puts you in the blood-soaked shoes of three vampiric investigators uncovering a conspiracy in modern Boston. Leysha, a vampire with psychic powers, is on the case.

Vampire the maskerade