Paradox Interactive and Sharkmob recently released a new trailer for the upcoming World of Darkness game, Vampire: The Masquerade - Blood Hunt, which is a free-to-play battle royale set in Prague. Kindred and the Second Inquisition are at each others' throats, and in the chaos, every vampire must fight to survive without violating the Masquerade. The premise sounds intriguing, but a battle royale really is not what V:TM fans need or want right now.
Since Paradox Interactive acquired the rights to World of Darkness, the franchise has seen a steady stream of video games and more. For the biggest IP, Vampire: The Masquerade, that mostly means interactive novels like Night Road, Shadows of New York and Coteries of New York, which have been hit or miss. What fans are really looking forward to is the franchise's first major video game in almost two decades: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. That game promises more of the blood-sucking, shadow-stalking, supernatural action that fans experienced with its predecessor, as well as the subterfuge and political aspects of living and thriving behind that elaborate Masquerade.
It's not that Blood Hunt isn't taking Masquerade rules into consideration. In fact, game director Craig Hubbard said in an interview with The Gamer that he understands these are a central aspect of the IP and that "the central premise of the game is you're trying to eliminate anarchs to restore the masquerade. It's built into the lore and the storytelling, although we're not a story game." He then explained how the development team experimented and integrated the Masquerade into gameplay. As it stands, violating the Masquerade by killing a civilian or allowing yourself to be seen while feeding will make you a target for the blood hunt.
From what we know of the game, it does sound like fears that it will ignore the lore are unfounded. Still, the nature of the game means that it must forego everything that made other video game RPGs related to Vampire: The Masquerade so enrapturing.
In White Wolf's 2004 Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, thanks to a cast of characters such as Prince LaCroix, Therese/Jeanette Voerman, Nines Rodriguez and (of course) Jack, players were given a taste of Kindred society. That game threw players into the World of Darkness as a fledgling without a sire to guide them through any of it. They were forced to learn it all, virtually, on their own through countless manipulations from every vampire looking to increase their power in a certain region. It didn't matter what awesome and fantastic powers the players had acquired; these wouldn't necessarily help them succeed.
This went beyond simply the different endings. Being a superhumanly brawny Brujah might have made battles easier, but without any charisma or social skills, players would find some sections of their journeys to be more frustrating than those who might have chosen to play Kindred from clan Toreador or Ventrue. It was that refined variety in experience that ensured the game's popularity, despite Bloodlines' numerous bugs, glitches and rushed content.
The heart of Vampire: The Masquerade has always been the eponymous collection of laws and guidelines that allow Kindred to survive in a world rife with humans. Kindred hide and work from the shadows of the night; they manipulate their way into positions of power using their supernatural charm and not their supernatural strength.
Sharkmob should be praised for trying to innovate with the World of Darkness, but the limitations that come with a battle royale game mean Blood Hunt will likely have only supernatural abilities to offer players, who won't be getting the full experience offered by Vampire: The Masquerade and its other adaptations.
Something similar happened with another vampire world. Developer Psyonix and Square Enix took an old IP and crafted a free-to-play multiplayer game that completely failed to capture its target audience with Nosgoth, which launched in 2015 and was canceled a year later. The game was set in the world of Legacy of Kain, but it did not expand on that world or its characters. Instead, it was a simple multiplayer game that pit vampires against human hunters -- a concept that lacked the qualities fans adored about that series.
Nosgoth contained none of the captivating writing, brilliant twists and turns, and fascinating characters that drew players to the franchise in the first place. What that meant for Legacy of Kain was that the IP was essentially put to rest once again. Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix have been discouraged from resurrecting the franchise, and the ill-concieved Nosgoth was evidently the final nail in the coffin. That's the impact fans fear Blood Hunt could have on the video game arm of a franchise that's still awaiting its formal return with Bloodlines 2.
Of course, there are other issues that led to Nosgoth's failure. That game had technical issues and a general lack content, but other games have survived these kinds of problems -- or at least lasted longer. The main takeaway is that Vampire: The Masquerade does not need a game that ignores the subterfuge, politics and story of the Kindred world, intentionally or not, especially while it's still waiting to truly return from its long, torpor-like slumber. Bloodlines 2 should be a chance for gamers to reacquaint themselves with this world, but Blood Hunt could damage the franchise before that can happen.