Not usually a fan of Battle Royale games (or multiplayer in general, really), but this has me hooked.
Normal battle royale staples like gunplay and navigating the map are already good here but are then elevated by the incredible mobility of the vampire races (scaling buildings, sliding, huge leaps, wall jumping) and their unique abilities for combat and movement.
Vampire the Masquerade doesn't just serve as the game's skeleton, its lore is incorporated stem to stern and there's a menu full of information that gets filled as you play the game and fulfill combat challenges and fetch quests during multiplayer for NPCs in a central hub. You can also give yourself heals and buffs by drinking the blood of humans mid-match and performing a finisher on other players isn't just for style: "diableries" from VtM are how you end the lives of other vampires, powering you up with another slot for blood buffs. Outside of ranked play you can also store up to two "lives", and when you're down to your last chance, you can carefully skulk the streets to regain a life by finding the right human to drink.
The game looks ridiculously good for a 40 player multiplayer game with a huge map, and runs great on PS5 (60FPS/1440p or 30FPS/4K) and is optimized well for PC. Right now at launch there's certainly an advantage to PC players who can use mouse and keyboard at 144FPS against 60FPS controller users (with minimal aim assist), but 120FPS is something they want to add to PS5, and they're looking at aim correction balance as well. I've still managed to win many times on PS5 though 🤷
Overall I'm incredibly impressed with this game; it's one that I'd completely written off because of Battle Royale stigma and the dire state of Bloodlines 2 development, but I'm really glad I gave this a chance
Normal battle royale staples like gunplay and navigating the map are already good here but are then elevated by the incredible mobility of the vampire races (scaling buildings, sliding, huge leaps, wall jumping) and their unique abilities for combat and movement.
Vampire the Masquerade doesn't just serve as the game's skeleton, its lore is incorporated stem to stern and there's a menu full of information that gets filled as you play the game and fulfill combat challenges and fetch quests during multiplayer for NPCs in a central hub. You can also give yourself heals and buffs by drinking the blood of humans mid-match and performing a finisher on other players isn't just for style: "diableries" from VtM are how you end the lives of other vampires, powering you up with another slot for blood buffs. Outside of ranked play you can also store up to two "lives", and when you're down to your last chance, you can carefully skulk the streets to regain a life by finding the right human to drink.
The game looks ridiculously good for a 40 player multiplayer game with a huge map, and runs great on PS5 (60FPS/1440p or 30FPS/4K) and is optimized well for PC. Right now at launch there's certainly an advantage to PC players who can use mouse and keyboard at 144FPS against 60FPS controller users (with minimal aim assist), but 120FPS is something they want to add to PS5, and they're looking at aim correction balance as well. I've still managed to win many times on PS5 though 🤷
Overall I'm incredibly impressed with this game; it's one that I'd completely written off because of Battle Royale stigma and the dire state of Bloodlines 2 development, but I'm really glad I gave this a chance
Reviewed on May 03, 2022