Nighthawks is a vampire RPG that delivers what Bloodlines 2 failed to accomplish in its first 5 minutes

Nighthawks is exactly what I wanted Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 to feel like. Not in terms of its format as a text-based RPG (the excellent VTM visual novels can hold their own), but in the depth, character, and intrigue of its vamp noir dystopia.

I start off my journey as a fledgling vampire, hunting for my sire's vassal – a servant, bound in blood to their Master – on the grimy streets of Cradlebridge. Blood junkies, thralls, and the great lost masses haunt the gloom, congregating around a vampire-owned nightclub by the name of Nighthawks. A short cab away is Angelbreach, all fishnets and sleaze painted in hot pink neon desperation. Prim and proper Fountaincourt is the only neighborhood with any decency around here, but to paraphrase a particularly colorful saying I saw on Reddit once, we're all bare necks in the shower.

Sucks and the city

Nighthawks is a tale as old as the night is long: while working my way up the social ladder from fangless nobody to apex predator, I'll be making frenemies and solving mysteries in the big city. I'm also crowned the new boss of the eponymous nightclub fairly early on in the proceeds, after its original owner gets on the wrong end of a giant vampire's massive boathook.

But there's more to life as a vampire than shady club dealings and social politics. Well, kind of. Nighthawks features a robust stats and traits system. Skills can be improved through equipping certain pieces of gear, and can be further buffed by having a companion join you on your adventures – recruited and dismissed from the club's bar. Your credentials chosen at the start of a new game indicate your character's background, special powers, and blood lineage. My vampire is a Continental vampire whose scholarly pursuits were granted and encouraged by her sire, for example, and she can communicate with rats and other undesirable creatures to obtain information or gain control of sticky situations.

The above dictates how I play Nighthawks. I'm not the most brawny of vamplings, so rely heavily on seductive words and stealth to get my way. It means I get beaten up pretty badly the first few times I'm ambushed around Candlebridge, but buying and equipping some knuckle dusters ups my intimidation and brawler stats considerably.

Exploring the city is sumptuous on your own – developer The Curiosity Engine sure knows how to pen a heady, slick mystery yarn – but Nighthawks truly shines in its characters. The veritable buffet of companions draw inspiration from countless other pulpy thriller games and movies. Only this time, there's a little extra bite.

Lux is a magician at a rival burlesque nightclub, with a secret lying dormant in her ice cold veins. Eccentric book shop owner Maze is even seedier than he looks, and as a dude with gold-capped fangs and red-lensed glasses, that's really saying something. There's a human PI called Domino, working out of a neighboring room in the hotel you start off in. You get to see his butt later on, too – though I must warn the horndogs out there that Nighthawks is far more PG-13 than its risque Steam listing might've indicated before Valve relented.

Each of these characters has a unique story to uncover, from life as a female captain during the Golden Age of Piracy to that of an elite, tortured artist bound by the harsh covenant of her pedigree blood. Uncovering them between main obligations is my favorite thing to do; each of the game's acts (I'm on the fourth right now) gives you one overarching task to complete within a month, which is fairly easy to accomplish and leaves plenty of time to get closer to your newfound fang-mily. Who you travel with in a given night also affects your role-play options – as a con-man, Maze is wise to tricks throughout town, and Domino, for instance, might be able to use the warmth of his blood to assist where your undead nature may cause problems.

These little mysteries keep me curious as I play through Nighthawks, picking at a thread and seeing where it takes me. If I'm not losing myself in the winding sewers with my rodent buddies, I'm purchasing the latest finery before a trip to the swankiest member's club in town. Sometimes I stumble upon a random group of nerds playing a vampiric tabletop RPG in the local diner and indulge in a little double-layered roleplaying. Most of the time, though, I'm visiting Cradlebridge's answer to a Cyberpunk 2077 ripperdoc – only instead of high-tech implants, the undead medic simply mends my health-sapping Wounds, restoring my vitality to its fullest.

My biggest gripe with Nighthawks so far is that I didn't discover the mail inbox until halfway through Act 2. Your phone is your lifeline in this game, and only when I was frustrated with a particular mission chain taking so long did I stop to study the device properly, only to learn that I had to read one particular email in order to progress it. I also am kicking myself for not picking up a more useful power – Tenebrous Form would have been handy for teleporting around obstacles, while every time a grayed-out Corpsetalker interaction pops up, I yearn for all the secrets I could be privy to had I not chosen to be a rat whisperer instead.

Regrets and boomer tech tendencies aside, I have loved my time with Nighthawks so far. Its weighty decisions leave me torn down the middle, the stellar voice acting makes the action jump off the screen, and the text-based RPG loop is so engaging that I've foregone a lot of sleep to play it as much as humanly possible over the past week.

Above all, the small yet mighty RPG reminds me just how much Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 pales in comparison. And not in the "sexy vampiric pallor" way, either. The long-awaited sequel was meant to be another supernatural noir RPG, just like this one. But my Bloodlines 2 review had me despairing as I bit randoms in the street with little to no repercussions, and paced a deserted city between the same four locations on a desperate hunt for something to make life after death more interesting.

Nighthawks, meanwhile, lets me plan out my hunts strategically across a selection of prime stalking grounds, relying on skill checks and smart decisions before I get a taste of the good stuff. You don't need a large 3D open world to create a city that feels alive in an RPG. And did I mention all the butts?

Nighthawks delivers what Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 failed to accomplish in its first 5 minutes. The two games are like night and day, and as someone who prefers the shadows myself, I'll stay here on the dark side with Nighthawks.

Vampire games were neglected last year, but their shunning only proves my point: it was the year of the underdog bloodsucker