Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 review: "My dream vampire RPG has been staked – this blunt-toothed sequel is just a boring, linear action brawler instead"

It's clear The Chinese Room had its work cut out for it with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. As the long-awaited sequel to a cult classic RPG, I see evidence of that immense pressure in every pixel. It's woven through a thinly-cobbled plot, so fragile even the slightest tug at a loose thread sends the whole thing unravelling.

It's hidden beneath the dreary, funereal pall hanging over the snowy streets in what's supposed to be a seedy and bustling Seattle, the empty silence occasionally interrupted by a line of recycled NPC dialogue as you run back and forth between the same five buildings for the first 20 hours of the 30 it takes to finish it.

I feel it in the wet paper bag punch, dash, punch, dash monotony of each combat encounter, cringe at it whenever Fabien spouts another corny detective-ism that sounds like a film student's first go at a noir script. These stress fractures run deep through Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, breaking it before it has a chance to go anywhere. It reveals both how rushed this game must have been and how high my own expectations were, too, in order to feel so bitterly let down.

Fumbling in the dark

From the bottom of my cold black heart, I wanted to love Bloodlines 2. But this isn't a case of great ideas with poor implementation. Rather, it's a fundamentally flawed experience from conception to execution that has me wondering why it was made in the first place, never mind why it was released in this state.

The problems start at the beginning. After finishing the prologue, I exit to the streets and suddenly my computer is buckling under the onslaught of particle physics – thanks for that, snow – despite meeting minimum specs. Swapping to a fancier gaming laptop, it doesn't even boot. Finally switching to PS5, performance fares much better – but even then it crashes during exploration at times, and constantly frame dips when transitioning between locations.

Beginning the game as Phyre, an elder vampire known as The Nomad (though both are pseudonyms), who has recently woken from a deep hibernation-like Torpor sleep, you take your first confused steps into the new century in an abandoned warehouse. She punches an NPC and sends it splattering against a distant wall. But then, a voice cuts through her consciousness. It's Fabien, the other half of our duo-protagonist serving, and he has no idea how he ended up in your head either.

So begins the curious bisection of Bloodlines 2. Most of the time, you play as Phyre, grappling with a new world in downtown Seattle as you try to make nice with the local Camarilla vampire council. These sections largely involve pummeling enemies – most of the time, half-blood ghouls and renegade vampires of the Anarch faction – and making seemingly important decisions that actually make little to no difference to the story.

The rest of your time is spent in dream flashbacks as detective Fabien, chasing leads and investigating the Rebar Killer across both the 1920s and near-present day Seattle. He's the textbook stereotype of a gumshoe, cracking wise-guy jokes and flirting with filing cabinets (using the mind powers the Malkavian vampire clan are known for) when he could probably just read their contents instead.

The painful script is one of my most glaring problems with Bloodlines 2. Fabien's attempts at being a cheeky yet motivated detective come off phony, his jovial tone jarring against the old-school noir edge of what he's actually saying, but he's not the only one who rubs me the wrong way instantly.

The tone of the game is all over the place. Bloodlines 2's main plot is set in modern day Seattle, Washington, yet everyone speaks like they crawled out of Pulp Fiction. Every character is a cookie cutter stereotype with zero substance, be it the queer-coded henchman, chin-stroking villain, or lovestruck nerd, and it's hard to care about any of them. I can only assume The Chinese Room was targeting a modern "LA Noire with vampires" feel while also gunning for the first VTM Bloodlines' camp theatrics, but by splitting that focus so literally, the two never find confluence. Ultimately, anything that would have made this the gritty vampire RPG of my dreams is cheapened or glossed over.

If Bloodlines 2 is an RPG, I'm not sure The Chinese Room knows it. The developer has never made an RPG before, but only so much can be excused as a rookie mistake. There's simply no roleplaying to be had here at all.

Dia-slog

As memories, Fabien's dialogue choices don't matter at all. Instead, you pursue investigation leads by harnessing his telepathic abilities, adding some context to a modern day storyline that's still peppered with plot holes. Meanwhile, Phyre's chapters play more like a linear action game with slight variances, depending upon what Phyre chooses to do with a total of two characters.

Nothing feels weighty in Bloodlines 2. It's impossible to roleplay in a narrative that's already set its course. That doesn't stop the illusion of choice being everywhere. You're told when you make a dialogue choice that upsets or pleases a given NPC, but without a relationship tab to keep track of them, these reactions are totally superfluous. As for romance, forget about forging a meaningful vampiric bond.

Flirting with the right people enough times sometimes treats you to a blackout sex scene, complete with lewd slapping, moaning, and a few strings of ham-fisted "kinky" dialogue (this is the most unsexy piece of vampire media I have ever encountered). At the end of the day, though, it doesn't really matter who likes or dislikes Phyre, as everything is plot armored to funnel the story toward a single outcome.

It's not just the lack of meaningful branching narratives. Bloodlines 2 also refuses to interact with many other RPG staples. The ability tree is a misnomer – the four combat and manipulation skills ascribed to your chosen vampire clan are progressively unlocked within the first few hours, and neither your stats nor skills can be upgraded – with others unlocked by visiting Phyre's clan contacts.

The logic here is that as an elder, more powerful vampire, Phyre already had access to abilities outside their clan, but has forgotten them from spending so long in Torpor. There's one NPC for each of the playable clans, capable of teaching Phyre the four skills attributed to their respective clan once you accrue enough Blood Resonance points in exchange. Note that you still need skill points to purchase them from the ability tree after unlocking them.

Completing missions, side quests, and engaging in combat earns experience, and eventually, new skill points. Blood Resonance points are gathered by drinking from certain citizens emitting the corresponding colored aura. Sounds pretty Sims-y, but it at least folds in some World of Darkness lore and makes an effort at stylizing the unlock system.

Talking to an NPC with a red pulsating aura causes them to chase after you in a rage, while pink, sanguine NPCs will follow Phyre blindly into dark alleyways, usually full of homeless people who may or may not react. You can also chase blue, melancholic NPCs after they run away from you screaming, though more than once I've seen them run straight through brick walls or try to lead me out-of-bounds.

But, unless you actually want to sample the other clans' combat, you never need to purchase these new skills at all, let alone feed from the people of Seattle for Blood Resonance. I finished the game with 38 unused skill points, which feels like a huge waste of time and the mechanic itself. Considering my default clan skills synergized well enough, there's little need to experiment, as you can only equip four at a time anyway with no ability to hotswap loadouts.

Fangs for the memories

When it comes to the setting and style of the game, I'm let down on both accounts. The city of Seattle is a barren shell, built in the direction of the neon and grime of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City, but with none of the menace that makes it feel threatening, exciting, or compulsive to explore.

'Edgy' ads peppered everywhere end up more cringe and outdated than seedy or exciting – yes, there is even a Hawk Tuah reference. You'd better believe dialogue also references Twilight and High School Musical too.

It doesn't help that the single map, while larger in scale than any from the first Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, is emptier, with only a handful of interior locations to explore. Aside from some late-game set pieces that actually had me intrigued, you're in for a grating 30 hours spent plodding through the snowy streets or leaping across ghoul-studded rooftops. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that there's no fast travel at all, and no cars to speak of (neither ones you can drive, nor any actually driving down the roads of a supposedly thriving major city)?

NPCs walk up and down the street and do little else. They are also either uncannily observant, able to see Phyre supping from a victim around corners and through walls – weird, considering the lack of population density – or noticeably oblivious when I chow down on some throats on the curbside. What counts for sidequests in Bloodlines 2 are a simple, repetitive slew of kill-or-fetch quests for certain clan leaders, which are only good for grinding skill points. It all speaks to a world that's trying to look dark and brooding but is no scarier than a disinterested kitten.

Least terrifying of all is Phyre's combat potential. Forget any hopes of a gun arsenal or picking up and wielding a melee weapon, because no matter which clan you pick, Phyre mainly fights with their fists.

You can telekinetically pick up dropped weapons and shoot or throw them at enemies, but these are so hard to spot in the middle of a horde encounter that I end up just spamming R2 and praying for an uzi. Biting enemies is a good way to replenish health and ability charges mid-fray (I do enjoy how the two trigger buttons mirror fangs as the bite command) and you'll also come across armor, power, blood, and health potions dotted around the city. Most of the time, I don't need to think about anything fancy when punching and dodging gets the same job done regardless.

Combat had a chance to be really, really good. There's definitely a tier list when it comes to the best skills in Bloodlines 2 – the Tremere blood daggers are great for stealth, the Toreador's kiss turns hostile enemies friendly for a spell, and it's amusing to dominate enemies with Ventrue's possession skill to make them leap to their deaths. I have just as much fun throwing torn-off heads as blood bombs, however. They do a surprising amount of damage.

Essentially, there's just not much reason to actually mix and match clan skills with how limited the abilities are in themselves. It's a sad fact that the vampire power fantasy plays second fiddle to the melee brawler playstyle you're boxed into, and if not for the lengthy bite and finisher animations, I'd probably have forgotten I was playing a bloodsucker at all.

Between the frustrating performance issues, clunky combat, shallow RPG tools, and a thoroughly meandering story, I find it hard to recommend Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 at all. This is a game that had so much promise, and maybe that's why it had to fall so spectacularly short of every expectation. It reaffirmed my opinion that the visual novels are the best video game iterations of the World of Darkness you can play right now if you're after an atmospheric, gothic vampire tale. Or maybe Sharkmob's Blood Hunt would be your (blood) bag, if you wanted something more vamp combat-oriented.

Either way, Bloodlines 2 is neither the best of its ilk nor even a passably good interpretation of its source material, and I've come away with bile on my tongue instead of blood red RPG goodness.

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