Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong

In the end, despite its penchant for occasionally boring puzzles, rough character animations and wildly varying voice performances, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is nonetheless a roundly fulfilling detective adventure with a vampiric twist that will appeal greatly to anyone that follows the World of Darkness setting. For others, Swansong makes for a fine, if occasionally clunky introduction to that sprawling world of supernatural politics and generation spanning stories.

If Swansong is at the same time an adventure game, an investigation game and an infiltration game, it is above all a real RPG, which manages to perfectly capture the essence of Vampire The Masquerade.

Vampire: The Masquerade Swansong is nonetheless a good attempt to capture the mechanical essence and purpose of the pen-and-paper game. The developers could have made a stat-heavy action thing, or followed a bunch of other games and thrown players into a generic open-world that barely resembles or is relevant to the base material. They didn’t, and the game is better for it. Swansong comes across as a timid vampire story – the kind of thing a first-time game master might right for a first-time tabletop group, but timid as it might be, you are left under no illusions that you’re playing a game of Vampire: The Masquerade.

For fans of vampiric tales, dark narratives and grizzly visuals, there’s a lot to love about Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong. You may be thrown straight into the deep end, but once you acclimatise yourself with the fascinating, macabre world around you, you’ll feel right at home. It blends intriguing storytelling with investigation, skill-building and player agency, leading to a game that you’ll most likely struggle to put down.

Although the graphics can sometimes leave a lot to be desired, the gameplay is a lot of fun, immersing the player in the intricate politics of vampire society. And you get some wicked powers too.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is a dialogue and story-driven experience with a side of detective to help push it all along. The gameplay was spot-on what you should expect from an in-person Vampire: The Masquerade session, but it may not be for everyone. If you’re looking for something more action-oriented, then this may not be your cup of tea.

If the teeming universe of Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is a tedious entry for newcomers, it does not become less exciting once mastered. Fans of the Big Bad Wolf studio will probably be delighted by the formula "The Council way World of Darkness"; Mean by that a system of dialogues of choice revisited by the controlled addition of RPG mechanics. Swansong unfolds a story consisting, sometimes too much, led by three protagonists with an impeccable style whose progression remains fairly linear.