Vampire: The Battle Royale

 The Camarilla are just going to love this...

So when I last talked about this Vampire the Masquerade Battle Royale extravaganza, I'll admit I had some pretty unfavourable things to say about it, or rather just a single thing. I said it was guaranteed to be an absolute trainwreck but I wanted to see it anyway. Now in my defence the game isn't out yet so that could 100 percent still be the case and I was totally on track, but we've actually been given a trailer now which means I have to be more objective now. The hardwork and sweat of the developers have coagulated into actual pictures and video, so it feels just that bit more pigheaded to say "Meh, it's a dumb idea" and wave it all off. Everyone deserves at least that solid first chance to prove themselves, if not a second. So in efforts of not being a total ass for nothing, I present Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodhunt.

Sharkmob really came out of the blue with the news of this project, and if we weren't all just starving for Vampire content I suspect this reveal might not have gone done nearly as well as they wanted. But we are and it did, because any excuse to badly dance in the nightclub-drenched universe of the World of Darkness as another shady Kindred is nectar to our ears. Even with that anticipation, however, I'll admit that I didn't take it seriously. What would a vampire Battle Royale even look like? How would it differentiate itself from the plethora of offerings on the market today? How would they ensure not to miss out on that inexorable darkly humorous spirit that defines this world? And in a Summer Games Fest full of surprises, revelations and a final game reveal which seemed like a concerted from Geoff Keighley to supplant E3 itself: We got ourselves a reveal that doesn't look too bad.

That is to say, graphically the game looks much better than it has any right to be. Not to say that VTM is a series known for shoddy graphics or anything, back when Bloodlines 2 was still looking like something that would ever be released it was rather a looker all on it's own. But Bloodhunt practically shimmers with it's nightime rooftops dripping with shadow and gloom, bled with neon abundance from the street level. Your typical gothic inspirations decorate each corner of the city of Prague, around puddles of atmospheric rain which, to my laymen's eyes, look like they're somewhat accurately refracting light. This game looks really pretty, is what I'm trying to say. For a Battle Royale game that spawned out of nowhere behind a studio that doesn't seem to have any large publishers behind it, (but some impressive veteran coders at least) it's actually kind of impressive that it looks almost AAA quality. Even if the trailer that accompanied was mostly cinematic angles, it did appear to be in-game footage so the thing apparently runs looking this good. That's quite the achievement off the bat.

Then there's the game itself which, true to fashion of any Battle Royale game ever made, comes down to shooting guns at one another across the streets. The added bonus this time around is that the soldiers of this little war are decked to the nines in stylish nightclub wear and seem to wield the odd vampiric power to aid the hunt, though I wonder exactly at what we're going to have access to. Super jumping is a given, but the trailer literally just showed one vampire charge another and explode into a prism of light. What the heck vampire ability was that? Isn't light the kind of thing that vampires don't usually look to embrace? In theory there's actually quite a lot of variety one could go through when adhering to the vampire clans and transforming them into character classes, but envisioning that and implementing it is two different acts altogether. I just want to be sure the team over at Sharkmob didn't miss their opportunity to make the Toreador able to attack their enemies through the power of romance. The Gangrel would get claw attacks, the Brujah would get... the power of punk? Okay, clearly I'm not a game designer. I'm just saying that Sharkmob still has a lot to show.

So the game actually looks like some form of fun, much to my utter surprise and amusement, alls well that ends well, right? Well no actually, because there's actually a few folk out there who, much to my surprise, seem surprised and disappointed about the amount of shooting in this game. (And I'm not talking about the Camarilla) Yeah, there's guns. What did you expect? It's a Battle Royale game, which means long-form matches where death needs to be ever present and punishing, where you need to have random-luck upgrade paths to keep each match feeling dynamic and should be finishing in a 10-20 minutes. Of course it has guns. It's not like the concept of firearms is alien to the Vampire the Masquerade universe; they're usually high-level killing implements for the more connected vampire out there, everyone else has to slum it up with metal pipes and the like. So why the surprise and chagrin?

Some outlets who have already gotten their hands on this future title have spoken of it's features and to be honest the game sounds pretty cool and different from what other Battle Royales are doing right now. There's this whole lore behind the game of the Masquerade being shattered because of some breach by the NSA or something; (somehow in my shotgun research for the last blog I totally missed all of this) meaning that the current Vampire populace of Prague need to whittle each other down until they establish the predominate group who can restore order, and thus the Masquerade. That premise almost makes it sound like players will be hunted as they hunt each other, with this organisation known as the Entity looking to eradicate the vampire menace altogether. (Most Battle Royales wait until their 6th month before adding in depth building stuff like that.) There's also this whole thing about hunting and eating civilians for buffs on the battlefield that have an almost MOBA-esque vibe to them. Actual thought went into making this Battle Royale a reality and I'm actually rather chuffed by it.

Whatsmore, in the weirdest Battle Royale admission I could ever possibly make; I'm actually drawn by this game mostly for the lore as well. My first thought when I saw this was "Vampires shooting holes in each other all over Prague? The Camarilla are going to have a field day clearing all of this up." but the whole setting of a betrayal within the ranks, the possibility of vampires being revealed to the human world, all of that comes together to form a surprisingly engaging premise. Of course that's unlikely to paint the majority of playtime, what with Battle Royales being typically more focused on quick bouts of violent action; but as a Dark Souls fan I'm well adjusted to slowburn narratives placed in the background, and this story is shaping up to appeal directly to that part of me.

Bloodhunt has adopted a rather heavy role on its shoulders right now, becoming now the sole piece of AAA VTM content on the market right now, and as such has inherented some unfair criticism. People who say this is too action oriented and that they expected the franchise to stick to it's RPG routes were the same folk waiting from Bloodlines 2, which this is not. This was always going to be a bombastic, blood soaked affair, and comparing it to a game it was never pretending to be seems a little reductive to the conversation. Personally, and putting aside my ever burning desire for Bloodlines 2, I think Bloodhunt has a lot more to offer than I originally thought it did and am honestly on board for this ride at least long enough to see where it's all about, I just hope that other VTM fans out there are openminded enough to share the same courtesy. (And considering the thing will be free-to-play; you might as well, no?)