Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong (Xbox Series X|S)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): May 19, 2022
- Release Date (EU): May 19, 2022
- Publisher: Nacon
- Developer: Big Bad Wolf
- Genres: RPG, adventure
- Also For: Computer, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Game Features:
After quite a literal deadly party, a Code Red was issued as the Masquerade - the agreement among vampires to conceal their existence from humans - is thrown into jeopardy. The new Prince of the Boston Camarilla, Hazel Iversen, the Swan, tasks members of her cabal to investigate the incident in a move to assert her control and ensure the integrity of the Masquerade. Three members of the sect in particular, Galeb, Emem and Leysha, will be working in the shadows to get to the root of the issue. While their investigations are performed solo and track different leads, their fates are ultimately intertwined as they uncover an underlying story of power struggle and betrayal.
From the outset, developer Big Bad Wolf makes it clear that Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is a narrative-driven game; so much so that the game's mechanics are part of the conversations you have. You won’t engage in combats here but the challenge revolves around verbal confrontations you engage in as well as the items you discover (or overlook) and choices you make as you take turns playing as Galeb, Emem and Leysha. You will get to explore the location you are in, snoop in conversations, discover hidden areas and items as you play as each of the protagonists. The setting and your role really feels like you’re playing an undercover vampire detective as you mingle with humans and pose as an investigator but are really trying to cover vampiric tracks and unravel the events leading to the deadly party.
Each of the playable characters have specific Disciplines or abilities of their own inherited from their clans. For example, Galeb’s Fortitude allows him to withstand physical pain, Emem’s Blink lets her teleport across short distances and Leysha’s Obfuscate lets her copy the uniforms of NPCs as well as become invisible to the naked eye. You will have to make use of their unique skills to find items that can help you in your investigation or retrieve others that could compromise the Masquerade. Finding such items are left up to you as you can explore the area you are in in an open-ended way, meaning you can miss out on finding some information which could have repercussions down the line. Once you complete a mission, you will be presented with a summary of what you have successfully accomplished, missed or failed during your investigation. This adds a layer of replayability should you want to uncover details you overlooked or take another path.
To further assist you in your investigations, each protagonist has dedicated skill trees based on the class you choose. Skills can be upgraded at the end of missions with points collected and these skills can further help unlock dialogue options or reinforce them. This gets particularly important during Confrontations which are akin to “boss battles” but in a more diplomatic format as they are mere conversations. Confrontations can be won or lost and this brings in the branching aspect of the narrative. For example, in an early scene with Leysha, you could convince an NPC to help you find a target if you win that confrontation but if you lose, that NPC won’t join forces with you and you’ll be left on your own and will need to keep your eyes peeled.
Engaging in conversations is where most of the TTRPG-inspired mechanics kick in. You don't explicitly roll dice but the success rate of certain actions depend on your skills. Some of your options will also depend on your available Willpower points, which you can restore during conversations with consumable items. Thus, exploration is rewarded as you can find such consumable items which can help you out in a pinch while trying to squeeze information from an NPC.
Other actions increase your hunger gauge and you'll have to eventually satisfy it by drinking someone's blood. But if you overindulge in sating your hunger and murder people, this will raise the suspicion gauge of those mortals around you, which can make things harder later on. As such, you will also have to carefully drain some NPCs of their blood but not too much as to murder them and leaving evidence behind that risk revealing your true self.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong’s mechanics are originally implemented to help you embody your inner vampire and it feels refreshing as it is devoid of combat and focuses on the plot. However, the sheer infodump that this represents from the outset can feel intimidating and could have used better execution. Moreover, the skill tree mechanics aren’t made very clear, can be confusing to manage and can feel unbalanced as you can discover that even after investing significant Willpower, your confrontation ends up in a failure due to a hidden boost from the opponent.
Likewise, there is a significant infodump regarding the plot from the get-go, as it puts you in the thick of things right after the Code Red. Had the happenings and background been smoothed into the storytelling, this approach could have worked better. But the exposition approach undertaken in Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong feels disorienting for the most part.
This approach also impacts on the protagonists as you can’t relate much to their characters this way until much later during the gameplay. Sticking to the game till then can however get testing as they feel flat and the learning curve to the mechanics don’t help much in that regard. What could have been executed better are the puzzles. You will encounter some during your playthrough and these add a layer of diversity to the gameplay but aren’t always intuitive. They can get frustrating fast as they are often presented without clear indication of what they entail until a puzzle is randomly thrown at you and sometimes don’t even have clear relevance to where you’re at.
Adding diversity to the gameplay is also handled through the exploration segments. However, for a vampire-themed game, these feel more mundane and humanly themed like hacking computers or injecting an unconscious person with adrenaline. While your skills involved in conversations are vampire-themed, the most vampire actions you’ll actively engage in is in subduing humans to follow you to a safe space and drink their blood to sate your hunger. And there’s no real challenge in this action either which would otherwise really add some welcome diversity to the gameplay.
While I played the game mostly post-launch, I still came across certain technical issues while playing the game on my Xbox Series S. I encountered a bug in a scene with Leysha where her child Halsey was supposed to lead her to a room but instead she was stuck in place. Thankfully, a restart fixed it and autosaves are quite common in Swansong.
Also on the technical side, the aesthetics of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong feels dated and often unpolished. Textures are bland, weird pop-ins are common and some character movements and animations are unnatural, especially with the facial expressions. I even encountered closed mouths in conversations, even if the professional voice acting otherwise adds to the narrative-driven experience. It's quite a jarring state post launch, especially given that conversations are a central aspect to the gameplay.
While visually and technically Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong could have used some polishing, it is still a commendable effort to offer a fresh take on narrative-driven games. The amalgam of RPG, branching narratives, puzzle and detective genres might not have been for the best and a narrower focus could have led to a better experience. But while the execution is not on par with Detroit: Become Human, if you liked the latter, there are some interesting mechanics to discover in Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong | Launch Trailer
Verdict
- Gameplay mechanic that focuses on narrative
- Interesting execution of getting different perspectives as 3 different characters
- Branching plot
- Unintuitive puzzles
- Some unclear mechanics
- Slow-burn aspect
- Dated graphics
- Post-launch technical issues
