Game News Vampire: the Masquerade - Swansong Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: Big Bad Wolf; Nacon; Vampire: the Masquerade - Swansong

Big Bad Wolf and Nacon's Vampire: The Masquerade narrative RRG, Vampire: the Masquerade - Swansong, was released yesterday. The game was originally announced three years ago, just a couple of months after the hype-filled reveal of Bloodlines 2. Obviously, a lot has happened since then. Now that it's finally here, will Swansong be able to fill the shoes of its vaporous older brother, or at least serve as a suitable consolation prize for disappointed Bloodlines fan? Will it satisfy fans of The Council, Big Bad Wolf's cult inaugural title? Most likely it'll just be ignored for being an Epic Games Store exclusive and Eurojank to boot. Oh well. Here's the game's rather random launch trailer:

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It seems the answer to my question might be "all of the above". The review scores for Swansong, of which there are a surprisingly large number, are all over the place. I guess a lot of folks were curious about how this game would turn out. Here's a roundup of the reviews for the PC version:

Cultured Vultures 5.5/10
Destructoid 7/10
Dexerto 5/10
Digital Trends 3/5
EGM 3/5
Game Informer 8.5/10
Game Rant 3/5
Gamers Heroes 65/100
GameSkinny 8/10
Gaming Nexus 8/10
GamingTrend 80/100
God is a Geek 8/10
IGN 5/10
NME 4/5
PC Gamer 50/100
PCGamesN 7/10
Polygon
Ragequit.gr 77/100
Rock Paper Shotgun
Screen Rant 4/5
TheGamer 3.5/5
TheSixthAxis 7/10
Twinfinite 4/5
Wccftech 9/10
Worth Playing 8/10
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Vampire: the Masquerade - Swansong is available on the Epic Games Store for $50. See you next year for the Steam release!

 

[Late Bloomer]

I wish it was on Steam just to read the reviews. Watch this animation if you need a good laugh.

timestamped

 

[Stoned Ape]

If ign and other mainstream media hates this game then it is probably a good game.

IGN 5/10

Just because the developers didn't hire enough hookers or buy enough blow for the mainstream media to make them review the game with a high score, it doesn't necessarily follow that the game is good.

 

[Sin2x]

Strong uncanny valley feeling model-wise. A pity, this had potential.

 

[Humanophage]

I wish it was on Steam just to read the reviews. Watch this animation if you need a good laugh.

timestamped

What's with the racial chaos. Fewer whites since it's the World of Darkness and everything is like a sadder version of reality?

Otherwise doesn't seem too bad at first glance. Combining animations and cutscenes for the popamole crowd with branching games like Suzerain and Life and Suffering of Sir Brante might not be such a bad idea.

Doesn't sound bad if you like the setting:

If you’re not already a fan of the World of Darkness series, be warned: Vampire: The Masquerade — Swansong throws players right into the deep end. Within moments, I found myself right in the middle of a vampire conflict being told to me in an almost foreign language.

For newcomers, Swansong isn’t the most inviting entry into the World of Darkness. When the game begins, players will find a glossary in their menu already full of terms, characters, factions, and more. When an unfamiliar word pops up during dialogue, an on-screen prompt will direct players to its menu entry. Some of those definitions are populated with other terms, which prompted me to get lost in a sort of footnote wormhole, as if I was reading a David Foster Wallace novel.

Though for RPG fans who already know the lingo (seemingly the game’s primary target), that won’t be an issue. Those players will be treated to a rich, albeit dryly written story that plays like a good tabletop campaign crafted by a pro game master.

 

[d1r]

Strong uncanny valley feeling model-wise. A pity, this had potential.

It really had not.

 

[Daemongar]

I wish it was on Steam just to read the reviews. Watch this animation if you need a good laugh.

timestamped

Finally! Someone had the balls to make the Deus Ex: Invisible War and Disco Elysium hybrid nobody was asking for!

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

I wish it was on Steam just to read the reviews. Watch this animation if you need a good laugh.

timestamped

Her face also seems to be tired

 

[Drowed]

Damn, it looks as bad as I thought it would be. Not that I had any positive expectations.

 

[Goral]

Full playthrough:



It looks more like a Visual Novel with cut scenes than RPG, with hilarious animations that look worse than Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from 2004, lol. It's also very short and with 3 playable characters there's no way you will attach to any of them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

PC Gamer 50/100

someone is going to get fired for being racist

 

[d1r]

...with hilarious animations that look worse than Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from 2004, lol.

This is what always gets me. Truly shows you that even the most competent or expensive engine is useless when only hacks work with it.

 

[Roguey]

...with hilarious animations that look worse than Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from 2004, lol.

This is what always gets me. Truly shows you that even the most competent or expensive engine is useless when only hacks work with it.

If you're talking about faces, this is because Valve put a lot of effort into making a great tool for it, better than any middleware past or future. All the middleware for it is mediocre because most big devs just rely on mocap (and Big Bad Wolf obviously doesn't have the budget for mocap). As my old pal put it https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...go-to-new-thread.119594/page-168#post-6013562

 

[SmartCheetah]

Graphics and other problems aside - I heard it's ridiculously short. I've played only 1, maybe 2 hours of it and to tell you the truth - I don't feel like playing in World of Darkness universe. Something seems really off. Some characters are actually well done while others totally don't belong (hipster nigger Tremere primogen, WTF) and feel so much off putting that it ain't even funny. Game mechanics are meh. Just a Visual Novel with a little bit of "RPG mechanics" and atmosphere that isn't something I would place next to World of Darkness. More like "Lets mix Bold and Beautiful with some things from World of Darkness!"

 

[RRRrrr]

with hilarious animations that look worse than Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines from 2004

VtMB had some of the best facial animations period. They hold up perfectly today.

The non-facial animations though...yeah.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Graphics and other problems aside - I heard it's ridiculously short. I've played only 1, maybe 2 hours of it and to tell you the truth - I don't feel like playing in World of Darkness universe. Something seems really off. Some characters are actually well done while others totally don't belong (hipster nigger Tremere primogen, WTF) and feel so much off putting that it ain't even funny. Game mechanics are meh. Just a Visual Novel with a little bit of "RPG mechanics" and atmosphere that isn't something I would place next to World of Darkness. More like "Lets mix Bold and Beautiful with some things from World of Darkness!"

Shocked face at the thought of someone contributing both time and money to play this.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This is what always gets me. Truly shows you that even the most competent or expensive engine is useless when only hacks work with it.

If you're talking about faces, this is because Valve put a lot of effort into making a great tool for it, better than any middleware past or future. All the middleware for it is mediocre because most big devs just rely on mocap (and Big Bad Wolf obviously doesn't have the budget for mocap). As my old pal put it https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...go-to-new-thread.119594/page-168#post-6013562

I feel that it helps the models comes across as cartoony rather than trying for photorealism and falling into the uncanny valley. At least they come across as cartoony now. At the time they probably were intended to be realistic IIRC.

 

[Roguey]

I feel that it helps the models comes across as cartoony rather than trying for photorealism and falling into the uncanny valley. At least they come across as cartoony now. At the time they probably were intended to be realistic IIRC.

Nah, they're cartoony compared to other Source engine games like Half-Life 2 and Dark Messiah.

 

[Skdursh]

[Candid photo of an average developer brainstorming for Vampire the Masquerade Swansong]

 

[SmartCheetah]

Shocked face at the thought of someone contributing both time and money to play this.

Money? What money? You mean those pirate coins?

 

[Viata]

Sometimes you gotta wonder what goes into the head of people who makes games like this.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I feel that it helps the models comes across as cartoony rather than trying for photorealism and falling into the uncanny valley. At least they come across as cartoony now. At the time they probably were intended to be realistic IIRC.

Nah, they're cartoony compared to other Source engine games like Half-Life 2 and Dark Messiah.

Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, that definitely proves my gut feeling that devs should aim for cartoony if they can't pull off photorealistic without looking like mannequins.

 

[gaussgunner]

Vampire: the Masquerade - Swansong is available on the Epic Games Store for $50. See you next year for the Steam release!

50¢ would be too much.

 

[azimuth]

It plays like a point-and-click with Telltale choices and some genuine skillchecks.

For example, you have to choose what to do with a friend who's running from the law and then you have to employ a series of strategic skillchecks to succeed at that choice. You do have a build and you decide where to assign skillpoints.

I love VtM and it's great if you love VtM. What it lacks is humour. Bloodlines had more cutting, funny writing, and this is more Bold and the Beautiful, as was said pretty accurately.

Still, the VtM setting at its best is not too far off from a soap opera. The whole thing is about politics, backstabbing, and being kinda rude to each other.

The Malkavian character isn't as cool as Bloodlines Malks, but she can see the future and has a creepy sidekick.

The animations and art are truly atrocious, but eh. Who cares.

 

[1451]

Swansong is a narrative RPG in which your every choice determines the fate of the three main characters and of the Boston Camarilla.

Calling this game an rpg is extremely misleading.
They are lying to their potential customers.