Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. An RPG that many now recognize as cult and one of the few truly magnificent Western RPGs of this decade. Released in 2004 by Activision, developed by Troika Games (the creators of Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, and the original Fallout). It became their last completed project before bankruptcy and dissolution, ultimately financially unsuccessful due to mistakes made by the publisher in choosing the release date (it came out almost simultaneously with Half-Life 2), constant rescheduling to earlier dates, and the overall roughness of the game as a result. The second game running on the Source engine after Half-Life 2. VTMB is a worthy successor to the great old-school RPGs: Planescape, Baldur's Gate, Fallout, and Arcanum. There is a strong emphasis on dialogue and the necessity of choice. Every NPC in the game is a character; there are no disposable quest givers. All characters are fully voiced, and each phrase is accompanied by magnificent animation. The facial animation in the game was the best of its time. The graphics are at the level of 2004, but it is evident that the Source engine was not fully mastered by the developers. The character models, however, stand shoulder to shoulder with the ones from Half-Life 2.
But the main feature of the game is, of course, the role-playing system and the universe used. This universe is the Old World of Darkness, which essentially represents a copy of the modern world with one difference – most of the mythical horrors of the night, known in our world through legends and tales, actually exist in this world. However, we are only interested in one side, which is presented in the game – vampires. They are the central characters and the main heroes of the story told in the game. Mysterious lords of the night, secretly pulling all the strings in the world and leading an eternal civil war between two factions of vampires – the cruel, bloodthirsty, and merciless Sabbat and the secretive, stern, yet equally cruel Camarilla. All this unfolds against a backdrop of an ongoing confrontation with vampire hunters, sworn to cleanse the land of this filth, werewolves who hate vampires to the core, and the mysterious Kuei-jin, an Asian undead species similar to vampires but vastly different from them. The Camarilla tries to uphold what is called the Masquerade – to hide their existence from humans to avoid total extermination, while the Sabbat believes there is no need to conceal the existence of wolves from the herd. You can choose one of 7 clans of the Camarilla – the hot-headed and brutal Brujah, the reclusive Gangrel, the insane Malkavians, the aristocratic Ventrue, the wizards and manipulators Tremere, the hideous information gatherers Nosferatu, and the social and artistic Toreador. The game uses a simplified model of the tabletop RPG system. Each clan has a specific set of so-called Disciplines – special vampiric abilities, such as animal control or superhuman speed. Furthermore, each clan receives a different amount of character development points at the start.
The character can develop Attributes (including Physical, Mental, and Social) and Abilities (including Talents, Skills, and Knowledges). Additionally, important indicators are Humanity (loss leads to losing control over oneself and unleashing in critical moments what is called the Beast, a primal predator that lives in every vampire and strives to completely erase what remains of their humanity) and Masquerade (which can only be violated a few times; the more violations, the more hunters will follow your trail – after 5 violations, the game ends). Experience points in this game can only be gained through quests, allowing a nearly entirely social character to develop. However, one shouldn't forget about the combat aspect, as from the middle of the game the quantity and quality of enemies sharply increases.
The game was initially received coldly due to a large number of bugs, lack of advertising, and being released in the shadow of Half-Life 2, however, soon formed a devoted, albeit small, fan base, through which several unofficial patches were released to fix most bugs and add cut content, fan voicing, and translation.