Anyone with a penchant for dark, brooding monsters will be spoiled for choice over the next six months, with the final season of What We Do in the Shadows airing in October, the remake of Salem's Lot already making the rounds in theatres, Robert Eggers' remake of Nosferatu slated for December 2024 and the third season of Interview With the Vampire winging its way to us in early 2025.

TTRPG creators haven't been slacking on the vampire stakes, though: if you are hungrily awaiting the return of Lestat and Count Orlok, consider checking out these ten vampire TTRP??Gs. Whether you're playing alone or with your coven, you'll find something to sink your teeth into!

10) Low Stakes (NerdBurger Games)

Shows like What We Do in the Shadows and Being Human brought a fresh take on the vampire genre by playing up the comedy of vampire existence. In Low Stakes, you too can play a group of mismatched monstrous roommates who constantly struggle to engage with daily life. The challenges in Low Stakes are, as the title suggests, inc?redibly mundane. Your characters must master such dangerous situations as getting a new roommate, tracking down a lost pet, or having a very ordinary day.

9) Oops All Draculas! (Jessica Marcrum)

In Oops All Draculas!, every character is a Dracula: an archetype based on one of the many depictions of Dracula across the decades. In this world, Draculas are stronger together, but alone, they are a danger to themselves and others, so they team up to solve problems. Unfortunately, their pack mentality often backfires spectacularly. Oops All Draculas! makes an ex?cellent one-shot for a ??Halloween gaming session!

8) Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (Renegade Game Studios)

The vampire daddy of them all, Vampire: The Masquerade (known as V:tM), keeps returning from the grave and is now in its fifth edition. Originally released in 1991, V:tM tapped into the vampire craze of the 90s and attracted role-players who craved the moral ambiguity of a monstrous protagonist in a world of supernatural politics. It also gave rise to the video game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, a cult classic of the urban fantasy video game genre. Renegade Game Studio's 5th edition of Vampire: The Masquerade introduces new mechanics for a modern audience, while nostalgia fans can check out V20, White Wolf/Onyx Path's comprehensive version o??f the original game's system? and setting.

7) SAD VAMPIRE BOYFRIEND (Grant Howitt)

SAD VAMPIRE BOYFRIEND does exactly what it says on the tin: you choose whether your character is a vampire or a mortal, teaming up with others to fight some threat to your existence or that of your love. Your moves are powered by pure angst, and there are even mechanics that can help you regain angst through brooding. A loving homage as much as it is an ironic take, SAD VAMPIRE BOYFRIEND is rules-light and fits onto one page.

6) Thousand Year Old Vampire (Tim Hutchings)

One of the solo journalling TTRPGs that popularised the form, Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings, is about the endless slog of immortality. Play through centuries of life as the vampire protagonist loves, loses, and learns that eternity isn't all it's cracked up to be. A story about grief and the slow loss of self in the face of an ever-changing world, Thousand Year Old Vampire is a unique take on vampire fiction.

5) Undying (Magpie Games)

In Undying, vampires are predators through and through. This diceless system guides players through the daily unlife of a vampire trying to survive in a city of predators, feeding on unsuspecting humans and warring over status and territory. Whether player characters succeed or fail against NPCs depends on whether they are higher or lower in status and how much blood they are willing to bet to achieve their goals. With downtimes devoted to the complex web of backstabbing, Undying models the idea of territory, co?ntrol, and callous inhumanity that so much vampire fiction strives to ??explore.

4) Paint the Town Red (SoulMuppet Publishing)

Described as a 'sad vampire RPG,' Paint the Town Red from Soulmuppet Publishing focuses on the best part of any vampire fiction: the parties. With an unashamed commitment to the melodrama of vampire romance, Paint the Town Red's sessions are wild rampages through your hedonistic, blood-soaked unlife. Players are encouraged to make their characters vulnerable, driven by passions that go too far, and revel in the consequences. You can get a free quickstart of the rules here, and check out the Backerkit campaign for the full release here.

3) Elegy (Moro de Oliveira)

For those who love Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem but struggle to find a coven to play with, Elegy is the game for you. Other solo games on this list depict a very specific facet of vampiric existence, but Elegy is the closest to the typical vampire TTRPG, with its webs of politics, conspiring factions, and mystical powers. Based on the Ironsworn system by Shawn Tomkin, Elegy presents a rich urban fantasy world and a variety of vampiric archetypes to live your best Interview With the Vampire unlife.

2) Hunger and Thirst (HyveMynd)

While many other vampire TTRPGs have lengthy tomes, Hunger and Thirst from HyveMynd are two business card-sized RPGs that tell incredible stories within a few paragraphs. Both are solo journalling games about a relationship between a human and a vampire, with Hunger from the vampire's perspective and Thirst from the human's. Hunger and Thirst embrace the tension ?between desire and danger while also exploring consent in a mature and healthy w??????????????????????????ay, all while keeping the rules streamlined and simple.

1) Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition (Onyx Path Publishing)

Vampire: The Requiem was originally envisaged as a reboot of Vampire: The Masquerade, but very much became its own thing. Vampire: The Requiem introduces a range of political and religious ideologies that offer a multifaceted take on what a modern vampire society could look like. Driven by the personal Gothic melodrama of characters trying to retain their connection to humanity as their inner monster (and a predatory society) drives them to do increasingly inhumane things, Vampire: The Requiem remains one of the most nuanced e??xplorations of vampires in TTRPGs.

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The battle royale's servers will stay open, though

Vampire: The Masquerade's battle royale is winding down. Developer Sharkmob has announced it is ending further development on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt.

Fully launched from Early Access in April 2022, the studio says  in today's blog post that Bloodhunt di??d not reach the "critical mass" of players it ne??eded to sustain development.

"Ever since launch, we have been on a journey to excite and delight our players, however, while we have an amazing and very engaged community, we haven’t been able to reach the critical mass needed to sustain development. This has led us to the decision to stop further development of Bloodhunt."

The Bloodhunt servers, however, will stay live for as long as the game has an active community, Sharkmob says. The studio is working on some solutions for sustaining the game long-term, including an in-game player voting system to "regularly unlock new things and keep Bloodhunt fresh." Th??ose will arrive in the upcoming final update. Afte??r that, patches will only cover maintenance.

Currency purchasing will be turned off on September 26. Prior to that, ??Sharkmob plans to implement a way to earn in-game tokens so players can continue playing and unlocking cosmetics past the shut-off.

"While we are as sad as you are that Bloodhunt development has now come to an end, ple??ase know that this was a difficult decision to make, and we take this experience with ?us in the development of coming games," said the studio.

On the hunt

Bloodhunt was certainly a different take on the genre. Despite it not clicking with me, I did see at least a few people get into it, and I like seeing fresh ideas in a space that's become as crowded as battle royales had become when Bloodhunt fully launched in April 2022.

Many live service games have come and gone over the last few years, though. Fellow battle royale Hyper Scape shut its doors last year. And the start of 2023 saw the closure of multiple live service projects, from Rumbleverse and Knockout City to Apex Legends Mobile.

Still, I look forward to seeing what the Bloodhunt crew does next. It sounds like those who enjoy the vampire battle royale will, at least, still have ways of taking p??art in it well ??after Sharkmob has moved on.

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But we won't see it at this year's PDXCon

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has been a pretty troubled development. It's been delayed, lost leads, changed hands, and more. Today, we did get some reassurances that Bloodlines 2 is still in development, th??ough we may not be seeing the results of that as soon as some would like.

Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester recently responded to concerned Bloodlines 2 fans on Twitter. Wester assured that Bloodlines 2 is in development, and more will be revealed when they are ready. He reiterated the statement?? on his timeline, with a follow-up: "The game is in good hands and we look forward to showing you more when the team and the game is ready."

//twitter.com/TheWesterFront/status/1?549347601421668354

Whose hands those are is still one major question. In February 2021, Paradox announced that it was taking developer Hardsuit Labs off Bloodlines 2, and that it would no long?er make it??s then-planned 2021 launch.

Prior to that, Bloodlines 2 was announced with some excitement and original Bloodlines writer and designer Brian Mitsoda on the project. It even showcased almost 30 minutes of gameplay in 2019. Then the project was delayed, citing the need for more time to deliver a proper Bloodlines successor.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEYGez6JLZ8

Mitsoda later left the project, alongside creative director Ka'ai Cluney and senior narrative designer Cara Ellison. The project was delayed, and after Bloodlines 2 moved out, Hardsuit Labs faced a round of layoffs. While development is now proceeding, Paradox is declining to name the studio th??at's currently working on it, so they can "focus? fully" on game development.

The night carries on

After all that, Wester's comments indicate Bloodlines 2 is still in the works. We'll have to wait for more details, it seems, and wait a while longer at that. When asked if fans would get a peak at the project during this year's PDXCon, which runs September 2 through 3, Wester said not this time.

It's nice to know the project's still alive, though it seems like it's been quite the journey for all involved. In comments made last October, Wester even said that Bloodlines 2 was almost cancelled. But apparently a pitch came in that was convincing enough to keep the Vampire game afloat. Hopefully we'll see what th?at is soon enough.

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Don't make a bloody mess

Ambitious, brooding, stylish, and messy, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong feels right ??at home with the eternal un??dead it follows.

It takes the narrative adventure style, mixes it with tabletop RPG and some pen-and-paper puzzle solving, and comes away with something fresh. It just also stumbles a?? few times on its way there.

The Vampire brand has been slowly upping its presence in video games over the past few years. Alongside the slew of visual novels and a nebulous in-development Bloodlines sequel, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is an interesting new entrant. Whe?n it shines, it really feels like the better? parts of playing a tabletop campaign. It's the stutters in-between that cause the most trouble.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=d76hfJVVvYA

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong (PC [played], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Big Bad Wolf
Publisher: Nacon
Released: May 18, 2022
MSRP: $49.99 on PC, $59.99 on console

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong follows three different vampi??res—Galeb, Emem, and Leysha—hailing from three different clans but all falling under the thumb of the Boston Camarilla and its upstart Prince Hazel Iversen. An attempted reunification party meant to consolidate Hazel's power became a bloodbath, and so? she disperses the three protagonists on different quests to ascertain who has attacked them, why, and whether another strike is imminent.

It's a good kickstart to the plot, and I enjoy the moments where Swansong leans heavily into the lore of Vampire: The Masquerade. There's a lot of inter?nal politicking and posturing, as internal disputes within the Boston Camarilla spill over. It doesn't hurt if you don't know the difference between a Toreador and a Nosferatu, and a Codex is available to handle more esote??ric concepts like the Beckoning.

Swansong also hands you some generally straightforward vampires to play. Galeb, the Ventr??ue, is a dominating presence as one of the older souls still in Boston; the tension between managing his legacy an??d leaving for distant shores was a highlight for me. Emem Louis is younger, a fast and charismatic Toreador who finds herself caught up in the politics of the court.

Leysha, the Malkavian among the bunch, has the most interesting gameplay mechanics. She can obfuscate her appearance and even change outfits, making some of her sequences feel like the recent Hitman trilogy. She also struggles with visions and premonitions, and possibly hallucinations. Her story ?can feel a bit fraught a??t times, though it ultimately hit a solid resolution (with my decisions, at least).

As each one gets wrapped up in the fallout of the party, they have to infiltrate operations and interrogate others to get information. Part of this involves traditional adventure game exploration. Developer Big Bad Wolf's previous project, The Council,??? had a similar basis of adventure game exploration and discovery.

Talk it out

Swansong also pulls a similar twist with its confrontations, where major decision points p??lay out as debates between two characters. Throughout each level, the player has to manage two resource meters: their willpower, used to employ reasoning, and their hunger, which ?grows as they invoke vampiric powers.

These come to a head in confrontations, whic??h pit you against another NPC in a pretty engaging duel of wits and reason. I was often forced to ascertain how certain characters? might respond to certain attempts, metering out my willpower left. Do I spend a lot of willpower to employ some Rhetoric, in hopes it wins me this round and gets me closer to the goal? Or do I intentionally fail this point, saving my resources for later?

It seems like a lot the first few times it happens, though ultimately confrontations are simple: make it through the conversation and win the final point, without "missing" too many times and failing. Failure is usually so??ft anyways, usually cutting off one of several points of progression or incurring a physical change in a character. But it feels good to just barely eke out a battle ??of the minds.

I just wish the dialogue interactions outside these battles felt a bit more rewarding. Once in a blue moon, I'd get a piece of info that I could use. In a few cases, they opened up a new route forward. Largely, I felt like spending willpower on basic dialogue didn't reward me enough to keep doing so. Exploration and discovering hard clues, like a letter in someone's sa?fe or an SD card from a camera, of??ten elicited more tangible rewards.

There's a lot of exploring to do too, as Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong's puzzles can get in-depth. The best ones heavily lean on the "get out a pad and pen" style; I've got a notebook full of scribbled passwords, number sequences, and even a cipher. I'm someone who enjoys that stuff, and in ?a few cases, they really resulted in some tense sequences. A few of the final puzzles in Swansong really got my heart racing, as I had to make fast deductions and quick logical leaps to avoid terrible outcomes.

A few others are a bit more obtuse, especially in the breadcrumb hints they give. Getting a "completionist" run in your first go will feel a bit arduous, and while I enjoyed t?he more standard puzzles, some involving navigating th?e area just felt annoying to poke away at. It felt better organizing my thoughts and solving riddles, rather than trying to ascertain how to use preset jumps to get from point A to point B.

Character models look nice in still images, though once they get moving, they have a bit of an unnatural look in some dialogue scenes. The navigation in general can feel a bit stiff too, and it's also where I encountered a fair deal of bugs. Sometimes my character would get ?hitched on a stair wrong, or it would take a deal of time to accurately land my cursor on the marker I was aiming for. Controller suffers the most from this, though the mouse-and-keyboard had some awkward moments ??????????????????????????too.

Camera angles got misaligned in a few conversations, characters would clip into walls or sit on air. In general, there were a decent number of "oh, that's weird" moments. It never felt game-breaking, but Swansong is ??noticeably janky at times. One sequence in particular brought all those issues together though: a stealth mission that really felt out-of-place and genuinely unenjoyable. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief once I knew I was done with it, and have no desire to go back and replay that part in particular.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong does feel like a game that encourages replaying though, if only to see different permutations of the ending. There are definitely a few major branching points, where a character could end up in a very different ep??ilogue or even prematurely meet their Final Death. I don't kn?ow that I'm keen to explore them personally, but a few choices did really tug at my heart, and I found myself caring about the fates of the protagonists a good bit by the time credits rolled.

It's an un-living

Swansong really feels like it tries to capture the better parts of Vampire: The Masquerade's tabletop roots. The segmented structure, level-over-level progression in stats like Education and Technology, and many alternative methods for advancing the story can make it feel like a good, short campaign. I clocked about 20 hours, which felt like just the right length, even as the ending chapters rapidly leapt between the three protagonists as their narrative arc??s closed.

When it's leaning heavily into logic puzzles, mystery, deduction, and sleuthing, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong sings. It's the janky issues, rough exploration puzzles, and a few odd choices that prevent Swansong from being a showstopper.

If you're heavily interested in a vampire-fueled mystery game with some good "a-ha" moments, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong can del??iver. It'll falter and miss some notes here and there, but it does at least sate my thirst for some vampire storytelling for now.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Maintain the massively multiplayer Masquerade

The spring is looking packed with vampiric activity. Developer Sharkmob announced today that its free-to-play battle royale Bloodhunt, based in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, is launching out of earl??y access on April 27.

Bloodhunt is coming to both PlayStation 5 and PC in April. This follows several months in early access, as the?? battle? royale has been sharpening its fangs on PC.

Sharkmob's take on the Vampire: The Masquerade does expand out into a more multiplayer,?? action-oriented experience. The pillars of the universe remain, though:? clans, vampiric superpowers, and upholding the Masquerade.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3X937YcpWw

The PlayStation 5 version will get some DualSense haptic feedback. ??It will also make ?use of high-end headphones and the PS5 Tempest 3D Audio tech.

Bloodhunt is maybe not the Vampire experience that fans might expect from the series. The tabletop franchise became a cult classic in the video game world with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. The sequel, Bloodlines 2, has pretty much dropped off the grid at this point.

That hasn't stopped more Vampire games from steadily rolling out, though. Several visual novels have been published under the Vampire: The Masquerade label, the World of Darkness team held a Vampire game jam, and narrative adventure Swansong is due out in May.

Bloodhunt feels, to me, like part of that growing and expanding video game Vampire presence. We'll see how months of early access have worked out for it, and whether vampires can hold their own again Warzone, Apex, and the like. But it certainly seems like the Vampire video game train is full steam ahead. If you want to down some blood in Prague and hunt other denizens of the night, Bloodhunt hits full launch on PS5 and PC on April 27.

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For those missing a bit of Masquerade in their life

It's been a while since we heard from the virtual side of Vampire: The Masquerade. But while another Bloodlines may still be a ways off, the Vam??pire Jam let other developers explore th?e world of the Masquerade.

Vampire Jam ran from Oct. 31 through Nov. 30 of last year, letting developers put together a bunch of games set in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe. Many were created, ranging from visual novels to strategy and role-playing games. You can find all of them, freely available to play here on Itch, and check out a sizzle reel below.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhM_mTodBAo

There were also some incentives for the top picks, though. The World of Darkness team has announced the winners, with first place getting to collaborate with the team to publish as a free-to-play game on Steam, alongside a monetary prize. Second and third place also received a monetary prize, and all three won digital prizes in the form of Vampire TTRPG PDFs and keys for Vampire: The Masquerade games on Steam.

First place went to Heartless Lullaby, an isometric RPG that takes some inspiration from Disco Elysium. The story follows a mortal and a vampire, has about an hour?? and a half of gameplay, and multiple endings.

Praxis took second place with a 4X strategy-RPG hybrid. Players take control ?of a Coterie and try to take over Portland, spreading their influence across the map as they go.

In third place was Waning Crescent, a narrative adventure with some gorgeous art about a thin-bloode??d vampire. It looks like a solid experience for those who like narrative choices and dialogue.

There are a lot of entries, spannin??g a pretty impressive number of genres. I've only taken a cursory look ??at the full lineup, but here are a few that jumped out at me apart from the aforementioned winners:

• Serenissima is another visual novel with some incredible art.
• If a narrative adventure with more tabletop influence is your style, Triptych of the Well looks to incorporate some classic rolling of the die.
• I'm captivated by the look of A Night at Hotel Lasombra, a pixel RPG in the Vampire world. It feels like Earthbound meets Masquerade.
• Humanity has you in the shoes of a vampire therapist. Absolutely sold. Downloading it now.
• Last Night on Earth has a similarly excellent one-line pitch: an interactive novel about cleaning up after your first kill as a vampire.
• And lastly, if you want some impostor game in your Masquerade, Leech: Amongst Us seems like a Gnosia-esque single-player traitor game.

So while Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has been adrift for some time now, at least there are some neat projects using this jam to explore the Vampire world. And if that's not enough, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is set to cap off a stacked spring of games in May.

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Last Vamp Standing

Now several months into its Early Access period, developer Sharkmob has something of an idea as to when it will be ready to release its next title, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt �/em> as announced?? during The Game Awards, the gothic battle royale game will officially launch on PS5 and PC in spring 2022.