I bought Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (VtMB) at launch way back when in launched late 2004. Officially it released the same day as Half-Life 2 and makes use of the same source engine. For one reason or another I definitely recall having VtMB well before Half-Life 2, perhaps Australia got the HL2 at a later date or it simply didn’t register on my radar until later.

I spent a lot of my time during the 1990’s at the gaming table playing the 2nd Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, and absolutely loved it. Our storyteller was able to weave a deeply intricate Camarilla experience that absolutely had me enthralled. No surprise then that he went on to have a career in state government.

So suffice it to saw that when VtMB was released I was keen to sink my proverbial teeth in. I had played the early Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption but hadn’t found the game to my liking. I did like how it played out across both past and present, but the mechanics and perspective just didn’t do it for me at the time, coupled with the fact that I had a ‘warez’ version of Redemption which made it even more janky than it already was. Remember the days where you had to download music, cutscenes, and voice all separately in order to limit the number of 1.44mb files you had to download in one go?

Anyway, I digress. Vampire. Bloodlines. Amazing game. Complete fucking mess.

In many ways VtmB for me was a lot like The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall at launch. I could see the potential, but it was so riddled with bugs that it made the game unplayable. As such I’m almost certain I never finished VtmB, even when the patches arrived sometime later.

Firing the game back up in 2023 with the intent to roll up my sleeves and finish the game was a much more ‘bug free’ experience although I did still crash once or twice, and had a humorous bug at one point where all the door handles and several object were replaced with beer bottles. The beer-bottle ceiling fan was particularly humorous.

An extremely dedicated chap by the name of ‘Wesp’ has spent the last (almost) 20 years patching VtMB, fixing countless bugs. You can also install the ‘plus patch’ which restores lost/cut content to the game. For my initial playthrough though I wanted to keep the game as ‘vanilla’ as possible and opted only for the bug fixes. For the record I used ‘Unofficial Patch 11.4‘ with Wasp suspecting that 11.5 will be the absolute last ever patch needed.

For those who have never played the game, the story begins with you making a character, choosing from one of several clans and spending points on a variety of skills and powers. The initial cutscene details how you got into this mess after which a fellow vampire (voiced by John DiMaggio) shows you the ropes before you’re unleashed on Santa Monica.

Gameplay takes place typically in the first person perspective although you can (and will) swap to third person, mainly for melee combat. The game sports a number of knives, swords, and bats, as well as a variety of firearms ranging from pistols to shotguns and assault weapons.

For the Vampire: The Masquerade puritan there are a few departures from the rules, there are mods fo that too if you absolutely, positively, need that authentic experience. However I get that most of the changes were likely made for video game pacing issues.

While the clans each have their own unique powers, one aspect of the tabletop game that the video game doesn’t quite capture (although it tries) is the different culture each clan presents. Ventrue spend their nights gathering power, buying property. Nosferatu spends weeks gathering intel and hacking into anything and everything they can. Tremere work in the shadows increasing their arcane power. It’s all hinted at in VtMB but never quite something the player is able to experience for themselves. Again, video game pacing.

Hopefully if/when we get a sequel the world is a lot more expanded (think a Far Cry or Grand Theft Auto style game) and players are able to take much more time to really engage in the culture and pastimes of their chosen clan.

Music is fantastic and features both an orchestral and licensed soundtrack. You’ll be humming the ‘Isolated’ tune from Chiasm in you head for days. Voice acting actually pretty good to be honest with a few exceptions and lines are delivered well if a little cheesy.

The graphics were amazing for 2004 and still aren’t bad today, you do get the feeling of wandering late night Los Angeles. The source engine has aged well. It’s just a pity the city maps aren’t bigger and perhaps with more people and functional traffic. You can get HD texture mods for the game, I didn’t dabble in those, but they are out there.

The big elephant in the room though is the later portion of the game. Depending on who you talk to Troika Games (the developer) may have dragged their feet a little, others will tell you Activision (the publisher) were unreasonable with an ultimatum. Either way VtMB is a little underbaked, and while patches can fix bugs the sadly sharp drop in the story and branching patch content later in the game can not.

Which is a real pity, because the open ended ‘play how you like’ gameplay is really apparent in the first half of the game, and then slowly descends into just an average FPS with little story and few choices to make.

Despite all it’s flaws VtMB is a truly unique game, you wont find anything else quite like it. I’d argue some of the Deus Ex games get somewhere close, but nothing else is really going to scratch that VtMB itch, not completely.

Which is why I fired the game up gain off stream with the ‘plus patch’ to take a look at all the extra content restored to the game. I’m also armed now with a much better understanding of what to expect later in the game and how to plan for it.

Perhaps the delay with Bloodlines 2 then is for the best. Rather than repeat the mistakes of the original game, take the time to do it properly. We’ll find out more about Bloodlines 2 in September this year (2023), fingers crossed we wont have to wait too much longer.

Should you play Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines? Yes. Absolutely yes. Grab the game on either Steam or GOG and install the fan patch. It like Thief and Deus Ex is an immersive sim experience that simply cannot be missed.