Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong

In the end, despite its penchant for occasionally boring puzzles, rough character animations and wildly varying voice performances, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is nonetheless a roundly fulfilling detective adventure with a vampiric twist that will appeal greatly to anyone that follows the World of Darkness setting. For others, Swansong makes for a fine, if occasionally clunky introduction to that sprawling world of supernatural politics and generation spanning stories.

If Swansong is at the same time an adventure game, an investigation game and an infiltration game, it is above all a real RPG, which manages to perfectly capture the essence of Vampire The Masquerade.

Vampire: The Masquerade Swansong is nonetheless a good attempt to capture the mechanical essence and purpose of the pen-and-paper game. The developers could have made a stat-heavy action thing, or followed a bunch of other games and thrown players into a generic open-world that barely resembles or is relevant to the base material. They didn’t, and the game is better for it. Swansong comes across as a timid vampire story – the kind of thing a first-time game master might right for a first-time tabletop group, but timid as it might be, you are left under no illusions that you’re playing a game of Vampire: The Masquerade.

For fans of vampiric tales, dark narratives and grizzly visuals, there’s a lot to love about Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong. You may be thrown straight into the deep end, but once you acclimatise yourself with the fascinating, macabre world around you, you’ll feel right at home. It blends intriguing storytelling with investigation, skill-building and player agency, leading to a game that you’ll most likely struggle to put down.

Although the graphics can sometimes leave a lot to be desired, the gameplay is a lot of fun, immersing the player in the intricate politics of vampire society. And you get some wicked powers too.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is a dialogue and story-driven experience with a side of detective to help push it all along. The gameplay was spot-on what you should expect from an in-person Vampire: The Masquerade session, but it may not be for everyone. If you’re looking for something more action-oriented, then this may not be your cup of tea.

If the teeming universe of Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is a tedious entry for newcomers, it does not become less exciting once mastered. Fans of the Big Bad Wolf studio will probably be delighted by the formula "The Council way World of Darkness"; Mean by that a system of dialogues of choice revisited by the controlled addition of RPG mechanics. Swansong unfolds a story consisting, sometimes too much, led by three protagonists with an impeccable style whose progression remains fairly linear.

The game provides you with a strong and compelling story, where the choices you make actually have an impact. Add challenging gameplay with interesting RPG elements and the developer succeeds in its mission. The fact is, the game could do with some more attention in the form of better animations and models, as well as an elaboration in the features, which sometimes feel like an afterthought. Nevertheless, it is a fun title that is worth playing.

Ambitious on paper, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is one of those games that runs up against a budget that limits its good ideas. Technically, this Masquerade needs an overhaul, improved animations and textures. And in the gameplay there is a certain imbalance in sections such as puzzles and basic tasks that only extend the duration without contributing anything. But as a Vampire game it's worth it, especially in its deployability, because the world of The Masquerade is really well implemented. If you're a fan, give it the Embrace and become its Sire while you wait for the arrival of the messiah Bloodlines 2.

While its limited presentation is a let-down, its narrative ambitions largely make up for it. Worth taking out for a drink and seeing where things lead. [Issue#16, p.120]

Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong does wonderfully with creating an engaging atmosphere and has some legitimately creative ideas, but its overall execution still leaves much to be desired. I can appreciate an entirely combat-free RPG, but I think that you’re going to have to do more than occasionally let players unlock certain dialogue choices or bypass locks by leveling up specific skills. I’m not too worried, though. This series has been going on for a long time, and while this game may have Swansong in its title, I doubt it’s the last Vampire: The Masquerade game we’ll be seeing. And, hopefully, the next one will have just a little bit more polish.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong has players step in the shoes of three different vampires to solve a mystery, building upon the wealth of Vampire lore, but doesn’t have much bite. The approach of making the game be entirely driven by conversation and investigation is an interesting alternative to countless vampire games that are essentially bloodbaths but doesn’t come without concessions. The emphasis on role playing and character choice helps recreate the feel of the tabletop/LARP games, but the poor puzzles and mediocre script hurt the pacing and overall experience. Fans of White Wolf’s World of Darkness will likely appreciate the work that went into bringing the role playing feel to a video game while they work to solve the mystery, but those who want something with a little more action would be best served waiting for Bloodlines 2.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong does an admirable job of bringing the World of Darkness tabletop experience to video games. Anyone who has been a fan of or curious about Vampire: The Masquerade but perhaps struggles to get a gaming group together, or wants something to do between sessions, will find Swansong a welcome substitute. The strength of the narrative-based gameplay, bringing a rare weight to choices, successes, and failures, will give any fan of narrative or adventure games something to enjoy, even if the tedium of exploration will likely wear on players at least a bit. Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong could have used another coat of polish before being released, but it does enough right that I hope to see the team behind it get another crack at the World of Darkness.

A solid classic RPG that doesn’t really do anything outstanding, but enjoyable if you like the universe.

Swansong's biggest problem is that at times it's perhaps not as clear as it could be about what you're actually meant to be doing or how to bypass certain problems, and you'll find that it's trial and error that gets you through. There's also a couple of technical issues, including one in which we spent ages wandering around trying to solve a puzzle only to reset the game and discover that the solution to the problem hadn't loaded the first time around. Not cool.

Galeb, Emem, and Leysha have compelling enough stories to keep players invested despite these problems, even if it is difficult to find your next destination at times, or you find that you have built each of them in the same way. I know this game has the potential to rise above and give fans an exciting vampire narrative.

Vampire the Masquerade Swansong is a top-tier narrative-focused adventure set in the World of Darkness that offers complex characters and a fascinating world. However, performance issues on PS5 mar what could have been a sublime experience.

Swansong is clearly an ambitious and passionate game. Unfortunately, it's also not a great one, due to a rollercoaster of a narrative with more lows than highs, weak production values, and some baffling choices here and there. It's still a pretty enjoyable experience, especially for fans of the World of Darkness, but this universe deserves more.

Ultimately, Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong only partially honors the name it bears.

Vampire The Masquerade Swansong sticks to the source material very closely, adding very little to distinguish itself from many other adventure games, except for some bugs and inconsistencies. Only suited for long time World of Darkness fans.

Swansong will be compared to Bloodlines, and that’s inevitable even though this is not the same kind of game. Unfortunately, Swansong wants itself to be compared to Bloodlines and doesn’t really make a stand against its older sire. A mess of RPG and adventure mechanics boil down to luck, and with weak voice acting and not very Camarilla vampire models, Swansong leaves a lot to be desired. If you’re looking for an adventure akin to Life is Strange, you’ll surely find it here. But if you’re looking for a World of Darkness RPG with deep and charismatic characters, better hope Bloodlines 2 comes out soon.

As a newbie to Vampire: The Masquerade, I wasn't impressed with Swansong. There were moments when I found myself enjoying the investigation aspect but these were still marred by technical issues, graphical inconsistencies, and an unsettling atmosphere.

A bland and occasionally baffling return for the Vampire: The Masquerade series.

Bloodless pseudo-role-playing game that pegs small, nice ideas with old-fashioned technology and an extremely lengthy gameplay.

The world of vampires, the idea of implementing it as a single game was not bad. But the puzzles were unreasonable, and growth system seems failed to mean so much. Also, Poor graphics quality and lip sync interfere with immersion. Lastly, the story can be hard to follow if you are not familiar with WoD.

As I said up top, I get that it’s a little unfair to come into a series that’s been around for a couple of decades and complain that you don’t know what’s going on. But at the same time, the more you play of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, the more you get the sense that it’s being so convoluted because it doesn’t know what else to do. It tries to wrap everything together sometime around the 15-hour mark, but there’s really no reason why you should want to stick around for that long.

Whilst it may seem like an intermission before Bloodlines 2 comes out, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong isn’t engaging enough to fill the gap. Lacklustre gameplay, unsightly character models and a sense of “You should know this already” are enough to put off the new players. Maybe for the fans, but that’s only if they’re coffin up the money for it.