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How do you follow one of the greatest role-playing games (RPGs) of all time? The answer, according to developer The Chinese Room, is a shallow action title set in a lifeless, empty world with a nonsensical story, horrendously poor packaging, and janky, repetitive combat.
Review the review information
Platform reviewed: PS5
Available: PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC
Release Date: October 21, 2025
Where its legendary predecessor offered incredible freedom of choice, a complex, well-written cast of characters, and a dynamic open world full of emergent gameplay opportunities, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Brings nothing similar to the table. It looks pretty cute at times, but that’s about all that can be said in favor of this disappointing follow-up.
For a game from over twenty years ago to be retired in almost every respect should be a shame, let alone one that was literally released in an unfinished state by its original developer.
It’s hard to see Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Anything other than a cynical cash-in would massively disappoint long-time fans like me.
(United Nations) Dead World
Set in the world of the dark universe from Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game, Bloodlines 2 Takes you to an alternate version of Seattle in a battle between the living and the dead. It’s a world that looks a lot like our own, but has an alien, sinister edge.
This is most obviously delivered in an atmospheric, noir art direction that sees dark streets bathed in fog and flashing neon lights, but also spans everything from the depressing barks of random non-player characters as you navigate through the game to the aggressive tone of the ads.
While the visuals are impressive enough thanks to the largely beautiful lighting, there’s nothing here that appeals beyond the surface level. Almost the entire game takes place in one city block and it’s just depressingly barren. Random citizens wander the streets, while others stand nearly motionless on street corners as you send out the same canned voice lines every time you pass.
The best bit
The visuals are by far the best part Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 And can be very impressive when you first boot up the game. Seattle’s nighttime setting is stunning thanks to its bright neon lights and stunning thick snow.
Modeling interiors and their inhabitants never move from their fixed positions. Compounding the problem, there are no moving vehicles.
It’s hard to tell exactly how much to reduce in this map. Sure, there are a few collective symbols you can hover over for bonus experience points (spoiler: you won’t need them, and there’s apparently no reward for getting them all), but that’s your only real activity aside from some pointless side quests. Attacking civilians gets you chased by the local police who often stand in front of you and, if you keep it up, get killed instantly in a basic animation.
Originally from Santa Monica Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines There wasn’t a huge map either, but it felt significantly more life-like and gave you some interesting ways to move between its missions with your chosen vampire powers.
With the bed
The story is clearly the big focus Bloodlines 2but sadly it does nothing to make up for its shortcomings everywhere. The main thrust is that you are an elderly vampire who has awakened from a centuries-long sleep with the voice of a dead detective named Fabian in your head. With a twisted scar on your hand that limits your true power, you team up to solve Fabian’s murder as you try to put him away.
It’s an interesting premise, but the narrative is extremely rigid, which severely limits the possibilities for role-playing. Your vampire has a fixed name, Fer, and beyond choosing your gender and one of six vampire clans, you have little opportunity to influence the plot.
As far as I can tell, your choice of clan barely matters. I went with the Terridor, charming artist faction, and that fact was referenced about three times in total throwaway dialogue. Even when you are able to make choices, they seem incredibly unnecessary beyond a brief epilogue cutscene that you see at the very end of the game.
If that wasn’t enough, the storytelling suffers terribly. It is split between three distinct timelines that alternate between them at the end of each main quest. One is from the 1920s and takes place entirely in small rooms, while the other two are modern. In the two timelines you play entirely as Fabian, which basically involves traversing deserted streets with your usual traversal powers (like the ability to climb walls or glide) to reach one of the insiders to talk to someone.
It’s downright miserable and many of these classes are consciously designed to waste your time, forcing you to double-double with every completed objective. Designated non-player characters (NPCs) sit around in the same static locations, meaning you’re constantly running between the same buildings to gather a new pattern of information over and over again. It doesn’t even pay off as the plot veers awkwardly between completely predictable and completely stupid as it leads to its unsatisfying twist ending.
Fabian has some special powers up his sleeve, such as the ability to interact with imaginary objects or bodies, but they can only be used at very specific points decided by the developers. They also serve to cheapen any real detective work you’d do by simply telling him what he needs to know to progress the story.
I like a narrative-driven game, but there’s nothing here that’s particularly enjoyable. As a Malkavian vampire (a very insane faction), Fabian lends itself appropriately, but beyond a few disturbing quips what does that really mean and how will it affect his crime-solving role in the blood-sucking community?
It’s significantly worse written than Compulsion Indie Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York The visual novel of a few years ago – and the game kindly didn’t force you to stop yourself between buildings for each new line. The voice acting is also hit and miss. The performances for Fer and Fabian are decent overall, but the minor roles are often flat and awkwardly voiced.
Teeth and claws
When you’re playing as Fer, there’s at least some combat to break up the monotonous formula. The bad news is that it’s just bad, with tiny heavy and light strikes and sloppy finisher animations that get old by the two hundredth time. It may not affect the story, but the clan you choose dictates what abilities you’re able to unlock, and some of them are pretty cool. I really like using their charms to turn enemies against each other, although there aren’t many powers per clan and no way to develop or upgrade them.
Your choice of clan is also undermined by the fact that you can still unlock abilities from other clans by collecting the right blood types (obtained by harvesting prominent NPCs around the map), which is only an RPG thing.
You don’t have an inventory, so you can’t carry any guns for melee combat, but can at least pick them up via telekinesis for a few shots if they’re dropped by one of the five or so enemy types that you’ll encounter ad nauseam throughout the game.
The combat designers probably went on strike at some point towards the end of the game’s production, as initially fairly tightly designed encounters quickly devolve into massive hordes of overpowered enemies that are simply frustrating to deal with.
The game is also a technical mess, at least on PlayStation 5. Crashes are frequent, a particularly nasty one forcing my console to reboot several times, and the frame rate always tanks completely every time you enter or exit a building.
All these leaves Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 It is almost impossible to recommend. If you’re a lover of the original game, you’re going to hate it, because it represents the antithesis of everything that made it so great. If you’re new to the universe, literally any other world of darkness game would be a better introduction. Yes, even Werewolf: Apocalypse – Earth Blood – At least it’s not this dim.
Should I play Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2?
If you play it…
If you don’t play it…
Accessible features
There are a small number of options accessible in the game, namely the ability to enable or disable subtitles and adjust their size. You can also reduce camera movement using the slider. Controls on consoles cannot be bounced, although there is a setting to invert the y axis.
How I reviewed Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
I played for about 15 hours Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 On PS5 for this review. During that time, I completed the game once, experienced every major story beat and a handful of boring side quests.
As a huge fan of the original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, I often compared my experience to this game, having completed several full games over the years.
I also compared it to other games set in the same universe, ie Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York And its sequel Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York Unlike others Vampire: The Masquerade – Blood Huntfor , for , for , . Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansongand Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice Also Werewolf: Apocalypse – Earth Blood For good measure.
Throughout my time with the game, I played it with a standard DualSense wireless controller and Astro A20 X gaming headset for audio.
First reviewed October 2025
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