The Haunted Hoard: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt (PS5)
A vital component of the Vampire: The Masquerade franchise is the Masquerade, the idea that to peacefully live among humans, vampires must avoid detection and blend in so humans will continue believe vampires don’t exist at all. Such subtlety and a need to avoid attention seems contradictory then to a battle royale game, the idea that up to 45 vampires can be running around a city trying to kill each other seeming like it would be a huge break of the Masquerade. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt is well aware of this of course though, the city of Prague caught in the crossfire of feuding vampire clans where the Masquerade is at risk of rupturing entirely should this chaotic conflict not be resolved before its damage can’t be undone.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt is an online multiplayer battle royale first and foremost and that does mean most of your play will manifest as you entering a section of Prague to try and kill up to 44 other vampires and stand as the last remaining player, but there is some effort put into providing some world-building beyond what you’ll see while out on the hunt. Between matches the player will find themselves in a waiting room with others called Elysium, this hidden haven housing representatives from the different clans who all seem keen on getting you to work for their side. The squabbles between the different clans and the broader issues can be better understood by speaking to these characters, and the work they ask of you manifests in the form of small quests you can perform while out in the city hunting players. Sadly, many of these quests are incredibly basic, mostly just amounting to heading to a certain area or finding a glowing spot to interact with to nominally find or place something of import. The story is not that strong a motivator and it can seem like busywork to lightly dabble in both as something to do while waiting on a lobby to fill or as a way to motivate you to visit different parts of Prague during a match, the rather weak rewards for completing them just nailing in that these elements are mostly there if you care to find out a little more about this setting as something beyond a place to host the death battles.
When a normal battle royale match of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt begins, you’ll be asked to pick from a range of archetypes for that match. You can customize the appearance of each of them individually and purchasing cosmetics is the only incursion of cash purchases in this free to play game, but the archetypes do all have important differentiating characteristics that might motivate you to swap which one you play as each match. Each of the 9 archetypes has a passive power and two active abilities, archetypes from the same clan sharing an ability like how the two from Nosferatu can vanish briefly to get out of trouble. Not all powers are equal, the Ventrue Warden can turn briefly invincible and can hit people with Shackles that deal one fourth of your life if you stray too far from the floating orb that binds you while the Toreador Muse has a healing aura ability and a projection that they can teleport to after placing it. No power feels so strong that it completely tips things in the favor of a certain vampire type though and they do cater to different play styles, some definitely finding greater use if you play in the game’s Duo or Trio versions of the battle royale where you can work with other players in small teams. The active powers all have cooldowns as well and reasonable limits like the Warden not being able to attack while invincible, but perhaps what keeps any archetype feeling like it has a huge advantage is that the most important part of winning a match in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt is actually going to be what gear you find and how you handle the game’s gun play.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt is mostly a third-person shooter focused on firearms with the vampire elements just a little touch placed over it. When you do find another player in the city, you won’t often be doing much damage with any vampire powers, instead what’s in your hands is going to decide how you best handle the fight. All around Prague there are weapons and helpful items to find, the player able to carry two guns at a time and a melee weapon. Assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, and even the incredibly rare grenade launcher or minigun make fighting at range optimal, but there are definitely some meaningful variations in this shooting game standbys. Something like the auto-shotgun lives up to its name, the player able to quickly unleash powerful blasts with it and then something that sounds pretty plain like a crossbow actually unleashes a poison cloud on contact, possibly giving you a reason to whip out a weapon beyond a reliable automatic. Blood packs and syringes that serve as health refills as well as armor can be found around the city as well, and there are ways to get passive bonuses that fit more into the Vampire: The Masquerade theming.
Regular people are lingering around the city unaware there’s a giant battle going on, and should you need a health refill or want an extra bonus like stronger melee attacks or weak but meaningful gradual recovery, you’ll want to feed on them. You need to make sure no other humans see you as you feed though, because if you break the Masquerade, either by alarming citizens or killing mortals, you’ll briefly be put under a Bloodhunt. For the thirty seconds a Bloodhunt lasts, other players not only can see you on their mini-maps, but a red outline makes you visible to them even through walls. Considering Prague is fairly large, having this means of making a player stand out can start to centralize the players a bit before the Red Gas starts restricting the available area to operate in. Having run-ins with the vampire-hunting SWAT troops working for something called the Entity also adds some extra danger and turns certain areas into hot beds of activity if players end up in their territory, and considering the fact they often have the best gear in their camps, there are other ways beyond Bloodhunts to potentially push players into conflict.
The small section of Prague the game takes place in is used consistently across all matches, but where the action centralizes can vary quite a bit. The Red Gas surrounding this portion of the city will harm any player in it over time and prevent things like revivals, players usually able to get back up after losing their health if an opposing vampire doesn’t shoot them or diablerize them, that being a finishing attack that gives you a random bonus similar to the ones you get for feeding on humans. The Red Gas is there to gradually close the available space and push players together as the matches wane on, and with matches meant to hit 10 minutes tops, it’s quite easy to keep jumping in for more battles even if the early parts of a battle royale can feel a bit empty. When you encounter just one player out in the city it will usually be a quick skirmish with both sides whipping out their vampire powers but whoever has the better aim and gun mix wins. Vampire abilities do manifest in a few other ways, you can climb up the sides of buildings and Prague has some gorgeous gothic rooftops to cross and aiming while jumping down from above will slow your fall and let you line up midair attacks. When you’re in a more cramped space or facing many players at once though, you can start to feel your heart-pounding as handling so many variables at once becomes more pressing and important.
Prague does have many interesting locations to fight in or around, the interior of a large butchery or disco quite distinct and containing interesting cover while exterior places can have impressive sights like the burning church or more diverse layouts like the abundant cover of a graveyard or the wide open corridor of the shopping arcade. The Red Gas tends to close in on these more distinct areas so the final players tend to be crammed together in interesting battlefields although the Red Gas doesn’t always account for how vertical these spaces can be. A building with a roof and interior can lead to players just sitting and waiting for the other to brave the gas to try and hunt the other down without many strong motivators to do so once the gas has stopped moving, but it’s not such a pressing problem that it undermines the otherwise excellent city design that offers many unique and recognizable locations so you can get a feel for Prague’s layout across matches and still find areas where confronting other players can unfold differently thanks to the environment’s shape.
A few of the areas like the abandoned mall are actually cordoned off to host the game’s final mode, Deathmatch, and while battles between two teams of 8 seem a bit of a step down from the 45 player free for alls, they might actually make the best use of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt’s mechanics. Both teams are trying to earn 40 kills but in such limited space it’s much harder to hide from danger or find powerful weapons, the constant conflict meaning vampire abilities are frequently used to gain small edges and some like the healing of the Muse can even lead to greater strategies between teammates. Death is slightly quick if someone’s able to hold their aim on you for a bit and perhaps that’s why in the battle royale mode you actually start the round with an extra life, but in deathmatch this keeps things energetic as survival isn’t as key to success. Armor and healing are far rarer and there’s no downed state in deathmatch too to keep things moving quickly, those extra elements often why you rarely feel blindsided in the battle royale mode and unable to defend yourself. While there is definitely greater satisfaction in managing to be the last vampire standing in the main mode, deathmatch offers more moment to moment exhilaration and offering both options for play definitely helps Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt better hold your attention despite it leaning into the common third-person shooting of the broader battle royale genre.
THE VERDICT: Prague is a well built setting for the battle royales of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt and its best areas are plucked out as places for final stands or the deathmatch mode. With the players able to easily scale buildings, the gun play is given greater dimensions even if the vampire abilities feel secondary to what firearms you’ve managed to find about town. Elements like the Entity patrols and the Bloodhunt system mean things won’t just boil down to firefights amongst some fairly acrobatic gunmen, vampirism still more a secondary part of the action thanks to the value of the guns you wield but not forgotten in the way other aspects of the game world are laid out. The quests and world-building are certainly weak, but Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt honed its multiplayer action well to make it hard to resist popping in again to try to place first in the next round.
And so, I give Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt for PlayStation 5…
A GOOD rating. Oftentimes when finding other players in Prague I’d find they’d jump around or try to be a bit more sprightly than how a usual firefight would unfold in a third person shooter, almost as if they were trying to will their vampirism into being a more present part of how the action unfolds, and while some greater focus on specific powers or aspects of vampires could have helped Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt stand out from the normal form this genre takes, the battle royales are definitely made more interesting by the areas where it is integrated in some degree. Climbing buildings with such ease really helps Prague have stronger locations to battle in and the extra mobility allows not only for firefights to shift in shape but you’re able to really get a good view of a beautifully dark city. The Masquerade elements can seem a little silly at times like when you keep finding humans facing walls so you don’t end up Bloodhunted too often when trying to feed, but having a few powers to pull from at least adds something special to the combat so it’s not just about who is aiming their gun the best. Some unique guns like the crossbows wouldn’t have been enough on their own but with the Scholar archetype having things like a bloodlance that pierces through walls you also get some interesting disruptions that ensure firefights aren’t over too swiftly save where they should be in the more restricted setting of the team deathmatches. Things still feel like they centralize a bit much on the weapons though and especially towards the reliable automatic firearms, but because there are at least a few other systems at play at all times the game can avoid feeling repetitive.
A live service online multiplayer game being featured on The Game Hoard is usually an indicator that its days are numbered, but Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt is, at present, functional until further notice. No further development is planned for it meaning most of its systems are likely to remain unaltered though, and while some more could have been done to increase how much being a vampire mattered in a firefight, there is a good balance at play already that makes it easy to get hooked on playing match after match. Getting first place might not feel as hard fought as in some battle royales but some ideas like the extra life and possibility to revive if you aren’t finished off also make it a bit more approachable than an all or nothing survival test, and the deathmatch mode provides a more energetic break if scouring the city for other players starts feeling a touch slow. It’s hard to say that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt deserved to be a greater success since it doesn’t quite do enough with its standout features to truly feel special, but it does avoid being a run of the mill third person shooter thanks to what Vampire: The Masquerade’s world is able to add to the battle royale formula.