8bitvet Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Review

A good vampire story I originally purchased Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 when it released around nine months ago. After playing for only a couple of hours, I stopped. I was highly disappointed that it wasn't really a true RPG sequel to the original Bloodlines, and at the time I found it difficult to look past that. Nine months later, I decided to give it another chance and have now completed a full playthrough. Taking the game for what it actually is—a Kindred power-struggle and murder-mystery story rather than a traditional RPG—I had a genuinely good time with it. In many ways, the overall game and play style reminds me more of Vampyr rather than the original Bloodlines. The main story is actually very good and was easily the strongest part of the experience. Without spoiling anything, the sections involving your companion's solo story can also be interesting, but ultimately become a little boring because of the restricted controls and interface. I found it somewhat amusing that the game allows you to disable these sections on a subsequent playthrough, because I don't think this is really a game that warrants playing through more than once. You're probably better off completing it once and then watching the alternative endings on YouTube. The reason for that is that, while the story is good and the basic gameplay is enjoyable, the world itself simply doesn't offer enough to make repeated exploration worthwhile. The city looks good, but it feels very static. Side quests are relatively limited and quickly become repetitive, while the collectibles scattered around the environment don't provide anything substantial enough to justify the effort beyond some additional XP. The same issue applies to the skill system. Unlocking new abilities is essentially a two-stage process: first, you build up the necessary resources and visit the appropriate vendor to gain access to a skill, then spend skill points to actually unlock it. I don't want to be too harsh on this system because I did have fun engaging with it, but it doesn't have enough depth to remain interesting for long. Feeding is a good example. Once you've bitten a few different necks and worked out the fairly basic methods of avoiding a Masquerade violation, you've effectively seen most of what the system has to offer. Victims within each category behave essentially the same way. There was a lot of potential here for different personalities, risks, consequences and feeding opportunities, and the developers really could—and probably should—have done much more with it. Character customisation is similarly underdeveloped. Clothing options are unlocked through faction progression, but most of them are fairly uninspiring. I eventually found a few outfits I liked, but the selection isn't substantial or interesting enough to make unlocking cosmetics feel particularly rewarding. There is also no meaningful ability to develop your haven or unlock alternative haven locations, which feels like another missed opportunity in a game centred around being a vampire operating within a city. Systems like haven customisation, additional properties, more dynamic feeding opportunities and stronger environmental interaction could have made the world feel much more alive and given exploration a real purpose. Despite all of those criticisms, my full playthrough took around 40 hours, and during that time I unlocked plenty of abilities and equipment, remained engaged by most of the story, and ultimately had a good time. I think Bloodlines 2 suffers enormously from its name and the expectations attached to it. If you approach it expecting a deep successor to the original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, with extensive role-playing, exploration, character development and meaningful player choice, you're likely to be disappointed. I certainly was when I first played it. But if you put those expectations aside and treat it as a relatively focused vampire action-adventure built around a Kindred murder mystery and political power struggle, there's a genuinely enjoyable game here. It has some obvious missed opportunities and lacks the depth needed to make me want to play it again, but after initially abandoning it, I'm glad I eventually came back and finished it.