Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Preview

About two years ago, Activision made a leap into White Wolf’s pen-and-paper role-playing world with the PC game Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, which was developed by Nihilistic Software. Activision resolved to produce another RPG, situated in Vampire: The Masquerade setting, hiring Arcanum developer Troika Games. So, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was born. It’s important to underline that the game is going to be playable both in third person as well as first-person. According to the developers, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines will be a must have for pen-and-paper Vampire fans, as well as hardcore RPG gamers. Obviously Activision had a firm intention of lining up programmers and designers, who are experienced in the field of RPG creation. Troika Games seems the perfect choice for that (currently, this development team is also involved with the RPG The Temple of Elemental Evil. Furthermore, Bloodlines will be powered by one of the most sought-after technologies in the industry. Yep, we’re talking about the Source engine, which is currently being used for Valve’s forthcoming FPS Half-life 2.

All that for an RPG title. Are we impressed yet?

Bloodlines takes us to a darkly goth-punk Los Angeles setting, inspired by White Wolf's World of Darkness. Everything from the plot, characters, supernatural powers (Disciplines), and locations, corresponds with this rather unique fantasy setting. Naturally, the story relates to the Vampire: The Masquerade tradition. For the unfamiliar, here’s a quick rundown. Every major city is governed by a Vampire prince, secretly appointed by the Camarilla to run things and sire new vampires. The Camarilla is a well-guarded and secret regime established long ago by the seven major vampire clans. Unsurprisingly, the tale in the game begins with the death of a human (you). Lured into an alley and seduced by a rouge vampire, you join the pale-skinned bloodthirsty masses as a brand new vampire offspring. You come before the recently elected prince and, as a vampire draftee, you must make a choice - either you will join his cause or you will be no more. But, an unexpected turn of events changes things from here on. The emergence of a powerful ancient artifact swiftly set off a great dispute between the clans. Now all of the clans are desperate to get their hands on the artifact. Caught in the middle of this huge conflict, you’ll have to choose your own destiny and grow into your vampiric skills as you go along. Obviously, this is where the game improves on the somewhat linear story presented in the previous Vampire: TM game. This time, players are given a great deal of freedom and a variety of different choices to make through their journey. The game features multiple endings and it’s up to you which one will come to pass.

Your decisions greatly influence the course of the plotline. Events will unfold according to your actions and dialogue. By the way, conversing with NPC’s is an integral part of the gameplay and it often allows alternate paths and solutions to problems. If you wish you can sometimes take a break from the main story and take part in additional side-quests that are going to vary in line with the clan you’ve chosen to support. As you progress through the game, you’ll be able join up with one of the seven available vampire clans - Malkavians, Brujah, Nosferatu, Gangrel, Toreador, Tremere, or Ventrue. Each of the clans features distinctive special abilities, unique skills, and various disciplines (or, rather, magical abilities). You can easily tell the clans apart thanks to their distinctive culture and appearance. Yeah, so there’s plenty of different clans to opt for. Here’s a quick run through:

• Malkavians - Extremely unpredictable and dangerous vampires. Blood drives them completely mad, but also grants them extraordinary powers that make them stand out among other vampires. Their chief abilities include seeing things most vampires cannot, manipulating the will of others, etc.
• Brujah - are the brutish, overly physical clan. They believe that might makes right, and have little patience for those that choose not to act. They are seen as anarchistic rabble by the Camarilla. The rest of the vampire community rarely cooperates with them, since they always seem to counter existing authorities. This clan chiefly depends on their body and physical strengths, using blood to enhance their movement and combat abilities.
• Nosferatu - Their hideous appearance makes them quite unpopular and completely unable to exist in civilization. They look more like monsters than men (for an idea of their appearance, check out the classic film of the same name), they are endowed with a unique ability to conceal themselves from sight (called Obfuscation), which makes them formidable spies and ambushers.
• Gangrel ­- born in the wild, this is a rather interesting sample of vampire species. More feral than other clans, they exist on the fringe of civilization. Since they have such a deep connection with nature, they are able to communicate with some types of animals. As they enhance their special animal-like abilities they become less and less... err... friendly.
• Toreador - Debutantes to the end, these vampires are inspired by things of great beauty. A Toreador’s senses are vastly enhanced to see beauty in the most unlikely of places, and they can use this skill (Auspex) to find their way out of seemingly impossible situations. They also have the ability to enchant and charm others (Presence). But, being so sensitive, they are drawn to any beautiful thing and can become completely captivated by it - even at the most inopportune moments.
• Tremere - A malevolent bunch which seem more like sorcerers than anything else. Their powerful ancestry has bestowed great magical powers to the Tremere, passed down from untold generations. Their unique blood type grants them heightened senses, and the ability to force their will on their victims.
• Ventrue - If there is an elite class of vampire, the Ventrue would be the closest thing to it. The Ventrue are the political powerhouses of the Camarilla, and as such, most cities are governed by Ventrue princes. They are a balanced clan that relies equally on physical strength and the power of the mind.

Of course, the best part is that the game gives you the freedom to pursue your own fate, without coalescing with any of the factions.

Now, we’ll take you through some of the game’s key features that are supposed to brighten up the RPG-style gameplay. To put things clearly, if you’re a pen-and-paper geek, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines should be right up your alley. Players are going to receive experience points throughout the game, dispersing them later on to improve a wide range of skills, attributes, disciplines, and so forth. You’ll also need to keep an eye on stuff like appearance, charisma, wits, and intelligence. Magic skills, the so-called disciplines, are set in accordance with White Wolf principles. These include Obfuscate, Celerity, Dominate, Presence, Auspex, and Potence. All of these will be of great use to your character at one time or another. For instance, Obfuscate allows you to become invisible, while Dominate gives you a chance to rely on mind control. Celerity greatly increases your speed, Auspex lets you use telepathy, and so on. Using all these disciplines can help you advance the skills and overall strength of your character. The character development system was also optimized for gamers who don’t want to meddle too much into any intricate statistics. To that end, the developers slotted in a scheme that allows you to set experience points automatically, which will certainly speed up the proceedings for newbies.

Blood, as you may be aware of, is essential to the survival of any vampire. Coincidentally, the easiest way to slurp up some blood is by sinking your vampiric teeth into the necks of unfortunate NPC’s that roam the streets of L.A. In time, sucking blood may incline your character towards a more evil path, eventually driving him to madness. So, you’re obliged to take extreme caution, saving vampire abilities for emergencies and tough opponents. And, believe you me, vampire skills can be pretty darn powerful when pushed to their maximum - for example, if you’ve collected enough experience points and improved your strength, you will be able to move various objects in the environment or even hoist up cars (on the smaller side). Back to the blood again, you should be pleased to know that certain clans have some mighty handy Feats on their side. If you happen to be within such a clan, your character may gain natural skills like leadership, seduction, and persuasion - all three are quite helpful and don’t require you to drain blood for their use.

Next to miscellaneous vampire abilities and disciplines, the game offers a decent range of weapons to choose from. At this point, we’re still not sure as to the specifics of your arsenal, but we do know for a fact that the game includes classic firearms like SMG’s (which can be used in combination with vampire skills), as well as a variety of stabbing weapons. Naturally, controlling your character won’t be a problem thanks to the seamless transitions between first-person and third-person perspectives. Amen!

During the game, players will be coming across numerous opponents. Next to several Anarch factions and the Camarilla, you’ll also encounter the Sabbat and even the Kuei-jin. The Sabbat are a ruthless kind. They look upon the human race as nothing more than food, and they won’t stop until their hunger is satisfied. The Kuei-jin, also called the Kindred of the East, are creatures of Asian origins that feed on the spirit essence of their victims.

The Source engine carries a wide variety of sophisticated features that have opened the doors of creativity for the crew at Troika Games. To begin with, the main engine code gave programmers a chance to fiddle around with the artificial intelligence, fine-tuning their behavior patterns and individual AI routines. Other characteristics of Valve’s engine were demonstrated with true-to-life physics and impressive-looking facial animations. A lot of this stuff can be witnessed in the recently unleashed flood of Half-life 2 movies (high-res snippets from the E3 presentation). Among many of the distinguishing features of the complex physics system of the Source engine, limitless object manipulation is, above all, an aspect that contributes greatly to the gameplay. The idea was to give players the freedom to utilize almost anything they find in the area, in defense against oncoming foes. So, an object such as a barrel or a crate can, by all means, be used as a weapon or even a way to solve a puzzle. Together with convincing facial expressions and intricate skeletal animation, the in-game realism will be increased even further. Also, the lip-synch technique is used to ensure realistic dialogue between characters. Some aspects of the engine were rewritten and tweaked, so that the in-game atmosphere agrees to the gloomy settings of the game - a great deal of which occurs during the night time. On top of that, lighting and particle effects are perfected to handle the game’s rich visual effects, caused by spells and various weapons. Another important engine modification facilitated an enhanced movement of fabric and clothes. This was achieved thanks to the all-new cloth animation system. Sounds cool... and, it leaves the character art team something to work with.

Recently, the word has been spreading regarding a team-based multiplayer mode that’s being incorporated into the game. The word around the block is that the basic concept of this multiplayer involves human vampire hunters (better known as The Society of Leopold) competing against teamed up vampire clans. An interesting twist would be if the multiplayer included matches and conflicts taking place throughout civilian zones, thus forcing the opposing teams to fight it out in secret - although, this should be regarded as a rumor at this stage.

Creating such an in-depth RPG world with the use of the Source engine should hopefully result in some excellent gaming. Troika took an open-ended approach in designing the characters and races, with complex dialogue trees, rich character development, and quests galore. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines will feature around 40 to 60 hours of gameplay. The game will be out in mid-2004, so keep your shirts on and save your bloodlust... until we bring you more media and info.