Over the years, we’ve had plenty of vampire games. And yet, surprisingly few of them have truly been great, immersive RPGs. I’ve been a vampire fan since I was a teenager, so I’m always on the lookout for games that let me sink my teeth into interesting lore. My love of fanged creatures of the night led me to the Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG, and to Bloodlines after it. Yet as much as I enjoyed playing Bloodlines 2, flaws and all, it left me with a sense of longing for the vampire game it might have been.
TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade are fun in part because of the sheer open-endedness they offer. Yes, you follow a rulebook and often a specific campaign with something of a story to follow. But the freedom to explore and shape your story with the Game Master and fellow players is the draw. Playing Bloodlines 2, I missed that sense of exploration and creativity. Yes, you have some freedom to roam Seattle, and you do make choices about how the story will go. Yet I found myself longing for a more open-ended, Hogwarts-Legacy style vampire game as I played.
The original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is often cited as one of the better vampire games out there. And it has plenty to offer, for sure, but it also requires a number of fan-made patches to run well. By contrast, Bloodlines 2 runs far better from jump, despite a few stutters along the way. The game offers decent roleplay options to customize your version of Phyre, but their story is one you can only influence so much. I found myself longing for that character creation feeling from RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3, where I get to truly craft my persona from scratch.
The muddled saga of Bloodlines aside, vampire games in general have a storied history. Many of the best games associated with vampires, like Castlevania or Vampire Survivors, put you in the role of hunting or battling the so-called monsters, not being them. More recent entries like V Riing or Vampyr have offered interesting roleplay options that can certainly satisfy the vampire RPG fans among us.
But what I really want, I realized, is a sort of vampire RPG vampire life sim hybrid. Something with more teeth than The Sims 4 vampires, but which doesn’t command a violence-only solution to problems like Bloodlines 2 often does. I want an open world to explore, one that lets me truly delve into the court intrigue of maintaining the Masquerade as I see fit. Let me use my vampiric powers outside of combat more often, to talk my way out of situations. Let me drink from blood banks or deer a la Edward Cullen if I want. In short, I want a cozy open-world vampire RPG, Hogwarts Legacy style.
I’ll admit, despite my love of all things vampires, I’ve never been a massive fan of gore and full-on horror. There were moments in Bloodlines 2 that went a bit far for me, from exploding heads to some truly unsettling scenes. And yet, the thing I really wanted was a break from solving every conflict with combat. Yes, I’m the player at the TTRPG table who is always trying to talk her way out of a fight with some clever dialogue. And playing a game based on a TTRPG, but seldom getting that option, was a bit of a letdown.
The combat in Bloodlines 2 is tricky to master, but it is fun when you get the hang of it. At the same time, I got a bit bored of how almost every situation required simply fighting back hordes of enemies. I wanted to use my vampire powers in other ways, leaning into the court intrigue and charming elements outside of those key NPC interactions. The NPC dialogue screens, while a bit dated, actually let me make decisions about who my Phyre would be in a way that most other scenarios did not. And I want more.
The next vampire game needs to give us more freedom. It needs to be more immersive, with a solid RPG skill tree and options to use powers for things other than combat. I want options, I want a world full of side quests and unexpected surprises to stumble upon. And I want to do it all while also being a vampire character I got to design for myself. Is that really so much to ask? Games like Skyrim and Hogwarts Legacy have given us something of that vibe, and it seems like other big IPs are trying to follow suit. So why not Vampire Games, too?
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