Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong (PS4)

This game, while calling itself an “RPG”, harkens back to the kind of point and click adventure games of the nineties and noughties, but with flashier graphics and better voice acting.The game, set in Boston in 2019, revolves around a secret society of Vampires. Their “Prince”, Hazel Iversen calls a “code red” after a mysterious event takes place, and orders three vampires, Galeb, Emem and Leysha from the inner circle into her chambers to send them off on separate missions to try to uncover facts about what has happened and who is behind it.The game is largely a detective game, where you’ll be sent into various enclosed spaces and have goals to uncover evidence or items which will help you to progress to the next area. The characters switch from mission to mission, although at times you’ll be given a choice which mission/character you wish to play first (you won’t always be given choice).Throughout the game you’re given various dialogue options which can help or hinder your investigations. This isn’t a game with much action or fighting, and is more about uncovering truth and exploring, reading documents and trying to find secrets than anything else - occasionally you might find yourself in the middle of a quick time event where you have to select one of two options before a timer runs out, or you may need to move fast to avoid detection but otherwise conflict is minimal.There’s various ways to play which can give you the option to either feed on humans (which the vampires refer to as “vessels”) or rats, rely on collectibles found in the investigation (which give you boosts to blood or willpower, etc), or you can go hungry and limit your powers and abilities use (difficult). Feeding on humans and rats can raise suspicion which can lead to problems, but can advance your investigation giving you an edge over an NPC (non playable character) in a dialogue confrontation.The game boasts hundreds of choices and things to find which can change the outcomes of the endings you’ll get. If you don’t find a vampire in one scene, they might die and not be available in the ending, if you don’t find all the clues in one mission, you may find you won’t see certain endings at the final hurdle.As with most RPG games, the things you do build various skills/disciplines, like controlling your thirst when feeding from a “vessel” and not killing the wretch might lead to bonuses later or choosing to feed on rats over might give more blood from later rats if you consume enough. Resources are always limited though, so keep this in mind.The things you do, the choices you make and the evidence you find can give bonus points to the character you’re playing, and at the start of the next mission that character plays, those points can be spent on increasing skills like “education” (which can make it easier to discover things and open dialogues for later), or “security” which means you’d be able to pick a lock, etc. There’s only so many points you’ll have and you won’t be able to have EVERY skill, so choose wisely.As with games like this, there’s a good deal of replay-ability due to there being so much to find and multiple avenues to take. An escape from a mission may require you knowing how to use a certain form, or speaking the right way to a certain character, or just finding the right keys or items, but it can take multiple steps, dialogues and searches to find the way to your solutions. You could play that same mission an entirely different way second or third time around.All in all, a very enjoyable game, the characters are interesting and the lore is quite well explored (it’s the first “vampires: the masquerade” game I’ve played, but I found it gradually easier to learn the lore as I went as you can access a “codex” in the character sheet area which is accessible by the touch button in middle of controller).Some of the animations are a bit stiff at times, and a few of the voices are a bit hokey but otherwise the game is very well done, the backdrops are very modern - this isn’t a dungeon and castle and musty old mansions type of game, this is high rises, warehouses and luxury penthouses, high security facilities and docks, the game could probably fall in the genre of “techno-noire”, it’s a slightly futuristic detective story with a vampire twist.Really recommend this if you like games that are mostly relaxed and allow for lots of exploration, reading and finding things. It’s a game that takes thought and patience (and I advise having a notebook handy, as your character won’t always “remember” things you’ve learned, and definitely doesn’t memorise found passcodes and the such.Buy and enjoy; I definitely did!

On the first loading screen, it crashes and will not play.

Great