Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 hands-on preview: Enjoyable, breezy but can I get past the longwinded dialogue?

A sequel to the first, which came out over 20 years ago, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is an action RPG title that forms a part of the World of Darkness series. Being completely frank, I never played the original. I was three years old when it was released, so when going into a demo session for the all-new sequel at Gamescom, I genuinely had no idea what to expect.

As I loaded in, I was thrown right into the action as I awoke in the corner of a dark, dingy basement with a security guard shining his giant flashlight in my face. While I gained my bearings, the prompt appeared on screen: ‘RT and LT to feed’. Well, I’m not going to ignore a button prompt, so I pulled on the triggers without really considering what feeding entailed.#

I lunged forward and ripped the security guard’s neck to shreds. Serves him right for shining that giant flashlight at me, but also, what just happened? As someone going into this game completely blind, I didn’t anticipate that I was, in fact, the Vampire in question.

Objectives began to appear in the corner of the screen as I continued through the rest of the building, with my main goal being to get to the roof. A couple of minutes into my demo, after encountering a couple more security guards and learning some basic combat skills, I was blocked from continuing by a voice in my head and instead had to deal with a fair amount of sluggish dialogue.

I know that RPGs require dialogue, and that storytelling is a fundamental part of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, but the seemingly endless reels of text and dialogue options, which just couldn’t be skipped, just felt off-putting. I pushed through, selecting all of the options and just trying to get the chatting over and done with, and then finally I was freed, with practically no information as to who the voice in my head was, who I was, or what on earth was going on. Fantastic.

As I continued to traverse the multiple floors of the building, I have to say the movement mechanics were right up my alley. Quick, punchy, and fluid movements ensured the game felt well-paced, which in turn made the stagnant dialogue feel even worse. I was able to rush around different obstacles with easy-to-pick-up controls that felt natural, all while being guided by the still unnamed voice in my head.

I tackled more security guards and stealth-attacked ghouls as I progressed until finally I found myself stuck in a room with no way out and the police banging at the front entrance. The game instructed me to use the ‘Secret Crosshair’ feature, which causes your crosshair to grow as you approach a secret, which could be useful to you. I scanned around before landing on a broken elevator shaft and being prompted to use telekinesis.

This feature really ensured that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 would make you stop, think, and look around to see what you could use to your advantage rather than just sprinting through areas as quickly as possible – something which I do far too often.

The fighting mechanics in this game were pretty smooth and felt satisfying, but they can become slightly button-mashy at times. Enemies have a couple of seconds recovery period after each hit, allowing you to repeatedly punch them to a pulp without them even striking you once – but I’m assuming enemies do become stronger as you progress through the title. There were a few hiccups with ghouls clipping into the walls during fight sequences or floating in mid air prior to me punching them, but hopefully this is something that is polished in the final release version.

As I proceeded through the demo, I continued to use the Secret Crosshair and telekinesis feature to navigate around the building. Again, the punchy and quick movement paired with the smooth fighting mechanics made it a breeze to run across beams and staircases to get to the roof, and I was glad that the secret crosshair feature prompted me to stop and look around as and when I needed.

Overall, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was an absolute joy to play. While there were some hiccups with characters getting stuck in the walls, I’m hoping these will be smoothed over when the game fully releases. There are some amazing movement and fighting mechanics – and while they can feel repetitive at times, other gameplay mechanics ensure that the game doesn’t ever get stale – unless you’re trapped in one of the seemingly never-ending and slugging dialogue interactions.