Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is finally launching soon, and ahead of its release, developer Big Bad Wolf and publisher Nacon have started showing off more of its gameplay. A newly released trailer foes the same, this time putting the spotlight on the many role-playing mechanics in the game that will impact both gameplay and the story.
Central to what you do and how you progress in the game will be skills and attributes, displayed on each character’s character sheet, which, when upgraded and evolved, will enable more actions, from persuasion to getting past locked doors. Meanwhile, disciplines are vampiric powers that players can use in various ways, from one discipline that lets you render yourself invisible (and other objects, if you upgrade it), to another that heightens your senses and allows you to see potential futures.
According to Big Bad Wolf, collectively, these skills, attributes, disciplines, and how players choose to unlock and upgrade them present a vast number of options to players for how to play the game and progress through any given scenario. Interestingly, however, using skills and attributes uses up willpower points, and using disciplines fans the flame on your vampiric thirst for blood. Players will have to pick the right time to hunt victims to quell their hunger, because if you want too long, you might lose control of your character.
Meanwhile, there are traits, which are negative or positive effects governed by success or failure in various situations or by the decisions you make, while talents are described as “side goals” that will reward players if they stick to certain play styles. The more that talent grows, the more you get better at those actions- so you could potentially also get better at controlling your hunger.
There’s plenty more that is highlighted in the trailer, and collectively, it definitely looks intriguing. If executed properly, a game that’s offering engaging role-playing end proper choice and consequence mechanics can be hard to say no to. Here’s hoping this one can pull it off. Check out the trailer below.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong – originally due out in February – will launch on May 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.