Vampire: The Masquerade- Swansong is the new thing from the creators of The Counil, which arrived from Nacon a little over a month ago. On this occasion, Big Bad Wolf immerses us in the vampire world of The Masquerade, in the midst of a plot to dethrone the current Prince of it, in which the three protagonists will play a crucial role. But, despite this interesting premise, Big Bad Wolf does not meet expectations nor does it manage to surpass his previous title. We leave you with our analysis of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong- Xbox Series X|S.
Big Bad Wolf, expert team in the conversational RPG
Big Bad Wolf is a French independent studio based in Bordeaux. This studio, made up of members of veteran studios in the industry (such as Cyanide Studios or Ubisoft), specializes in narrative stories. Precisely he rose to fame with The Council; episodic game that came a few years ago from the hand of Focus Home Interactive and with which it took a giant step forward in the genre of conversational adventures. But this time Big Bad Wolf has chosen to give life to Vampire: The Masqueradeone of the fictional universes of the tabletop game saga The World of Darkness, and in which Werewolf: The Apocalypse is also part of.
On this occasion, Vampire: The Masquerade- Swansong arrives distributed by Nacon; French distributor known for its action games (Werewolf: The Apocalypse), simulation or sports games (Tour de France, Tennis World Tour, WRC saga). At the moment Vampire: The Masquerade. Swansong is their latest release, although in a few months they will also bring us the long-awaited Steelrsing, by Spiders (GreedFall).
The Masquerade Plot
Vampires walk among us.
Unaware of this, we build their cities, wage their wars, and satiate their Hunger.
For centuries, these creatures have organized themselves into rival sects, the largest of which is the Camarilla.
In their domains, the Camarilla Courts enforce the Masquerade, a global conspiracy that hides the existence of vampires from the mortal world.
Breaking the Masquerade is punishable by final death.”
Vampire: The Masquerade- Swansong is a third-person conversational RPG, in which we embody three playable characters: Emem, Leysha and Galeb; three vampires from different clans faithful to the new Prince, Hazel Iversen. Despite having come to power and maintaining peace between the different clans, she suspects that this peace is not permanent, so the protagonists must investigate any attempt at treason or conspiracy they may suspect.
The title gives us a gameplay similar to The Council. Our missions will be mainly focused on research and, for this, we will use different abilities of the characters that we can improve as we advance in the story. At this point it will be interesting to take advantage of the nature of each character’s clan to enhance them and make the missions more successful; for example, Emem belongs to the Toreador Clan, characterized by his sociability, while the Malkavian Clan to which Leysha corresponds specializes in his mental powers and Galeb is a Ventrue, characterized by his importance in politics, so skills such as Rhetoric or Psychology may come in handy with him.
Along with these disciplines, we will also have Talents, which will be passive enhancers of said skills and will be unlocked based on the actions we take, as well as Disciplines; exclusive supernatural abilities of each character that can be used in dialogues to “beat” our opponents. As was the case with The Council, Vampire: The Masquerade-Swansong offers battles in the form of dialogues, in which the Disciplines and the points we have in them will be essential to put ourselves ahead of our rivals.
But the use of these Disciplines will have a cost, which will become the increased craving. When this Anxiety reaches a minimum, we will have to drink the blood of some delusional that we find, paying special attention that nobody detects us so that they do not suspect us.
Although all this may sound very interesting, especially for fans of this type of game, in practice it is quite cumbersome and rushed and not as well executed as it may seem. The game doesn’t have a proper tutorial, which allows us to fully understand everything it offers, but instead directly launches us into situations in which we’ll have to use our skills in verbal confrontations or in investigations.
As a consequence, we first find ourselves with a complex skill tree and with a plot and characters that the protagonists know, but the player does not. And this produces a certain dissociation between what they experience and what we experience; the game conveys the feeling that the player should already know all the details of the metaverse, the characters and their abilities, when it really doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
It would have been more accurate to start with a slow start, in which as we progressed we could learn about the story, characters and also unlock the skills. The absence of a map or elements that allow us to guide us and place ourselves physically in the story does not help too much, so that, on many occasions, we will have to look for clues or characters blindly.
A very interesting story, but not so well executed
The greatest attraction offered Vampire: The Masquerade- Swansong it’s your story. The three playable characters must uncover the intrigues, power struggles, betrayals, and attempted coups that threaten to shatter the peace of the Camarilla and end La Principe’s meager hold. Which is very interesting because of its twists, because of the importance that the characters acquire in this type of story and also because of the lorebecause the Vampire universe: The Masquerade is always very attractive.
However, just like the gameplay, the story is not very well written and rushed. We also have a feeling that Big Bad Wolf wanted to fit the entire Masquerade universe into this game; something practically impossible given how wide it is. As a result, we can feel lost throughout the story, starring characters we never get to know.
At this point it doesn’t help at all that the game starts in half res, in the middle of an incident that has occurred at a party by Emem Louis. From this moment on, our mission as an investigator and spy related to La Príncipe begins. As interesting as it may seem, the script feels rushed, planting us with a lot of characters and a complicated plot from the beginning, preventing us from understanding it clearly. The fact of having three playable charactersfar from offering the variety it aims for, offers more confusion to the player due to that feeling of lack of clarity throughout the story.
And what about this? Well, we may not be interested in anything that happens. We know we have to work for the Prince, but we hardly know her. We have three playable characters, but they are quite empty, lacking in personality, which prevents us from wanting to meet them, understand their motives and empathize with them. And, with them, we have to start conversations and elicit information from other characters that we don’t get to know or understand either. In addition, Big Bad Wolf resorts excessively to telling us the story through notes -sometimes, too long- making the task of finding out what happens more complicated.
From the technical point of view, the game has bugs and frame drops, as well as being technically unsightly. Something that could be overlooked if the game had been released at a reduced price, not €59.99. However, the highlight has been a poor artistic design, far from what the studio has been offering. The scenarios are quite empty and have a fairly flat color palette, hindering the immersion that is so important in games of this genre. Finally, the title comes with Spanish subtitles and has a fairly correct duration, around 15-20 hours.
Conclusion: a failed attempt to return to La Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade- Swansong promised to return us to the metaverse of The Masquerade with a narrative title, perfect for knowing and exploring everything it has to offer. Unfortunately, it remains in a messy story, perhaps too ambitious for what the studio could really give and with a plot and character development that does not deliver everything it promised.