Playing Vampire: the Masquerade – Swansong felt like a very familiar journey. Why? Because it's based so heavily on studio's previous game, The Council, and a more cynical person might call it precisely that game with the addition of RNG to simulate dice rolls. What put me off from playing Swansong initially was the fact it was confined to Epic Game Store for a good while. Here we are at long last and I have to ask myself... was it worth the wait?

As Camarilla Kindred of Boston are preparing to attend a party meant to announce the alliance between the Prince and another Kindred group, that being Tremere with their Chantry, disaster strikes as Code Red is activated indicating something has gone horribly wrong at the party and early attendees from both parties. It seems to have been a massacre. With Prince Hazel being in the dark she summons her three agents; Ventrue Galeb, Toreador Emem and Malkavian Leysha, to accept their tasks and go figure out just what happened. Needless to say this being Vampire: the Masquerade there's a lot more going under the surface internally and externally. Since game is based on the latest edition of the tabletop roleplaying game there's a new top dog in town who just might throw a wrench as far as vampire politicking goes...

In case you're not familiar with the property at hand and above makes little sense to you there's nothing to worry about. Swansong assumes as much as it drowns you in pages of supplementary lore and backstory.

Game is structured in scenes as it takes place over multiple nights and each of our three characters gets to shine. They're not created equally, however. Needless to say this is entirely subjective but if you ask me this could've been entirely Leysha's story, and I'm not saying that simply because she's a Malkavian who have an additional hook of their own. Game will actually pull a fast one with that just as you think you've figured the character out and you were oh-so-smarter than the writers thought you were. Then there's Galeb who happens to be an Elder with his own baggage and angles. For all intents and purposes he is the protagonist who gets to do the heavy lifting as far as the main story goes even as all three perspectives intertwine in the last third or so. Which lastly leaves us with Emem as she's stuck with odd jobs. One of her scenes can be rendered completely moot as player can decide “nah, I'll do it alone” making you wonder why you've just wasted an hour trying to convince multiple parties to help you on direct instructions. She does get to make a doozy of a story reveal, though.

Speaking of story.

My final impression is it's as flawed as approach to game's characters is. There are definitely few high points, mainly dramatic choices you get to make as games does feature those and I will get into them later, but uneven three-way storytelling has a toll that must be paid. Some scenes are simply more interesting, some drag on for far too long, and towards the end they become so brief as to distract. Keep in mind this IS the kind of game that expects of you to pay attention to documents you come across if you want more than just the bare minimum game will feed you to keep its wonky pacing on schedule. This is at odds with how Swansong approaches investigations and puzzles, something I'll get into as well. Ending especially did not land for me with how it turns out a half-way measure between epilogue text and character resolutions.

Game's biggest strength is also its biggest weakness – it is both an adventure game and RPG. I've often lamented how there are very few /true examples of this genre fusion out there and perhaps it's for the better. Which is also weird since I liked The Council and that game did the exact same thing. What's the major difference? Well, you have THREE characters in Swansong. Their Clans are fixed, but this doesn't define them nearly as much as you'd think. Only your Disciplines are fixed and everything else is up to you. When you get experience points to spend, based on what you've managed to do on per-scene basis, your hands are completely free even if you go with one of the starting archetypes since those just determine initial spread. Even with scenes aka levels tailor made for that particular character developers still had to build in redundancies. What if you made Galeb go full Intimidation + Dominate, for example? You won't get stuck since there's a basic progression thread always there no matter what “build” you went with, but it makes the game lend itself to this uncomfortable sensation where you always get the feeling you've built your characters... wrong?

What I mean is you're constantly seeing grayed out options unavailable to you so you KNOW you're missing out on alternate routes or extra experience. Or you're out of Willpower chips, fuel you use to activate skills in conversations or in the field, as well as sporting high Hunger as you try to rely on magical disciplines to force solutions. Even on the best of days if you have a good spread of skills you may find yourself wasting precious resources on a progression route in the scene that leads to the same outcome, but one that simply drains your resources more. Did I forget to mention you only have autosave available and restarting the level is the only way to undo mistakes? Well, I have now. In essence, Swansong ends up being very anxiety-inducing where the RPG half interferes with the adventure game half resulting in missing out on options rather than opening new ones for the player. You have two choices to make: either embrace [hehe] what the game is and go with your gut, or you'll need to have a guide on the side to stray sane. Choice is entirely up to you.

It occurs to me I forgot to mention at all about what the game is actually like to play. Don't be fooled into thinking this is a casual Telltale experience. Yes, it's a seemingly familiar third person adventure with interactive hotspots to alter the world, doing away with pixel hunting of yore, where some have accompanying skill checks. This ties into how you've built your character, see. These same skills are usable in dialog as well. You will spend a decent chunk of Swansong in conversations. To game's credit simply using options tagged with your highest ranked skill or Discipline is not a way to automatically resolve conversation when it matters. Game calls those Confrontations and you have a limited number of misses lest you fail to convince the other party. They're reserved for pivotal moments and sometimes it's not mandatory for you to WIN to progress. Swansong sometimes allows for story to continue from what is seemingly a failure state. Another thing I've noticed is game being pretty heavy on moral decisions you get to make. It will never outright tell you which is the correct one, or even judge you, but I've noticed being shortsighted is not necessarily always in your best interest. One of those calls resulted in the worst level for poor poor Leysha, for example.

Production values diagnosis? Typical case of jank all-around. Can't say I experienced any major issues besides the game freezing in dialog couple of times. Overall level of polish leaves much to be desired and definitely reveals smaller budget. This is fine by me, though.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

I can't be blind here and let bias toward the property affect my judgment - Vampire: the Masquerade – Swansong is a flawed game. Unlike the studio's last title, this tale of three vampires looking to resolve a mystery involving their shadow society doesn't nail the landing. Questionable pacing and RPG aspects getting in the way of adventure gaming are simply too distracting. I have to respect it for actually having puzzles, even if they do boil down to perusing various documents to figure out computer passwords, though. This isn't even the case where polishing the game would've perhaps fixed the issues. Neither the characters or their stories are created equal and I definitely took notice. If you're inclined towards replaying adventures for different outcomes this might be worth checking out.