#vtmb1

The general reception of the game has been very negative for what I think is an overall decent gameplay experience. And I wanted to give some thoughts on a few of what I feel are the game's biggest positives and negatives. (Should be relatively spoiler free, at least plot wise.)

On the positives:

The story and characters are pretty good! I found them engaging and felt more and more intrigued as time went on. The writing doesn't have the humour of VTMB1 but it does a good job of telling a grounded, serious vampire drama. And I love just about all the characters! Or at least despise some of them in just the way you're supposed to, for the more despicable players.

It does a good job of allowing you to roleplay as a hunter of the night. You definitely get the feeling of being a vampire stalking your prey, while simultaneously hiding amongst them as an innocent sheep. Both the equip-able abilities and the static ones contribute to this. And the truncated dishonored parkour mechanics definitely also add to this (and give Seattle a more varied feeling to traverse).

I think the game has a good atmosphere, and it especially hits in a few of the set pieces. My personal favourite section of the game was the Underground. The more sewers-y part felt like a do-over of the worst section of VTMB1 but not a slog. And the actual Underground/Old Seattle itself was such a visually interesting area.

While I didn't initially like the pivot to an Elder PC in development, I do think it works. Phyre is unquestionably one of the most powerful kindred in the city. Being able to take on a hoard of enemies and survive makes sense in-universe as much as it does from a gameplay design stand point. (Personally I was never all that bothered by the fledgling's overpoweredness in VTMB1 but I have personally had to witness dozens of lore arguments about how it could make sense with my own eyes. So. Some people care about it.)

Overall if you're someone who hungers for games where you get to Be A Vampire, this is one of the better ones. We have the hunting, the abilities, the feeling of power and bloodthirst and the inner vampire society politics. Personally I crave this exact kind of experience and outside of VTMB1 there is precious little of it in 3D gaming. For that alone I would be willing to forgive a lot in VTMB2 the way I did in VTMB1, but I generally don't have to. Because there isn't that much that needs forgiving.

Last one in this section...I haven't seen anyone point this out yet but...for all that VTMB1's writing was awesome in many ways. It was also very 2004. The game has its fair share of bigotry in its treatment of women, characters of colour...gay people are hardly in the base game, ect. Is it entirely fair to compare VTMB2? A game released in 2025? No. But for anyone playing both today VTMB2 is going to treat its characters of colour, its women, (its women of colour!) and queerness* much better. Also the ableism with the Malkavians in VTMB1! The straight up slurs! Gone. The treatment of the entire Kuei-jin storyline and Ming Xiao! None of it. And good riddance, frankly. *- I've always thought vampire society would be less concerned with sexual orientation, monogamy, gender presentation, ect than broader society at any given point in time. And VTMB2 does definitely do that. It's extremely casual in it's queerness, it's mundane. And that just feels right to me, for a vampire setting like this. I really liked that manner of incorporating queerness.

On the negatives...

The game's unoptimised Unreal Engine stuttering is fairly inexcusable, if not uncommon. (I know there are mods to improve it, I used them. The game still shouldn't ship in this state).

In a similiar vein - I can't speak much to bugs. I only experienced one real bug in my first playthrough. And based off the updates and hotfixes it seems like the devs are on top of fixing whatever they can.

The game is not an RPG, not really. It's got RPG elements. It's got vampire roleplay. But that's as far as it goes on that front. Anyone who plays it based off the title is going to be disappointed for that reason more than any other I think.

It should really have gotten renamed. It lives in the shadow of a very influential, if somewhat broken, RPG while just...not being a successor to that. It could readily stand on it's own amongst the rest of the official VTM video game line up, but it's lugging around so many expectations it can't meet.

I do believe it plays a little fast and loose with some VTM/WoD lore. My knowledge of the ttrpg is extremely limited, and even I noticed it in places. This is done in service of the plot, so I'll give it a little leeway. But some tabletop fans might be less than happy about it.

The game doesn't have the kind of replay value that VTMB1 did. I mean I'm gonna replay it, because I liked it, but I already know my second playthrough isn't going to be very different to my first. The game doesn't have quite the variety VTMB1 managed, largely thanks to the changes to the experience if you play a Malk or Nos on a consecutive playthrough. (But with that in mind...how different is playing a Toreador to a Tremere in VTMB1? Not very. Same can be said here. But this time we don't have Malkavian or Nosferatu as an option.)

Not exactly either, just thoughts:

The abilities might seem extremely limited at first glance of the skill tree, but I think there is decent variety across the entire board. It takes a while to start unlocking the other clan abilities extensively, and personally I didn't care much for the blood resonance mechanic until I really got the hang of it near the end of the game. But once you really start to unlock a good selection there is a decent variety there. I think the UI/visual design of the upgrade menu just makes it look like there's hardly any abilities? It's odd.

I've seen a lot of complaints about the sidequesting and it definitely isn't all that creative but it's also not very drawn out either. The side quests are short. Are they repetitive and simplistic? Yep! At least they kept it quick and to the point though. And I like Seattle, so I don't mind just immersing myself and enjoying the city for a bit.

The combat can get fairly stale if you don't make an effort. If you continue to unlock new abilities, trying them out, using interactables with telekinesis in fights…the combat is fine, if a little swimmy at moments, but if you don't put in the effort…it gets pretty tired, pretty quickly. Though I will say I'd take this combat over VTMB1's any day. The combat was definitely that game's greatest weakness (tied with the jank).

The parkour is Fine. Better/more polished than Dishonored 1 but probably less complex/varied than Dishonored 2 & Death of the Outsider. It never felt jank to me, so it's fine. (Though I did struggle to control the vamp speed leap sometimes...)

There are very few Tremere Princes because, prior the collapse of the pyramid, it was pretty much a given that a Tremere Prince would always always ALWAYS prioritize the interests of their chantry over maintaining order over the city or preserving the Masquerade. Not only does Strauss all but admit this in dialogue, the gargoyle quest shows us how careless Tremere can be if given free reign. Without enforcement, you can be certain that your local chantry will be cooking up gargoyles, homunculi, walking Masquerade violations galore. A lot of Tremere are like Strauss — veritable Dr. Frankensteins so caught up in the high of playing god that they get blindsided by the responsibility of actually creating pseudo-life and just end up leaving their creation by the curb to be someone else's problem.