8Bit/Digi

I Don’t Want to be Your Stupid Game

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is practically the definition of a cult classic video game. It was an ambitious project that never had a chance of incorporating everything developer Troika Games wanted to do with it, created in a new engine the team barely knew how to use, and not given proper time to finish from their publisher, Activision. The result was an unfinished buggy mess with lackluster combat that still has more character and charm than most games to come after it. The joke is that whenever someone brings up Bloodlines, another person re-installs it, which isn’t hard to believe. There’s something about this game that keeps calling players back, a type of blood bond that never quite seems to let us go even after 20 years.

This is an experience that keeps on giving, a game that attempts to offer up some genuine elements of choice to go along with its wonderful story, superb voice acting, excellent writing, and chilling atmosphere. These are the sweet droplets of vitae that Bloodlines continues to live off of, with a good bit of help from the fan community and their patches to help polish the game way past what was sold. As someone who has played the pen-and-paper versions of White Wolf’s games for decades, Bloodlines still feels like one of the best spinoff experiences we’ve been gifted from the World of Darkness. It is amazing to see the vampire sects push their politics while still being oppressed by their own class systems, in futile attempts to preserve the Masquerade and stave off Gehenna for a little bit longer. It’s such a basic story for this world, but sometimes the simplest narratives grant the most opportunity.  

Your Sleepwalk Dance

For me, however, one thing keeps me coming back over the others. The environment that the World of Darkness setting presents isn’t just a clever title or an exact copy of our reality with supernatural creatures spread throughout, but a tainted reflection caked in grime and despair, a somewhat hyper-realistic place, wearing the grit upon its sleeve, where danger lurks around each corner and evil chokes every wheezing breath. It’s almost too perfect, like a picture of what V:TM’s world looked like, stereotypical and drawn from the memory of a person recalling the boldest parts of it. But that’s part of what makes the cities featured in this game so easy to connect with and become engrossed by. I’ve never been to California, but it’s easy to become instantly immersed from the first step onto those streets.

Not all of these cities were created equally. Players will find themselves starting in Santa Monica before venturing into downtown Los Angeles, and Hollywood is nice, but it’s small and almost too straightforward, while Chinatown feels more vacant, hollow, with fewer actual characters and less personality. The developers ran out of time and it was clear that more attention was placed on the first two areas, but it isn’t hard to imagine that they wanted to give all of the locations the same treatment Santa Monica received, because it just doesn’t get any better than there.

It’s the best-designed hub, not just because of the missions, building locations, and architecture, but because it feels alive and authentic, helping to set the game’s overall tone. The map is small, but dense, with most structures being accessible and important to the story, while those that are simply background accents feel like they fit into the tapestry perfectly, helping support this twisting maze of secrets. It offers so much that even when players have access to most of the city they constantly return here.

Swim Out Past the Breakers

Even after the main story was concluded, I wanted to return to Santa Monica to see if it had changed, and if the people were reacting to my deeds, because this place is littered with some truly interesting and memorable characters. It’s easy to become attached, they’re like the co-workers on your late shift, or even new friends who you want to keep talking to, just to see if they have any new stories or old jokes you’ve forgotten. These NPCs are as much the city as the buildings themselves.

Santa Monica is a pedestrian sanctuary, partially since everything is so close, but mostly because there are almost no moving cars and the taxis are prompt. It’s an easy trek back to the rundown old apartment we’re staying in, the one that looks like it has seen a fair share of murders, ODs, and tears—but it’s the closest thing to safety I could find.

The cities outside are a creeping darkness, splashed with classic noir elements below the gothic spires, Victorian houses, and stained glass windows that reflect gloom instead of bright lights. The denizens may have a punk attitude, but the raver culture is strong with the colored lights and Goth makeup. Everything is a mix of styles and a clash of ideals that fit together somehow in a weird whirlwind that sets Bloodline’s playgrounds up so sweetly.

Still Living With Your Ghost

Each sector has something memorable, little areas that stick out, perfectly fitting to a mission or interaction, but enjoyable to explore again after the bloodshed. There are expensive monuments to wealth, small diners, rundown warehouses, monolithic churches, decayed slums, vibrant nightclubs, and the pier. These locales are never comforting, but sometimes cozy in how they present a thin veneer of mystery and composure. This is helped by the rain and several gorgeous skyboxes used for dreamlike backgrounds. The lighting here is excellent, using minimal applications to give the world more character, not just through color, but something as simple as a blinking light making a normal street seem more unsettling.  

Inside these places are aged textures and loose polygons, with some elements that look surreal or almost campy, but together it all adds to this supernatural-type world, one step away from ours. There is old furniture, broken doors, soiled mattresses, and clutter, making these environments feel more tactile. Most of these areas are urban, with a slathering of grunge and metal covered in an extra layer of grime. It’s a place that oozes character while pretending to do the exact opposite and blend in. 

There’s a certain sexuality too, past the piercing lights and blinding neon signs advertising the XXX ADULT shops, we see a flow to the city with the winding streets and crashing tide, how the water flows into all of the abandoned cracks and crevices. All the people inside here are alone, but looking for someone, with many of them huddled up by the beach or doing the wonky dancing at the clubs together, trying to find comfort in numbers. Everyone from the prostitutes and pushers to the needy ghouls; everyone is just looking for some type of passion, trying to feel good since they may likely be dead tomorrow with that serial killer running around. It’s hot and pulpy, sticky with sweat and despair, but it’s hard to leave.

Try and Shake Away This Disease

The game has layers and is good at contrasting the various environments, having notable transitions between sections, even something as simple as the office in The Asylum being doused in such a deep red compared to the dance floor just a few feet away, but everything fits together and feels like one giant painting. Players will go from the most mundane settings to the surreal and fantasy-like, quickly, all for the same set of missions. The music helps tremendously with this also. There are a few excellent licensed songs and a title track inspired by “Angel” from Massive Attack, which they had as their original placeholder theme. The score shifts and changes with the scenarios, not just boss battle music or more subdued melodies, but feelings of where we are, the undead who inhabit those places, and what they mean to us.  

People often like to discuss the Ocean House Hotel and its horror elements, which certainly deserves praise, but I’ve always felt the whole city was its own glorious embodiment, a living organism that deserved more exploration and thought. I’ve been here before, and I’ll go back again, and again – I just avoid those damned sewers – but nothing about Bloodlines makes me enjoy it more than walking these streets, knowing that this is my city and it hungers for me. 

Did you play Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

8Bit/Digi is an independent news outlet that provides insight into the video game and fandom community of the San Francisco Bay Area.