More than seven months after its debut on Steam Early Access, the World of Darkness battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt will go into full release on April 27.
Bloodhunt—not to be confused with Bloodlines 2, which we're still waiting for—is a third-person battle royale that pits the Brujah, Nosferatu, and Toreador clans (and soon, the Ventrue) against one another for control of the nighttime city of Prague. Each clan has unique abilities, further refined by the player's chosen archetype, enabling different styles of gameplay.
Actual combat is fairly conventional, though, which is to say that it's generally worked out with guns from a distance and knives up close, while vampiric abilities tend to be more passive or support-focused—climbing vertical surfaces, transforming into mist, blinding other players, that sort of thing. It's a mix that keeps Bloodhunt's gameplay fairly close to other battle royales, while still lending it a distinctly supernatural flavor.
"After a successful Early Access period, Sharkmob has been implementing feedback from the game’s community and we can’t wait to show fans how the game has progressed," Bloodhunt producer David Sirland said.
I sunk about 10 hours into Bloodhunt not long after the Early Access release went up in 2021, and while I'm not very good at battle royale (ask anyone in the PC Gamer Discord who ever had the misfortune of playing Apex Legends with me), I really enjoyed my time with it. Prague is lovely at night—definitely a worthy substitute for Bloodlines' Los Angeles—and the game's long sightlines and relatively high time-to-kill were great for quietly stalking other players from height and distance, in proper vampire style. It doesn't have the RPG elements that make Bloodlines great, obviously, but it does manage to capture a comparable ambience in a much more action-oriented setting.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt will be free to play on Steam, and also available on the PlayStation 5. Find out more at bloodhunt.com.
