I have a total thing for Vampires, I grew up with Buffy on my TV and reading Anne Rice before finding (and falling in love with) The Sookie Stackhouse series (aka True Blood) so I get a bit exciting by anything remotely neck-bitey adjacent. I think the peeps in Lurkit knew this because VTM – Bloodhunt popped up on my invited, so I kinda had to try it out. You can see my first play here (disclaimer, I am awful at battle royale PvP FPS).

How have I played it before its out on April 27th? Will I snuck into the early access playtest weekend back on March 26th. I opted to only play in the mode that pops you in a 3-man squad against a bunch of other teams. I am not good at this type of game and there is (or should be) total safety in numbers.

The whole Vampires with guns thing (to me) its very reminiscent of Underworld, but instead of going to war with the Lycans (werewolves) you are fighting each other as well as the mysterious Entity because Vampires are no longer secret in the world, the masquerade has fallen!

The Entity, unlike Dead by Daylight is actually a tangible group who basically want to wipe you out and if you run into them during your time in a match, well, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Despite there being a HUGE amount of games in the Vampire: The Masquerade back catalogue this is genuinely the first one I have played, but I was huge fan of Vampyr because of the moral choices aspect, which I also loved in both inFAMOUS & Bioshock.

I understand there is a more story driven game on the way after Bloodhunt and I think for me that would be preferable. I don’t know who did it first – Fortnite or VtM but during the matches, collecting a weapons and evading the red gas of doom was… to me, well very Fortnite. The only real difference is being able to feed on humans (discretely so you don’t start a bloodhunt), and different humans boost different abilties for when you get into combat. So the idea at the start is to gather as much as you for yourself before you take on others.

I’m still not totally sold on why we should be fighting other Vampires when the real fucking problem is the Entity. The start of the matches being able finding the snackiest kit the fastest and then evading the fog are the exact reasons why I got bored with Fortnite.

Spawn/run/gun/die rinse and repeat for me isn’t as rewarding as 40+ hours with a good mix of plot and gameplay. This is just my personal preference though, I know that as a result of my playing in the test weekend some of my community have actually pre-ordered the game. So despite my entire lack of PvP FPS skills it didn’t put them off!

I did really enjoy the character customisation though, and I made a VERY sexy vampire medic type – in this case they are called Muse. I also got to fulfil my whole thing about females in suits and it looked VERY vampire chic/sexy.

For me, this PvP battle royale doesn’t have enough to get me hooked, but if you’re a fan of either the series or those style of shooters I can see the appeal.

Shiney rating
2.5 paws out of 5
For this is all style with very little substance in a market that is over saturated with free-to-play shooters, this one will stand out for Masquerade fans but for anyone like me coming in fresh I don’t see the staying power. I am still yet to understand why all vampires don’t just band together to take out the Entity? Would probably have been more enjoyable in a 3-stack with comms but I just don’t feel it.