VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE – BLOODHUNT
A battle royale with real teeth
Zombies clearly have the edge over their undead cousins, at least when it comes to sheer numbers, but their ubiquity in videogames has served to underline one thing: they’re not much fun to play as.
That’s not the case with vampires, who are effectively the player power fantasy incarnate. That fantasy is right at the heart of this bloodsucking battle royale, obvious from the first time we make an impossible leap between the rooftops of Prague. You can scramble freely up the side of buildings, send clouds of bats to detect rival vampires, close the gap in a burst of invisibility, even dispatch them with a shotgun blast to the chest. Ah. That last one sticks out a little, doesn’t it?
The emphasis on guns makes sense, given Sharkmob’s background. The studio was formed by Ubisoft Massive developers who splintered off after making The Division, reinforced with Battlefield veterans from DICE. Game director Craig Hubbard has Blood, No One Lives Forever and FEAR on his CV. But he insists it’s more than just prior experience that led the team to arm its vampires with revolvers, rifles and – if you can track them down – even miniguns.
Like all Vampire: The Masquerade titles, Bloodhunt has its roots in the World Of Darkness tabletop RPGs, which Hubbard first played back in their ’90s heyday. “When I was running Vampire campaigns, we tended to have a lot of action,” he says. “Even though it is a diplomacy-heavy political game, we always balanced it out with plenty of shooting.” Guns have always had their place in the RPG’s rulebooks, Hubbard points out, and in the Blade and Underworld movies that arguably cribbed their style from Vampire.
More importantly, the shooting itself feels good. No surprise, perhaps, bearing in mind the developer’s pedigree – but Hubbard explains that Sharkmob’s chosen monster demanded some serious changes to the formula. “When I started on the project, the weapon mechanics were more realistic. Projectiles travelled slower, so you really had to lead your shots, and dropped – which I love in a military shooter. But when you’ve got vampires jumping around in close quarters, that just doesn’t work.” The model has been simplified to make sure it’s no
“The explosion of this genre has forced developers to really diversify the experiences”
longer “impossible” to hit what you’re aiming at, though to be honest we still prefer the directness of the game’s melee weapons, letting us apply some of that unholy strength to carving up opponents.
Vampires aren’t a mere thematic lick of paint as far as Sharkmob is concerned. The studio’s hoping the undead will help Bloodhunt stand out among the growing
crowd of battle royale games. This wasn’t a problem in 2017, when development began, and the team were still playing the survival shooters that gave birth to the genre, such as DayZ (those zombies again), but it certainly is here in 2021. “I think the good thing about the explosion of this genre is that it’s forced developers to really diversify the experiences.” In the early days of battle royale, Hubbard says, there was a lot of cloning going on. “Now it’s very clear that you need to do your own thing – or else. If I already love Warzone, why would I switch to this game?”
Bloodhunt’s particular identity stems from you being a creature of the night. Humans can be fed on for a health refill or ability boost. Take a lethal hit, and the standard bleed-out timer begins, with the twist that it’s actually counting down to your return – avoid taking more damage and you’ll be back on your feet. And, vitally, there’s the one thing that really sets vampires apart from the rest of the walking dead: their supernatural agility. “You come to a dead end, and it’s not a dead end, because you can just go up and over,” Hubbard says. “Now, when I play Apex and hear a gunfight nearby, and I have to circumnavigate around this big structure, I just feel so stuck on the ground. I’m just so spoiled by this freedom of movement.”