Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was a very unique game for its time. The first-person RPG was like a mixture of Mass Effect and Fallout. Plus, it had Vampires. Bloodlines saw players take on the role of a recently turned vampire that has to traverse their way through a vampire infested version of Los Angeles.
The game let gamers choose their characters gender, vampire clan and powers. Bloodlines had seven different clans to choose from. Each clan had their own story arcs and personality. While the type of powers and stats that were built up changed how players took on the game.
If a player chose to avoid conflict they could go through the whole game either talking their way out of fights or sneaking around. Conversely, players could also play the game full on blood sport style. The game let gamers shoot guns, brawl and even hypnotize the enemy.
The game would be drastically different depending on what sort of clan the player was in. Some clans could walk around with humans without a second thought. While others made players become monstrous looking and travel around the world through underground sewers. The clan choices also added another level of depth to the game because NPCs in Bloodlines would react differently to the player depending on their affiliation.
Clan choices played a key part in why the game deserves a sequel. Bloodlines put a lot of emphasis on choice. Even though the main character was a vampire they could choose to never suck blood. The game let players chose to live off rats if they wanted. Much like Mass Effect, the game also featured multiple ending and a variety of dialogue choices.
In many ways, the title was ahead of its time. It was released in 2004, years before similar action RPGs like Mass Effect and Fallout 3. The game featured a third or first person perspective and took place in a modern setting.
It was released before the vampire craze and saw vamps as amoral baddies that looked down on humans. Unlike Twilight of Buffy vampires, Bloodlines characters were mostly just jerks. Many of the characters in the game would double cross each other and had no compassion for humanity.
A potential sequel to the game could see players traverse the same world during a different time. The game was based on a table-top RPG called Vampire: The Masquerade. Meaning, plenty of stories exist for a sequel.
Unfortunately, a true sequel to Bloodlines seems unlikely. The game's developer, Troika Games, went bankrupt soon after the release of Bloodlines. Staff from the company later went on to work for companies like Obsidian and DoubleBear Studios.
While a true sequel looks unlikely, a spiritual successor of the game is in developement. An MMO version of the game is currently in development by Dust 514 developer CCP. It will see players head into the world that Bloodlines is based but has no official affiliation with Troika or the original game.
