RPG: You Are Not Prepared For Leysha The Malkavian In Vampre: The Masquerade – Swansong
Honestly you’re probably not prepared for V:tM Swansong either, but Leysha the Malkavian blew us all away at E3.
Have you been keeping up with Vampire: the Masquerade – Swansong? It might have slipped past you in the Lemony-Snicket-esque series of unfortunate events/truths that have surrounded Bloodlines 2. Which is a shame, because Swansong looks like one of the most original takes on the Vampire: the Masquerade world since the original V:tM – Bloodlines.
But never fear, E3 put it back on the radar for many a gamer, and with the most recent trailer, introducing one of the game’s three protagonists, Leysha, a Malkavian, Nacon has planted their flag in the World of Darkness. First let’s take a look at the new trailer:
Leysha is a Malkavian, one of the founding clans of the Camarilla, and appears as a young woman about 30 years old. Beneath her pale skin and different-sized pupils hides incurable pain, a mental instability that all Malkavians suffer from after the Embrace, the bite inflicted upon a human by a vampire, a creature doomed to remain hidden in plain sight.
In the video, Leysha is playing innocently with her child, Halsey. But this benign situation turns into a waking nightmare and raises the question: is any of this real?
To hide herself, Leysha uses Obfuscate, one of the many vampiric powers that can be used in the game. As a story-driven RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong features unique gameplay mechanics. Resolve conflicts and mysteries to gain experience points and levelling up your characters, thus boosting your special powers.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never seen a Malkavian played quite like that before. It’s a fresh new take–which is good because usually Malkavians get a bad rap and often a more simplistic portrayal, lots of gibbering fangs–but here we get a more human perspective. Which is what makes for an interesting character.
And if you were thinking that Swansong is some kind of interactive fiction like the other recent Vampire games, you’d be mistaken. This is a full fledged “3D narrative RPG” and over the course of it you’ll take control of three different protagonists.
Tonight, everything changes. Join us, as we celebrate the unification of Boston and Hartford. As we revolutionize our blood supply. Tonight we celebrate, and tonight everything changes… Just not in the way we expected.
In Vampire: The Masquerade — Swansong, take on the role of 3 vampires, each belonging to a different clan of the Camarilla. Weave between their intertwined stories, unravel fact from fiction; and make choices that will define the future of the city of Boston.
We cannot wait for this one to come out.
How will you rule Boston?
