Does your life have time for another free-to-play Battle Royale game? Probably not, right? Hear us out, though: as annoying as the styling on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt’s name may be, this game looks promising. And it’s available for free on the PlayStation 5 right now: the file weighs in at just shy of 17GB, so you should have a spare corner on your SSD to try it out with.
The game’s set in the beautiful city of Prague, although there’s nothing beautiful about what you’ll be getting up to: you’ll need to sate your bloodlust by feasting on people, without arousing the suspicion of your foes. The early feedback we’ve seen has been positive, although given this is launch day for a free-to-play game, we’d expect some server woes.
Weirdly, Sony has bought timed exclusivity for this title, on console at least, so you won’t see it appear anywhere else until at least 27th October, 2023. While the marketing doesn’t feel like it’s been anywhere near as strong as other console exclusives, we’re captivated by the concept here: a dark, gloomy, gothic Battle Royale could be a fun foil to Fortnite’s goofiness.
We’ll have hands on impressions soon.
Comments 16
But but PlayStation now doesn’t do day and date
Just hope it doesn't play like a clunky mess unlike that werewolf battle royale game. I think it was called "dont even think"?
Downloaded it since it's free-to-play just to try it out. So far, I'm not seeing what convinced Sony to purchase 18 months of console exclusivity for this.
@LuisCruz13 it was pretty smooth on pc with mkb. No cod mind you, but jumping around, wall climbing and shooting in slowmo all felt very natural.
I like unique games (ironic as it's still a BR), but at least it's not a generic one you see everyday.
I'll give it a shot
Macrotransactions 🤑🤑🤑🤑
I hate Battle Royale, but love Vampires, so I am going to check this out anyway. I've heard good things, and if it is something I can do as a breather between sessions of other games, I won't mind.
BRs are boring for me and I'm tired of these devs not making the actual game itself....
I really wanted to play "Bloodlines" as a deep RPG.
Have zero interest in another Battle Royale, free or not.
I honestly think I could run Sony. I mean, who looked at this game (I just checked out a youtube vid) and thought, we DEFO need to secure this to PS for the next 18 months?
It looks terrible. Fortnite exists. What's the point in trying to compete with it? It's the equivalant of me starting a new social media site to take on Facebook. Both are so far entrenched with general public that you are never going to take that share of the market.
And why are (presumably vampires) running around with guns in the video I watched? What's the point in this being vampire-centric if you can just shoot everyone instead?
@jcboyer515 is it nuts though? How big a market share does this game expect to get from a free to play battle royale game? 100% of the market is made up of Fortnite, PUBG and Apex I would presume (don't know as not interested in these games). How many of these people need to move from those games to Vampire to make it worthwhile making it in the first place? And which people are going to make that switch, realistically having put thousands of hours into Fortnite the last 5 years.
2D offline games are completely different as they can have different types of gameplay or mechanics etc. Battle royale are essentially one note type games. The difference between Sonic and Mario is huge for example. Difference between Fortnite and PUBG? Not so much other than the graphics.
Tempted to give this game a try. It will be my very first battle royal game ever if indeed I do decide to take the plunge. If I do, however, I will be playing it on PC and not the PS V for the simple reason of not yet owning a PS V and more importantly, for me, I have become a believer of the mouse and keyboard as a superior input method.
I do hope mouse and keyboard support can be supported by Sony and developers going forward for many more games on the PS V.
How is it? Will try it later.
@jcboyer515
They need to compete because X amount of people like battle royale games and of those X amount, they all play Fortnite, COD, Apex or PUBG. If you don't like BR I highly doubt you are going to see Vampire and think, yep I suddenly like this genre and this is better than all the other ones that have been going for 5 years that all my friends play already.
My point is, there doesn't seem like a decent reason to spend (probably) a lot of money on making this game when the whole market is completely cornered by, not just Fortnite, but Apex, COD Warzone and PUBG. I'd be interested to know (but not really) how many people play other BR games available (the fact I literally can't think of any others besides there undoubtedly being some in existence proves my point to an extent). It's much the same as me starting a new social media site to compete with Facebook. Why bother? How many people are you going to drag over from Facebook? People who have been using it since it began. None.
My bet would be this game will be half dead within a year. So don't go spending all your money on it!
I've never cared for battle royals much but this one is quite a bit unique, the confined city setting with a heavy emphasis on verticality makes matches really fast paced and the movement and gunplay feels really smooth. It's actually the first ever BR i've won a match of and that was just my third attempt. So give this one a try at least.
@tomassi The game is free to play, so you don’t need to spend any money on it at all. The Battle Royale genre is still relatively new and has plenty of opportunity to grow and evolve beyond what it is currently. I mean, saying there’s no reason for more games in the genre to exist is like saying, “Why did they continue making arena shooters after Quake?” Popular genres continue to create new games and some are successes and some are not.
Also, while I do agree that CoD, Apex, Fortnite, PUBG, etc do have their dedicated fanbases, there are those of us who do enjoy having different options from those established titles. Not everyone that plays CoD, for instance, only plays CoD. Even if CoD is your favorite game (not implying it is YOURS), it’s likely you will continue to play other games, even if they are in a similar genre. Also, there is a segment of people that enjoy the genre, but they simply tire out of the games that are mainstays when they no longer present the ability to excite or engage said gamer, so new and novel experiences are welcome to them. For me personally, I never enjoyed Apex or Fortnite, but did enjoy PUBG and was prolific for a time in Warzone. After having some, let’s just say personal issues with Activision, I dropped Warzone for about a year, but now play the game casually, ie once or twice every couple months socially with friends. I appreciate Battle Royale as an evolution in gameplay to other multiplayer shooter experiences I’ve enjoyed, and am open to newer variations. Granted, I won’t put thousands of hours into any potential BR, but, if I find one I like that I can play socially, I will take part in it, though the game will always be more of a casual experience and secondary to whatever single player experience I am choosing to enjoy, or perhaps to fill a void when neither a new game nor backlogged title occupies my gaming space.
Apologies for the rant, but the vitriol in regards to online discourse with battle royales seems strange to me. And, given that this particular title is free to play, I wholeheartedly believe the phrase, “Don’t knock it til you try it” is in order. I’ve not yet tried it, but I will.
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