Let's Play Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodines | Part 31 - Lovecraftian Horror

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a 2004 action role-playing video game developed by Troika Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows. Set in White Wolf Publishing's World of Darkness, the game is based on White Wolf's role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and follows a human who is killed and revived as a fledgling vampire. The game depicts the fledgling's journey through early 21st-century Los Angeles to uncover the truth behind a recently discovered relic that heralds the end of all vampires.
Bloodlines is presented from first- and third-person perspectives. The player assigns their character to one of several vampire clans-each with unique powers, customizes their combat and dialog abilities, and progresses through Bloodlines using violent and nonviolent methods. The selection of clan affects how the player is perceived in the game world and which powers and abilities they possess; this opens up different avenues of exploration and methods of interacting with or manipulating other characters. The player can complete side missions away from the primary storyline by moving freely between the available hubs: Santa Monica, Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, and Chinatown.
Troika's 32-member team began developing Bloodlines in November 2001 as an indirect sequel to the previous year's Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. Troika used Valve's Source game engine, then in development, which was used for Valve's own Half-Life 2. The game's production was turbulent, as the design's scope exceeded the available resources, and the team was left without a producer for nearly a year until Activision appointed David Mullich to the role, where he found designs and levels unfinished or abandoned. After three years in development with no end in sight and running over budget, Activision set a strict deadline for completion, and Bloodlines was released incomplete in November 2004.
Released in competition with Half-Life 2 and several other titles, Bloodlines sold fewer than 80,000 copies during its initial release, which was considered a poor performance. It divided critics at the time; although they praised the game's writing and scale of choice, they criticized its technical flaws. It was Troika Games' last production before its failure in early 2005, when it could not secure additional projects. The game has a cult following as a rarely replicated example of gameplay and narrative, and contemporary reception recognizes it as a flawed masterpiece. Since its original release, Bloodlines received post-release support from fans, supplying unofficial fixes and re-adding unused content. A sequel, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, is in development.
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[@TheMARStudios]

"The damage you deal to me doesn't matter because I can eat your corpse. Bada bababa, I'm loving it!...Was that copyrighted?"- Beautiful, wonderful. Never change Toaster.
Might be a detail not mentioned in game, more likely I've just forgotten it, but it was mentioned that LA was the last free state and there is an active revolution. I was under the incorrect assumption that the supernatural society was stable at this point and the events of this game were the powder keg, threatening instability.
The combat gauntlet seems more and more like a resource check/tax than anything else. Not that it is easy, but all these bodies are eating your bullets. Can see more now why melee is preferred in this game.
Know that it is in the episode title, but was still surprised when the Eldritch horror showed up. Wasn't expecting it to be so Bloodborne coded.

[@toastedringtail]

Bloodlines is actually the beginning of the "ending" of a massive meta-plot from the 90s WoD; There were years and years of plot books detailing the revolutions and the anarch v. camarilla feud. This game just depicts a time where the stability has essentially fully crumbled.

[@TheMARStudios]

@@toastedringtail Was very much wrong in my assumptions. Doubt the sequel in the works will touch on all that build up either.

[@chrisdiokno5600]

Hey Toast, are you ever gonna dona Clan Wars LP? Or Swansong?

[@toastedringtail]

I might do Swansong sometime, if I ever get around to it.

[@chrisdiokno5600]

@@toastedringtail Sweet, have fun if yah do