Vampire: The Masquerade Inspired a Battle Royale, Apparently

For all that’s happened this year, I keep thinking I’ve reached the point of a vaguely exhausted “this might as well happen” when existing IPs make new unexpected choices. Somehow, though, the latest news from Swedish developer Sharkmob still managed to throw me for a loop. Founded by devs who previously worked on Tom Clancy’s The Division, Sharkmob announced the forthcoming release of an as-yet-untitled Vampire: The Masquerade battle royale, currently slated for the latter half of 2021.

I could (and perhaps should) have titled this piece “the VTM battle royale no one asked for,” since it’s puzzlingly unclear who the target audience for this forthcoming release is meant to be. It doesn’t seem to appeal to fans of the tabletop RPG, if comments on previous articles are any indication. I’m not convinced it’ll satiate gamers who are still waiting for Bloodlines 2 either. Especially after it’s been bogged down in what looks like in-house conflict culminating in the abrupt firing of Narrative Lead Brian Mitsoda and creative director Ka’ai Cluney.

All of this is to say nothing of the fact that a battle royale based in this intellectual property seems wildly out of step with both branches of this World of Darkness franchise to date. While combat certainly can be and is part of the fun in both the TTRPG and the Bloodlines games, they’re often heavily focused on story, relationships, complicated political schemes, and above all else secrecy.

You know, it’s in the title. The societal and political demands on this universe’s vampires are there to maintain the masquerade and not expose the existence and survival of vampires to humanity. This is an expectation that may be, depending on storytelling choices made, levied against vampires — or kindred, as they’re often called in the TTRPG — upon pain of death. I’m struggling to grasp how vampires leaping over roofs and killing each other in public doesn’t violate that basic tenet that’s generally been at the heart of this universe, but okay.

Now, the game might very well be fun anyway, despite my skepticism. The teaser trailer, at least, is shiny enough to hold some interest — though, as we know well by now, “gameplay” trailers released lately often don’t contain any actual gameplay, or indeed resemble the actual games being advertised much at all once they’re released.

Nonetheless it’s, shall we say, a bold move to go ahead and invest in a game that doesn’t seem to have a readily identifiable audience. In a market that’s becoming slightly over-saturated with battle royale games, too, I dread to think the developers working on this one will find themselves wasting their time and creativity.