>FIRST PERSON ONLY
>Brian Mitsoda is lead writer alongside Avellone and Cara Ellison (who in particular wrote a chunk of the side quests)
>Rik Schaffer the original composer is back (confirmed via e-mail)
>No quest markers, natural exploration just like the original
>Set in Seattle with seamless hub worlds
>Direct sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
>Takes place 15 years after Bloodlines
>Game starts off with a Mass Embrace where the player is among the new vampires born from the event, you're captured and brought to a court of prominent vampires like the first game to recount the events of the mass embrace before being sentenced to death, court is firebombed and you escape, thrust into Seattle to find out who's responsible
>Player is a thin-blood at first, choose a Clan later on
>If your humanity is low enough it will have implications with your dialogue choices
>First-person with contextual third-person actions
>Fan-favourite characters from Bloodlines returning
>You can use telekenesis, turn into mist to go through vents and glide
>You can scale buildings, there's an emphasis on verticality
>Level design is reminiscent of the original Deus Ex, you're offered many different pathways to approach a particular scenario
>Way more dialogue than Bloodlines
>Huge emphasis on character creation. You can choose your background, gender pronoun, employment history, body type and fashion
>Lots of secrets and hidden pathways to find
>Seattle as a hub world is described as "very active", crowds gather outside clubs and muggers prey on victims in side allies
>Deb of Night type feature will make an appearance as confirmed by Mitsoda
>NPCs can react to you depending on what background you chose for your character in character creation, for example you can be a cop, a coroner, or a barista for a more neutral and blank slate background
>Main side-questline involves hunting down and finding all the other thin-blood created from the Mass Embrace, each will have their own story about entering into their new life
>Blood resonance from VtM 5th edition will appear in this game. Using your enhanced vampire senses, you can see when NPCs are experiencing an intense emotion like fear, desire, pain, joy and anger. Drinking a person with a strong resonance will give you an immediate bonus to things like melee power or seduction. If you drink a particular resonance constantly, you will acquire a taste for it and this will give you permanent buffs called "merits".
>If you continuously suck on people's blood in full view of the public, they'll be less wary of going to those areas and you'll see less citizens wandering the streets
>Game has modding support, available Day 1
>Emphasis on fluid combat, using vampiric speed to slide in and out of melee range and slash people and execute them with melee weapons. You can get special cinematic finishers in combat when you execute people a la Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Counters are in. Guns exist and are treated as temporary opportunities, you pick em up, use it, then discard it and move on.
>It’s still called the Masquerade, so if you eat someone in public or turn into a bat in front of a bar you’ll get in trouble not only with the police, but also some beefier supernatural watchdogs
>The humanity system returns, so killing innocents brings you closer to the inner beast