World of Darkness – Vampire the Masquerade – Coteries of New York gets launched on Nintendo Switch earlier than anticipated.
After this week’s discouraging announcement, there is some positive news that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines II has been postponed even further until 2020.
Coteries of New York will be released on Windows PC in December. While there are no reports yet for release on other consoles, a Switch version will follow in early 2020.
Draw Distance, a company with a wealth of expertise in story-driven games, is creating and publishing the game.
Other alternative games created by Draw Distance include Serial Cleaner and Ritual: Crown of Horns.
Based on the 5th Edition of the tabletop role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of Novice York is intended to be approachable for new players while offering a robust experience for seasoned players.
Coteries of New York has a highly distinctive graphical approach while not being a fully completed 3D game as is often made with current-generation technology.
The central visual depiction of the artwork portrays a very gothic and neo-noir element of the city in a styled and stunningly beautiful rendition with a high dynamic range and aesthetic subtlety.
Largely due to traditional vampires like Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries, Stoker’s Dracula, and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles which were immortalized in the smash-hit TV series True Blood, this effectively encompasses both the classical and contemporary views of vampires.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York is a text-based, narrative-driven adventure game set in the world of darkness tabletop RPG world.
Even though there aren’t many in-game images or videos, the game’s information is widely accessible.
The Anarchs and The Camarilla, two conflicting ancestries among the several Vampire clans that reside in New York, are the focus of the major plot.
The Camarilla is an elitist and close-knit group of classic Masquerade Vampires that adheres to a stringent rule of silence and is controlled through an Elder and Childer standards.
The Elder members of the group refuse to adapt to the times, and a fight between the masters and their servants is causing cracks to emerge in the pillars of their home. Despite their immense strength, The Camarilla is also disintegrating inside.
The Anarch, a more contemporary and rebellious group, operates with an attitude more representative of the changing times and has a style almost identical to that of the other factions. They believe that sustaining the Masquerade is not always necessary.
You will then find yourself caught in the middle between the established Camarilla Vampires and the revolutionary Anarch faction as a freshly sired vampire.
The game’s story will unfold differently depending on the player’s choices while playing, with those decisions affecting the order of events and, eventually, the conclusion.
The game will have a very high replayability value for those who want to explore more of the environment of Vampiric New York, the developer has revealed, due to the variety of tales and endings.
In addition to the main mission, players may also engage in various side tasks with their character, such as “Loyalty Quests,” which are meant to foster ties within your coterie.
This game places a lot of emphasis on character growth, and in addition to race and faction, talents are also influenced by decisions you make in-game, such as how often and in what manner you choose to eat.
Throughout the game, morality and ethics are often in play, shaping the tale and the player’s character as they either reject or fully accept their new form.
There are several active vampire clans in New York, but only two of them—The Camarilla and The Anarch—are a significant threat.
The strong Camarilla will undoubtedly punish The Anarch severely if they fail to win the battle since an inquisition is about to be held.
This will be a fantastic starting point for those who have never played a World of Darkness game since it will expose you to some of the game’s finer features and act as a fantastic prequel to the forthcoming triple-A title Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.
It has taken 15 years to produce Bloodlines 2, the direct successor to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
Bloodlines was an excellent game at the time. It included a fully interactive 3D game environment set in World of Darkness and played very similarly to the now-famous game Deus Ex, developed by Ion Storm.
Despite being a cult favorite, the game sank into relative oblivion due to the lack of a sequel and fans’ disappointment.
The franchise then seems to be back and larger than ever as Hard Suit Labs announced a sequel last year.
The official gameplay footage is really good and depicts a gaming world as immersive as we would expect from a triple-A title from the current generation. It also seems to be the sequel that series fans have been waiting for.
The game, set in Seattle, once again centres on a recently transformed monster of the night as they travel the city on a vampiric quest while learning more about the underworld, the groups that live there, and even themselves.
Another game based in the World of Darkness realm is currently underdeveloped, according to recent press reports.
Instead of focusing on vampires, this new game will also include werewolves and seems to have an environmental theme.
There aren’t any specifics yet, but Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood’s release date has been set for some point in 2020.
This is undoubtedly an exciting moment for fans of the tabletop RPG as well as horror and RPG video games, with all these new titles based in the World of Darkness launching shortly and maybe others that we still don’t know about.
Since there is no word of a PS4 or Xbox One version, Coteries of New York is also the first vampire game ever released on the Nintendo Switch.
Fortunately, we won’t have to wait too long for Bloodlines 2, which should arrive either in the middle or towards the end of 2020 and will undoubtedly be one of the year’s best games.