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Vampire: The Masquerade – Reckoning of New York Review
- Taylor Rioux
- 10 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Back to the old haunts.
Longtime readers of mine will know this, but I was never a big Vampire: The Masquerade fan, and not for lack of trying. I’ve played some of the games and tried my hand at the TTRPG, but it never really stuck with me until this last year, when I gave the visual novel Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York another go. I am a little ashamed to admit that it sent me on a bit of a spiral. Lore breakdowns, actual plays, fan fiction — whatever I could get my hands on was lapped up quickly. I’m not really sure why Coteries connected me to the world so thoroughly, but the impact was immediate.
Publisher: Dear Villagers Developer: Draw Distance Platform: Played on PC Availability: Released September 10, 2024 on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. |
All of this is to say that I have been led to this moment by a burning desire to know more. I wanted to learn about the clans and the world, to learn about the characters, and to learn how the game is played. I wanted to know how this story, this trilogy, would end. As Reckoning is the final act of the series (preceded by Coteries of New York and Shadows of New York), surely everything from those games would come to a head. Our questions would be answered, or at the very least entertained, and the world of Vampire: The Masquerade would continue to inspire and evolve.
Yet, I found very little of that here, in Vampire: The Masquerade – Reckoning of New York.
On your first playthrough of the game, Reckoning has you play a Ravnos clan fledgling named Kali. Kali is a born trouble-maker (much like many in clan Ravnos) who spends her nights as a smuggler for her sire, Reynard Cassel. We start off seeing Kali getting caught by enforcers for the Camarilla (the dominant vampire group in New York), and she is brought before the Court — a cadre of vampires who run the city — and Sheriff Qadir. Kali is then tasked with discovering more about the machinations of other vampires in the city, and taken under the wing of another vampire in the room, Padraic.
This setup is all too familiar. In fact, it is eerily similar to the setup of the last two titles in the trilogy. As a sequel entry, it retreads plot points and setups that have been handled before, only now doing so through the lens of the new character Kali. Rather than move the overarching story of the world forward in any way, we spend most of our time apart from the developed cast of characters and storylines on a wild goose chase for unrelated matters. Smaller-scale stories can work well in the context of a larger world, but in Reckoning, there's no real impetus to see this story through.
Reckoning is almost impressively uninteresting.
The main problems come from two places: The characterization of Kali, and the actual structure of the events that take place within the game.
For Kali, much of my annoyance stems from her sarcastic personality and reference-laden dialogue. So much of the world in Vampire: The Masquerade relies on its dark, almost brooding atmosphere. Kali undercuts this vibe frequently with odd reminders of real-world TV shows and people, and never lets a moment sit without some quip or aside. The rare opportunities to make choices cement this by providing options that are either all sarcastic or otherwise end up with the same outcome.
This flattening is mirrored in the overarching narrative. There are two types of events you can witness in Reckoning: Main Quest and Detour. Main quest is exactly as it sounds — events that specifically move the story forward in one way or another. Generally speaking, Kali and Padraic go to a new location for information on Reynard Cassel's whereabouts, find nothing, and then move on to the next venue. Repeat for 4 chapters until some more major events happen to shake things up. Detours are similarly uninteresting, serving as stops to fill up on blood to keep your hunger at bay, or to force encounters with the bumbling, incompetent hunters who seek to destroy vampire kind. Most often, these detours are a mix of both.
The lack of true choice was a decision I had defended in prior games in the series in part because it fit the world so well that your individual actions and word choice meant very little to those in deep-seated positions of power (though Shadows in particular does allow for some major changes based on how you interact with the world). In Reckoning, it's taken to the extreme where even your individual word choices are similar. While having the Prince wave off your pleas is one thing, having such a limited effect on even the smallest characters in a scene is an odd decision. Why offer the choices at all? It does nothing to reinforce the themes of the world or story, and only serves as a minor annoyance that interrupts an already lacking narrative.
While having the Prince wave off your pleas is one thing, having such a limited effect on even the smallest characters in a scene is an odd decision. Why offer the choices at all?
We spent two games building up a specific story within a specific place, only to have that largely ignored for 90 percent of Reckoning’s runtime. All we get in return is the inner thoughts of a teenager working through her feelings of betrayal and codependency — feelings that never fully get resolved before dumping us into a finale that I can only describe as haphazard at best.
If you’re wondering about Padraic’s side of the story, it is a little more tolerable. While the overall plot and aimlessness do remain the same on his side, he’s not quite as grating personality-wise. This comes at the cost of Padraic being quite boring on his own, but I suppose I would prefer the melancholy of a Malkavian over endless snide remarks.
Reckoning also takes majors steps back in terms of its presentation. While the first two titles had these beautiful, stylized portraits and would often showcase mesmerizing painted vistas, Reckoning takes a more “realistic” approach to its imagery. The change in artstyle is an immediately noticeable downgrade, but the lack of variety in scenery is equally deflating. In the first two games, entire scenes would have bespoke artwork, and character portraits would evolve as the game progressed to signify changes to the characters themselves. This has all but been replaced by flat portraits that cycle as each character speaks. Little care is given to visually capture the environments or personalities of each cast member. All we get are blank stares straight into the camera.
As a standalone visual novel, I find Reckoning does very little to draw players into its world or story. There are few immediate story hooks, and little intrigue or mystery in its characters to keep you on the line. As a sequel, it is an abject failure. It does not continue or resolve any hanging threads from prior titles (aside from canonizing the ending choice from Shadows), does not fit thematically in the world or series, and is a visual and writing downgrade across the board from its predecessors. A sad end to an otherwise worthwhile set of visual novels set within the Vampire: The Masquerade universe.
Verdict Vampire: The Masquerade – Reckoning of New York is a weak visual novel in almost every regard. Flat, lifeless artwork and an uninteresting main plot are chief among its problems, but its design as a sequel that ignores the plot and purpose of the first two entries is almost equally as disappointing. All of this is compounded by the fact that the choices you get to make as a player are so absurdly limited that they may as well not exist. This game is not worth the time it takes to read it, and I struggle to understand how this could have happened after such care was put into the first two entries in this visual novel trilogy.  |
Image Credits: Draw Distance and Dear Villagers