Quick Review: Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

Oh hey, nice coincidence covering this game in October.

I went for the artist. Didn't even know he was gay.
As an outsider, I'll say, I do appreciate VtM having
decent LGBTQ+ representation, and general diversity.

Developed by Draw Distance, published by Dear Villagers, and released on December 11th, 2019, Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York is set in the universe of the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. I’m not too knowledgeable with most tabletop game universes, including this one, so I’m learning and discovering that world as the game progresses. This is a visual novel, so there’s little “game” to speak of, aside from getting to choose how some interactions go and the order in which to do the quests.

Feels like I'm  being kidnapped by Vampire John Wick.

You pick one of three protagonists – they have preset names, but you can change them. A good chunk of the visual novel remains the same, but elements will differ, such as the inciting incident and specific personal elements. The three are [Eric], a hot-blooded Asian American; [Amanda], a businesswoman; and [Lamar], a gay African American artist. One way or another, they are bitten by a stranger and transformed into a vampire (a kindred, as the secret society calls it). The character is then found and taken to the Camarilla, the leading caste of vampires in NYC, and forced into this new life. Not that they have a choice; it’s not like there’s a cure. You character is basically a dead person walking.

Again, not much of a choice. You can leave this room
undead, or dead dead.

The Camarilla have a strict set of rules regarding the Embrace (the act of turning someone into a vampire); if the act was not permitted by the Camarilla, final death (since vampires are already undead) for both the childe (the newly created vampire) and their sire (the one that transformed them). However, before your character is executed, they beg for mercy and are taken under the wing of Sophie Langley, a member of the Camarilla that advocates for this childe to stay and become a valuable member of the secret society.

Welp. Gotta pick someone to assault for blood.
Just gotta hope we don't run into another secret vampire here.

Your character will need to learn to control their thirst for blood (the Hunger). They’ll learn to hunt; they’ll have to keep themselves in check by feeding regularly, but never to the point of overfeeding, as both it and underfeeding have dire consequences. Once the character is settled into this unsettling new life, they’ll be told by Sophie to assemble a team, a “Coterie”; basically, go out and make friends. Her suggestions involve four vampires from other clans; there’s 13 such clans, of varying levels of threat and trustworthiness. Create your friend group, prove your worth, learn about all the inner politics of this society. Still, through all this, one question will remain: Who turned the protagonist into a vampire… and why?

It takes a while before you finally have your entire
nights to yourself, with a lot of possible quests to take on.

You can worry about vampire nicknames later.

As you can see from this plot-heavy description, there’s a lot to take in. This game is more of an interactive story with moments where you can occasionally pick the course of the plot. Your choices do matter in the long run; it all depends on how you interact with the other characters. The story is set over a specific number of nights, one that makes it impossible to recruit all four potential members of the Coterie in one playthrough; thus, you have an incentive to play through the game multiple times.

You will often need to use your character’s new abilities to turn events to your favor, but this may cause their Hunger to grow and they’ll need to suck blood from a prey – however, the chances you have for feeding are limited depending on the current scene and which options pop up. It’s limited to very specific points, with only your character’s first “hunt” being the one time they have freedom to choose a “victim”. It hardly comes up otherwise, aside from dialogue options that either close or open depending on whether they feel the Hunger or not.

Yep, I needed that dictionary to properly write some of the
paragraphs in this article. Hey, it served its purpose!

If this priest truly knew who he was talking to, our character
would be on the receiving end of a Vade Retro Satana.

You even have access to an in-game dictionary of terms specific to this world, since they add up over time. Once you can choose what you do each night, you get more freedom, with occasional quests adding themselves on top of your search for a Coterie. Some nights you’ll be able to pick two plotlines to follow, but usually you’ll have one mandatory plot event and then just one of your choosing. Hey, nights are short, and you can’t stay up till dawn. And, well, as soon as you finish one character’s story and begin a new one, you’ll notice just how similar all three end up being – you have some agency in what you can do, but everything builds up towards the same climax, even if the events leading up to it, and its resolution, can differ based on your choices.

This guy looks intense, but then again, most vampires do.
But don't worry, gathon is a good dude, if you can disregard
that he's basically a wizard doing blood magic.
Hey man, wanna join a Coterie?

That said, there were two DLCs added that I’m told diverge a lot more from the base game’s three scenarios. Personally? I might do one scenario and be satisfied with it. If you already like this TTRPG series, or are intrigued by it, I could see this as an interesting purchase, since it has a good story, and explains a lot for beginners.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York is available on Steam on sale for 3.99$ till the end of October!

Alright, gonna be back to regular-sized reviews soon enough – I might take a week off, these Quick Reviews took a lot out of me.