Released in 2000 by Nihilistic Software, Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption isn’t just a video game—it’s a time capsule and a beautiful mess built on one of the coolest tabletop settings ever: the World of Darkness. Unlike its younger, more celebrated sibling, Bloodlines, Redemption leans much heavier into traditional action-RPG territory, giving you a dark, linear journey that’s hard to forget.
The game throws you into the role of Christof Romuald, a 12th-century French crusader in Prague who is turned into a vampire against his will. His tragic story of love, betrayal, and unlife is the core of the game. What makes the narrative truly unique is its massive scope, spanning hundreds of years. You begin navigating the shadowy, medieval streets of Prague and Vienna before being sealed away and waking up in the neon-drenched, gothic-punk landscape of modern-day London and New York.
The gameplay, though, is were the flaws appear. The real-time combat is very clunky. It often feels like a mash-up of Diablo and a very rough 3D action game, where pathfinding can be awkward, and fighting can feel less skillful and more spammy. You spend a lot of time clicking, managing your blood pool (Vitae), and cycling through your vampiric Disciplines. Enemy hit boxes can be a real pain, and the mechanic in which your character and your party members go into vampiric rage and attack anything in sight, including themselves, when taking too much damage or running out of blood just does not work in a video game, even if it does in tabletop.
However, the Disciplines themselves are a blast. You can freeze your foes with Ice Prison, draw out their blood from a distance, bring their blood to a boil while still coursing through their veins or, my favorite, unleash a firestorm on everything around you.
While the graphics are certainly dated now, the environmental design still holds up and there is this early 2000s charm to it. The developers captured the gloomy, oppressive feel of the setting perfectly, whether you’re traversing a medieval monastery or a modern nightclub. And the music, from dark orchestral choir in the Dark Ages to Techno and Rap in the Modern Nights, just adds to it.
Despite its jankiness and flawed mechanics, Redemption is worth playing and re-playing for its epic, emotional story and atmosphere alone. It’s a unique game in the Vampire: The Masquerade setting, one of the few games in the setting that we got in video game format in the first place and a must-play for anyone who loves deep lore and a healthy dose of gothic drama. Or simply just wants to melt the faces off vampires, ghouls, wraiths and werewolves and feel like a 1000 year old badass doing so. It’s rough around the edges, but its heart, or maybe its fangs, is in the right place.
The game throws you into the role of Christof Romuald, a 12th-century French crusader in Prague who is turned into a vampire against his will. His tragic story of love, betrayal, and unlife is the core of the game. What makes the narrative truly unique is its massive scope, spanning hundreds of years. You begin navigating the shadowy, medieval streets of Prague and Vienna before being sealed away and waking up in the neon-drenched, gothic-punk landscape of modern-day London and New York.
The gameplay, though, is were the flaws appear. The real-time combat is very clunky. It often feels like a mash-up of Diablo and a very rough 3D action game, where pathfinding can be awkward, and fighting can feel less skillful and more spammy. You spend a lot of time clicking, managing your blood pool (Vitae), and cycling through your vampiric Disciplines. Enemy hit boxes can be a real pain, and the mechanic in which your character and your party members go into vampiric rage and attack anything in sight, including themselves, when taking too much damage or running out of blood just does not work in a video game, even if it does in tabletop.
However, the Disciplines themselves are a blast. You can freeze your foes with Ice Prison, draw out their blood from a distance, bring their blood to a boil while still coursing through their veins or, my favorite, unleash a firestorm on everything around you.
While the graphics are certainly dated now, the environmental design still holds up and there is this early 2000s charm to it. The developers captured the gloomy, oppressive feel of the setting perfectly, whether you’re traversing a medieval monastery or a modern nightclub. And the music, from dark orchestral choir in the Dark Ages to Techno and Rap in the Modern Nights, just adds to it.
Despite its jankiness and flawed mechanics, Redemption is worth playing and re-playing for its epic, emotional story and atmosphere alone. It’s a unique game in the Vampire: The Masquerade setting, one of the few games in the setting that we got in video game format in the first place and a must-play for anyone who loves deep lore and a healthy dose of gothic drama. Or simply just wants to melt the faces off vampires, ghouls, wraiths and werewolves and feel like a 1000 year old badass doing so. It’s rough around the edges, but its heart, or maybe its fangs, is in the right place.
Story
Atmosphere
Medieval Accents
Christof is a Badass
Gameplay
Music
Summary
Redemption is worth playing and re-playing for its epic, emotional story and atmosphere alone.
