Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is an early-access multiplayer battle royale that takes place in the world of the popular tabletop RPG of the same name. It expands on the battle royale genre by allowing players to play as multiple blood-fueled classes with different abilities. For any violent PvP romp, one of the biggest questions is how players can join up with their friends to take down their enemies. Here's how to team up with your friends in Bloodhunt.
Playing online in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt requires both a Steam account and a Sharkmob account; however, to play with friends, players only need to have them added on Steam, as long as each player has also verified their Sharkmob accounts. From here, the last steps are navigating a somewhat unintuitive user interface as the early-access kinks are worked out of the game. After firing up up the game, enter an Elysium lobby—these function as social halls where players congregate and start matches.
Once in an Elysium lobby for Bloodhunt, press F3. This brings up the social menu, and any friends added through Steam will appear. Click the three dots to the right of a player's name, and select "Invite to Group." To invite people who aren't on the Steam friend list, other players can also be added in the Elysium lobby itself; however, players added this way will only be visible in the same Elysium lobby afterwards. With these steps done, simply form a group, queue up, and choose one of the six playable classes in Bloodhunt to take down your enemies.
Friend Connectivity Issues in Bloodhunt
Being an early access title means inevitable technical issues to iron out. One such issue directly relates to playing Bloodhunt with friends. A recent tweet from the game's developers confirmed a known bug that is causing connectivity problems. Players have reported being unable to add a player if their game language isn't set to English. As a temporary workaround, the developers have advised players to switch their game languages to English, reboot the game, and try inviting one another again. While issues like these can be a bit jarring, technical hiccups are just one more thing Bloodhunt has in common with other battle royales that also had shaky early-access releases.
Beyond backend issues, Bloodhunt's general mechanics and balance remain to be seen as thousands of players get their hands on the title. Will Bloodhunt guns prove to be overtly better than melee weapons? Are some of the classes so strong that no team of friends can deal with them? Through trial, error, and a lot of blood, time will tell.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is available on PC.