The world of Vampire: The Masquerade is a massive and sprawling one, but Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York gives a smaller and more concise view of the game's environment. Rather than giving players a choice of which character and vampire clan they want to play as in Bloodlines 2, they are instead put in the shoes of the newly Embraced and eternally moody Julia as she attempts to understand the new world she finds herself in. While developer Draw Distance presents players with a fascinating storyline, the game usually feels more like a book than a video game, and often to its detriment.
The story opens up a few months after the events of Coteries of New York, with main character Julia working a dead-end job as a freelance journalist for a dying news organization. Suddenly, her entire world begins to fall apart as she loses her job and has her name blacklisted by every newspaper in New York City. Julia eventually discovers that this was ploy by a local vampire clan, the Lasombra, who decided to test her and see if she was able to take the stress of losing her entire life. After passing the test she is turned into a vampire and thrust into the seedy underbelly of vampire society in the city.
After being turned, the game fast forwards a bit and shows that Julia has slowly begin to adjust to her new life as the sole representative of the Lasombra clan in New York. After a local vampire warlord of sorts is murdered one night, the higher ups of vampire society decide to send the former investigative journalist out to discover who was involved. There are many twists and turns throughout the story as choices are made for Julia and it is discovered which characters may be able to shed light on her current situation.
Vampire: the Masquerade - Shadows of New York plays out entirely as a visual novel where players must read dialogue in each situation and decide the best way for Julia to respond. These choices that must be made are mostly simple dialogue options that decide aspects of Julia's personality and worldview. In the early hours of the game these choices really don't make much of a difference as scenarios tend to play out the same way. As the players get further into the game the options have a little more weight as Julia is forced to decide what side of the ongoing vampire war she falls on.
Vampire: the Masquerade - Shadows of New York is a gorgeous game. Whenever a specific character is speaking a highly detailed portrait is shown set to the backdrop of wherever the conversation is currently happening. It is almost a must for visual novels to feature solid artwork, and Shadows of New York nails this aspect. Each of the characters are distinct from each other, and the vampires especially have their own visual quirks and personalities that adds a lot to their role in the game.
While there are some small choices throughout Shadows of New York, for the most part players are trapped in whatever direction the story wants to go in. For example, in between the main story beats there are small side activities that can be completed. These activities mostly center around feeding on humans or saving some poor soul from being mugged in an alleyway. While these are fun little diversions from the story, they have absolutely no impact on the game overall and can be completely ignored. The small amount of options and lack of player agency grows tiring as the game progresses, which sadly reduces the impact of what could have been a satisfying conclusion to a six hour game.
Visual novels exist in a strange subsection of video games. The more interactive of these can feel like a digital version of a choose your own adventure novel, but this only works when it is executed well. While Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York manages to craft a compelling and engaging story, it is lacking severely in the gameplay department, even by visual novel standards. At the end of the day this "game" would have worked better as a spin-off comic book, and is only recommended for fans who really need more of the world of Vampire: The Masquerade before Bloodlines 2 releases.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York can be played on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. A Steam code was provided for the purposes of this review.