Vampire the Masquerade Swansong - Deeper Look into the Mechanics

Vampire the Masquerade Swansong is not your typical story-heavy game. There are systems in place that every player should know in order to get the most of this title. Unfortunately, there isn’t much wiggle room when it comes to player preference, and it will probably take a playthrough to fully understand and appreciate the importance of each mechanic. You might need a couple more playthroughs to fully understand the consequences of all your choices as well as build a full picture as to what was really going on.

There are the things you probably should be aware of before diving into the world of intrigue and ruthlessness.

Vampire the Masquerade Swansong Do’s and Do Not’s

Your Starting Traits Matter

You only have one chance to make a first impression. This also applies when choosing the starting profile for each of the three main characters.

If you choose the wrong profile for a character, you run the risk of limiting your interactions or missing out on crucial dialog options. The worst part is, that you can’t really blame yourself because you are literally going into this blind. Only in hindsight will you know if you made the right choice or not.

At the very worst, you will be denied some experience points. This is already bad enough considering how slow experience builds up in this game. I guess you can take it as a learning experience.

Everything About Dialog Options

Dialog comprises half of the Vampire the Masquerade Swansong experience. The other half is exploring with a hint of sleuthing. Talking your way out of any situation and carefully extracting information are just some of the things that are expected in any successful playthrough. But you don’t really feel progress being made on your Talents.

One mistake you are most likely to make while playing the game is not using your Talents as often as you can. And this is probably because you want to save up Willpower just in case you need it in a pinch. Yeah… that’s not how it really works in the game.

If you ask the right questions, you will regain a couple of Willpower, it’s not a lot but it’s not like you need Willpower to progress. In fact, losing an argument against someone will get you more Willpower at the end of the conversation.

So what’s the benefit of repeating Talents? Well, if you do the same action enough times, you’ll unlock a more powerful version of that talent. These more talents are important in breaking ties. (Aside from Attributes, of course.)

Be careful of using multiple talents in a single conversation though. With each successful argument you make, your opponent grows bolder. And their chance of winning the next argument increases.

The game can explain everything you need to know about these terms. But keep what I say in mind, there is a clear advantage to repeating talents in multiple conversations. If you can keep that in mind, you will be fine for the rest of the game.

Watch Your Hunger

Keep watch of your HUNGER at all times. It might be tempting to use your supernatural powers to gain an advantage. But the truth of the matter is, you don’t really need your powers 9/10 times. It’s nice to have in a pinch, but it is more like to get you in trouble more times than not.

Because if that bar goes above your limit, you will attack the nearest available mortal, further endangering the Camarilla, your base of operations.

If you do need to feed, feed sparingly. There is a limited number of places where you stash your victims. One too many bodies and suspicion goes through the roof.

And one more thing, if you are in the process of feeding. You can hold R2 for as long as the meter representing the victim’s blood has something inside it. Fully drain it, and that victim dies. Keep this mind, the more bodies there are, the harder it is for ALL your characters to move around freely. And besides, other vampires will be less inclined to talk to someone who disregards the rules of the Masquerade.

Keep Your Suspicion Manageable

As SUSPICION rises, it creates more negative Traits that increase the difficulty faced by all three characters.

Suspicion is shared between all three characters. There’s no such thing as an isolated incident, unfortunately.

Leaving a body count and leading documents behind greatly increases suspicion. Little actions also, like feeding off rats, slightly increase your suspicion but the effects stack up over the course of killing many rats.

All Vampire the Masquerade Walkthrough guides:

Check out our other Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong content:

Also check out this helpful video by NamelessDreadx37x on his Top 10 tips when playing Vampire The Masquerade Swansong: