The Masquerade – Bloodhunt. Impressions of the closed alpha test – Igromania

I will kill everyone, I will remain alone

However, if we put aside the unconventional approach to the familiar universe, we are left with a completely traditional Battle Royale. The essence, in general, is the same as in any “royal battle”: a spacious map, weapons and equipment scattered everywhere. 45 people (or rather, vampires) enter – one leaves. The differences are visible only in some details.

Deadly red gas, according to the classic laws of the genre, from time to time shrinks its circle. At the end, the location narrows to a small patch, like a claustrophobic nightmare

Firstly, we have not ordinary people here, but powerful children of the night. Each of them calmly withstands a burst from a machine gun in the stomach, briskly jumps along the walls, like the Prince of Persia, and without hesitation falls from the roofs, breaking the asphalt, like Alex Mercer from Prototype… Vampiric acrobatics is an important aspect of survival. And when combined with some abilities that seriously increase mobility, it makes any skillful bloodsucker a very difficult target. The main thing is not to forget to use all the available arsenal. Therefore, by the way, there is no transport in the game, all cars are either just decorations, or caches with armor and weapons. And why does Dracula need a moped?

Secondly, each bloodsucker has the very same superpowers: clan and class (classes here are called archetypes). There are only three clans available so far. The big Brujahs play tanks and berserkers, arrange local earthquakes and swallow tons of bullets. The hideous Nosferatu sly ones become invisible, send bats on scouts and hurl stinking “sewer bombs”. And the exquisite charms of the Toreador charm those around them and literally dazzle the enemies with their beauty … The result is a classic trio “warrior – thief – magician”. Each clan corresponds to two archetypes, which, in theory, should open up a lot of scope for tactics. However, there is no fundamental difference between the clans, unlike the same Bloodlines.

There are not many appearance settings yet, but it is already possible to blind some funny freak

Thirdly, not only live players are actively involved in the massacre. There are a lot of people in Prague at night under the control of artificial intelligence. Here are also vampire bots, designed to add mass to the battles and even out the dynamics of matches a little. And ordinary people are “neutral” – by and large, walking first aid kits, some of which are able to give the vampire small bonuses like increased damage in melee. And the soldiers of the Department, who, even without any mystical powers, are able to break any ghoul so that it does not seem a little, but they can get good equipment up to a minigun.

This is where the Masquerade mechanic enters the scene. If you kill civilians, use superpowers in plain sight, and just run too close to the soldiers, not only they will take up arms against us. The order for the Blood Hunt will come into force (hence the title of the project): the player who became the target begins to see everyone else, which makes the poor fellow the main prey in the district. All that remains is to run and hide – there is good where.

Each vampire has a built-in radar: heightened senses help to look for weapons, victims and enemies

The bloody mist is like deception

It can be seen that the authors tried their best to create the world of the game. They wrote good texts for the built-in encyclopedia (to open them all, you need to run around the city and generally play properly). We worked on the atmosphere. Carefully, with all the care, the capital of the Czech Republic was transferred to a virtual format. It is a pity that during the local heap-mala, which sooner or later turns into any battle, there is absolutely no time to look at the local beauties. But here there was a place for both real sights (like the Prague clock tower or the Zizkov TV tower), and fictional ones – like the trendy nightclub Divine Disco. Prague is really beautiful in some places … but it’s too cramped here! Especially at the end of the round, when the ring of deadly red gas is compressed so tightly that there is absolutely no time left for running or hiding.

Of course, the language does not dare to call the map monotonous. After all, roofs open to all the winds with hipster bars, and dark gateways, and a cozy cemetery, and abandoned construction sites, and the famous Stare Mesto, and much more are available to us. But the problem is that there is only one location here, although it is rich. As a result, even in a short time of the round, the gray-brown night Prague with its endless roofs begins to tire. And that’s not the only problem with Bloodhunt.

Become a prey in Blood Hunt is the most adrenaline-pumping fun of the game

Almost nothing remains of the original setting. We did not get not only a fascinating story – the “royal battle” is quite capable of doing without it, but even an intelligible rationale for why all these ghouls gathered in one place and staged a massacre. For those who are not ready to squeeze out plot information drop by drop, the game turns into just a deadly rave, the participants of which jump around and shoot each other from their machines like mad. At the same time, all the genre problems of Battle Royale are in place: a very uneven pace of the round, a high threshold for entry and, paradoxically, total monotony. And shooting is the central game mechanic! – made so-so: there are not so many weapons, and the difference between the barrels is not too noticeable.