When you jump into Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 later this year, you’ll be entering a different World of Darkness than you might remember.

Much of what you may remember from the original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is still relevant, such as the various vampire clans and their respective abilities. But a lot has changed for vampires (also known as the Kindred) in the last 21 years, so let’s try to get you back in the loop ahead of the sequel's release. Here’s everything you need to know to make your Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 experience as frictionless as possible.
 

Time’s up. Rules change.

The original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was roughly based on the 3rd edition of the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop role-playing game, which came out in 1998. That version of the tabletop game—and the World of Darkness lore—came to an end in 2004, when publisher White Wolf rebooted many of its product lines with new, similarly-themed horror games such as Vampire: The Requiem.

White Wolf was later acquired by Paradox Interactive in 2015, and one of the first things Paradox did was bring back the Masquerade. A new team of designers wrote and released a new fifth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade in 2018, which fans nicknamed “V5.”

Every Vampire video game that Paradox Interactive has published since then—including 2020’s Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York, 2022’s Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, and now Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2—has been based on this new edition. 

V5 is a sort-of soft reboot of the setting. Several of the major events from the end of Vampire: The Masquerade's third edition are still established parts of vampire history, but all those apocalyptic portents simply didn’t pan out as expected. The world did not end, the Antediluvians did not rise, life goes on—even for vampires.

Mechanically, there are a number of big changes that have had an impact on the various tie-in video games, including Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. For example, you won’t collect and spend Blood in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Instead, you’ll feed on humans to lower your Hunger. 

The most potentially important changes, however, all have to do with the modern state of the World of Darkness.
 

Unsafe sects

As you likely remember from Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (especially if you played any of its fan-made content packs) night-to-night life among Kindred is largely defined by conflicts between its various clans, sects, and bloodlines.

The three most powerful sects are the Camarilla, the Sabbat, and the Anarch Movement. The Camarilla or “Cammies” are the old-guard, relatively civilized vampires who do most of the work to maintain the Masquerade, while the Sabbat reject the Camarilla’s traditions and embrace their own inhumanity. The Anarchs were technically more aligned with the Camarilla's values, but wanted to live and thrive outside the Camarilla’s entrenched power structures.

In V5, due to vampire politics, none of these sects are what they were. The Gangrel had already largely abandoned the Camarilla in Vampire: The Masquerade's third edition, but now they’ve been joined by the Brujah, most of whom have opted to join the Anarchs.

Further, the Camarilla overreacted to a conclave that went badly in 2012, and decided that any vampire who wasn’t with them was against them. That amounted to a full declaration of war against the Anarchs.

That resulted in a huge influx of younger vampires breaking ties with the Camarilla in favor of going Anarch. Combined with support from the Brujah and the Ministry (formerly known as the Followers of Set), the Anarch Movement is stronger than it’s ever been. As a result, the Anarchs of Seattle are a major enemy faction in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.

However, the Camarilla has gotten its own share of new blood, some pun intended. A schism in the Banu Haqim, the clan formerly known as the Assamites, led to their petitioning to be formally accepted into the Camarilla. Likewise, a major faction within the Lasombra defected to the Camarilla from the Sabbat, including most of the clan’s central leadership.

As the Nomad, the protagonist of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, you'll enter the game as an old member of one of the core Camarilla clans (Ventrue, Tremere, Toreador, Lasombra, or Banu Haqim) or can opt to play as a Brujah.
 

Old business

One of the things that might have jumped out at you while playing Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (or while reading old Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebooks) is that there isn’t a lot of upward mobility in Kindred society. You can’t kick over a rock in the World of Darkness without finding some thousand-year-old vampire who has not let being unconscious since the Victorian era slow down his plan for world domination. You can’t hope to get a promotion in the Camarilla when the guy who holds the job you want is a super-strong, mind-reading immortal abomination. You gotta either murder him or find a new gig.

At least, that used to be the problem. In V5, elder vampires from all over the world have fallen prey to a phenomenon known as the Beckoning. Since 2014, any Kindred of sufficient power has felt a nearly irresistible impulse to travel to the Middle East in order to lend their strength to a growing conflict there.

This conflict, known as the Gehenna War, is largely fought between the Camarilla and Sabbat. The Camarilla is in it to protect the Masquerade, keep the Sabbat in check, and prevent the Sabbat from waking up any ancient vampires that might be asleep somewhere in the Middle East.

The Sabbat, conversely, has pulled almost all its forces from everywhere else in the world to focus on the Gehenna War, which it sees as the potential start of the end of the world. (Again.) Unless you’re actually participating in one of the Gehenna War’s conflict zones, which have expanded beyond the Middle East to places like Siberia and Brazil, the Sabbat are effectively a non-factor.

The upside of the Gehenna War, as far as the vampire-on-the-street is concerned, is that the Kindred’s elders have abandoned the rest of the world. It’s now much more feasible for a smart, savvy, and/or gifted young vampire to ascend the ranks of the Camarilla, or to make some serious waves as a member of the Anarchs. You no longer have to worry about stepping on some random 600-year-old monster’s toes. There’s a massive power vacuum in most Camarilla territories, just waiting for someone like you to fill it.

This is why the Nomad is such a potentially destabilizing force at the opening of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. As an elder who presumably hasn’t yet fallen prey to the Beckoning, the Nomad’s sudden appearance in Seattle—and Washington was an Anarch Free State until relatively recently—is like the sudden appearance of a loose nuclear weapon.
 

Kicking ass for the Lord

The titular Masquerade is a centuries-old campaign where vampires work to suppress public knowledge of their existence, through social influence, bribery, and the occasional judicious murder.

However, the Kindred are also notoriously stuck in their ways, to the point where many older vampires simply don’t understand modern technology. How, one might ask, could a bunch of undead Luddites successfully keep their existence a secret in a world where every person on the street has at least one video camera on them at all times?

Easy: They couldn’t and they didn’t.

Many human law enforcement agencies have discovered the Kindred’s existence, although they may not have a clear picture thereof. The turning point came in 2004, when the National Security Agency discovered the Nosferatu’s private computer network “SchreckNet.”

Since then, multiple nations have collaborated with the Society of Leopold (which you may remember from a quest in the original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines) to create a squad of vampire hunters that mixes Vatican scholarship and doctrine with modern military tactics and technology. The Kindred have nicknamed this crew the Second Inquisition.

It’s already scored one big win. In 2008, the Inquisition destroyed the Tremere’s headquarters in Vienna with a drone strike (which is really funny for many longtime players of the tabletop game who’ve come to hate the Tremere), and subsequently killed many of the Kindred in several cities like London and Paris.

The panic over this sudden coordinated attack drove a wedge between the Anarchs and Camarilla, which eventually led to their current state of war. Further, since all this began with the NSA hacking SchreckNet, the Camarilla has adopted an official policy of extreme technophobia: no smartphones, no computers, all paper documents. (If you were wondering why everyone in Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong had a beeper, now you know.)

Combined with the Beckoning taking many of the Camarilla’s leaders off the field, the Second Inquisition currently has vampires on the back foot. In Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’s Seattle, it’s represented by the Information and Awareness Office, headed by Agent Baker.

There are dozens of other small changes to be found throughout the World of Darkness—such as several of the creepier clans all assembling under the banner of the Hecata, the total retconning of the Kuei-Jin (so don’t expect Ming Xiao to make a comeback), or the murder and/or resurrection of several signature characters. Much has stayed the same in V5, but just as much isn’t the way you remember it, and it's likely you'll have to learn as much as the Nomad once you jump into Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is available now on the Epic Games Store.