VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - BLOODLINES 2

The commitment to this undead romp is bloody lovely

- By Jess Kinghorn

Should you speak of it, someone will reinstall it. So goes the adage – though mostly that’s about the 2004 OG and not the 2025 followup from The Chinese Room. However, as a sucker who just loves love, the Valentines update has brought me skittering back. This is in-part a wardrobe update to kickoff 2026, introducing a suite of hair and makeup options, plus new accessories to complement the preexisting costume rail of clan-specific threads. On top of last year’s Halloween and Christmas-themed updates, this brings your customisation options to a total of 151 items, and 24 full outfits. You can finally give your undead elder facial hair and, should you be desperate to drink in every fresh follicle, you can rotate your vampiric protagonist in the appearance menu tool.

This update also introduces a delectable selection of both fixes, and genuine gameplay improvements. The studio’s stability work still has some way to go, as I still experienced a number of crashes throughout testing on my AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT-based rig – coupled with the continued lack of a manual save option, this was grating. That said, I also sampled something of a more positive unlife for Bloodlines 2.