Newcomers to Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong might look at if it as a typical adventure RPG, but that's not the case. Set in modern-day Boston, Swansong puts players in control of three vampires tasked with maintaining the peace or risk revealing the existence of Kindred to the world at large. And with the World of Darkness always emphasizing moral grays and “no good decisions,” players may soon realize the story offers plenty of complex choices and heaviy consequences.
However, just because the Vampire: The Masquerade game seems far more confusing on the get-go doesn’t mean it’s impossible to play. In fact, with a few Swansong tips and tricks, newcomers can actually find ways to enjoy the game while still engrossed with its story.
10 Write Notes, Literally
One of the most important things to realize about Swansong is that the game doesn’t track information players discover. This is a crucial choice for the purposes of immersion, as people in real life would rarely always carry around notes, documents, and audio files they find while roaming around. However, since Swansong is a narrative-heavy game with mystery elements, the clues players notice around them are crucial in progressing through the story.
As such, it’s advised that people find a way to record their progress in the game. This can be accomplished perhaps through constant note-taking, having a separate word processor open, or even recording their gameplay to go back to later. Having access to these notes can greatly help, especially once dialogue choices pop up that have something to do with what players have encountered.
9 Pay Close Attention To Skills
While Swansong uses a lot of ideas from the original TTRPG, they did take the Skills concept down a notch. Instead of having the TTRPG’s full slate of Skills, Swansong offers players the chance to improve the most vital ones throughout the game. At its core, these Skills may provide extra options for players when interacting with both the environment and other people.
However, players should try to be careful which Skills to improve, as they might miss out on vital information due to Skill neglect. At the very least, players should try investing in both Education and Deduction to ensure they can spot minute things in the environment and dialogue to help progress the story more efficiently.
8 Spend Willpower Strategically
In the TTRPG, players can use a certain amount of Willpower to reroll their dice to get a more favorable outcome in certain situations. Swansong implements the same mechanic, where players can spend Willpower to better sway the odds in their favor. However, the game offers limited ways of replenishing Willpower, meaning players stuck in critical situations might not have enough juice to swing for that Hail Mary.
Thankfully, players can almost always have enough Willpower to succeed in any scene provided they consume it properly. At its core, players may want to keep themselves at Willpower 8 at the lowest at all times. This will ensure they have more than enough to spend during Confrontations since it’s these situations that often affect the story in major ways.
7 Mind The Hunger
Kindred in Vampire: The Masquerade need blood as a form of sustenance, especially in order to fuel their vampiric abilities. And considering how Swansong forces players into situations that need extraordinary “miracles” to get out of, players almost always need to use their Disciplines to solve. Unfortunately, using Disciplines may increase a vampire’s Hunger, and getting this too high can risk protagonists hurting and outright killing others during interactions.
As such, it’s advisable for players entering new areas or doing new missions to keep themselves at Hunger 5 in order to ensure they have more than enough room to use Disciplines. Players should also try to feed on mortals only once, as there are more than enough victims in a scene and more than enough hiding spots to safely feed on them. Likewise, rats always exist in a scene for emergency feeding.
6 Everyone Else Can Do It Too
Players take on the role of three vampires in Swansong, each of them tasked to talk with both mortals and fellow Kindred as they try to progress through their missions. And while players can use their Skills and Disciplines to influence conversations in their favor, it’s important to remember that the people they’re talking to also work with the same mechanics. As such, it helps to always consider how NPCs can use the game’s mechanics in their favor as well.
For instance, dialogue in the game offers a Focus mechanic that allows players to bolster their chances of success in a particular action. However, players might be surprised to see how their Focus didn’t keep up against another character who they swear has just a slightly higher Focus than theirs. In this situation, it’s very likely that the NPC also used Focus to boost their own Skills. It’s advised for players to use mechanics like Focus to secure their victory against those with lower stats who may try to outpace them.
5 Suspicion Means Everything Is Connected
Unlike other stories with multiple protagonists whose stories only converge around the middle or final part of the game, Swansong’s three protagonists are more connected than they realize. While they’re all approaching a brutal shooting incident in Boston, their different perspectives give players at least three ways of seeing the situation. However, players should take note that crucial actions one character takes will affect entire scenarios involving other characters. After all, Boston might be a large city, but its web of vampires is much more condensed.
The game implements this concept via the Suspicion mechanic, which serves as a reflection of how reliable the vampire seems to others and how close they are to breaching the Masquerade. Players need to take note of how to best get low Suspicion, be it through quiet feeding or acquiring important information. The higher the Suspicion, the more difficult certain encounters will be for characters.
4 Always More Than One Way To Resolve Situations
Given how Swansong is a narrative game, it makes sense for the game to offer “obvious” paths for players in order to progress through the story. However, most of Swansong’s levels aren’t necessarily linear by nature, and sometimes there are aspects of the scene that could be solved if players know where to look or who to talk to.
A helpful tip to approach this gameplay element is to treat Swansong in the same way a person would try to solve a mystery in real-life. When faced with a troubling situation, players are advised to see if there’s a unique way to resolve their situation or even avoid it altogether.
3 Treasure The Tiny Details
Unlike other narrative adventure games, Swansong isn’t entirely dialogue-focused when it comes to its gameplay. In fact, a lot of Swansong’s appeal comes from the level of detail the game offers when it comes to exploration. Sometimes, players can find more crucial pieces of information and clues when exploring areas the way they would explore a real-life location, and this is something the game rewards.
If possible, players should try to traverse every single nook and cranny in an area during an entire scene. They may not find a lot of things during the first few stages, but they may soon be able to discover notes, items, and other consumables that may be relevant to their current quest. More importantly, players should try to take note of essential details they may stumble upon in their exploration, particularly tiny details such as a random note plastered on a table or a marking on a wall. These aren’t placed there randomly, and they may sometimes become important at some point.
2 Revisit Points Whenever Relevant
There aren’t any quest guides in Swansong, so the only real way for characters to progress through the story is by talking with people around them. Much in the same way, players need to pay attention to places they visit and people they talk to whenever they’re doing a quest or a side mission. In fact, it’s important to pay attention to changes in locations and information they receive in order to spot nuances that can affect the mission later on.
For instance, events and situations in the game may affect the environment upon a second or third visit. An item may be missing or an item may suddenly find its way there. In terms of dialogue, two characters may say contradictory statements, and only the player can spot whether such statements were made in the first place. In fact, the game actively rewards players who start discovering these highlights and knowing who to talk to or where to go afterward for resolutions.
1 Think About The Replay After Finishing The Story
Similar to a visual novel, Swansong doesn’t offer a single “ending” for the entire playthrough. However, players who realize that they’ve missed a detail or two in their scene statistics might be tempted to press reply right away. In fact, it might improve their experience if they at least try pursuing a playthrough in the way they wanted and only then attempt a rerun.
Remember that Swansong is part of Vampire: The Masquerade, a game that emphasizes how vampires struggle to keep their humanity amid no good choices. And this “no good choices” is somewhat prevalent throughout Swansong, particularly in its emphasis on consequences. Once players finish their initial playthrough, this is the best time to replay the game. That way, players already know what choices they’ve taken and may start taking new routes for new results with less confusion.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Microsoft Windows.