I think everyone has at least one series they absolutely mark out for—which lights up the animal intrigue zones of your brain whenever its name appears. For me, that’s Vampire: The Masquerade, the result of uncountable evenings spent poring over second-edition sourcebooks as a teen, internalising all the wild lore and imbibing an entire vocabulary built around cool words like diablerie, inconnu, antediluvian and monomachy.
So when a PC Gaming Show trailer for Vampire the Masquerade: Eternal Whispers appeared, I leaned forward. When it billed itself as a “narrative-driven RPG”, my eyes widened, and when that beloved and familiar Disco-Elysium-style vertical dialogue box unfurled down the side of the screen? I started hooting in my seat like a very excited and vampiric ape.
Developed by Flyos, Eternal Whispers reveals precious little info about itself in its trailer, but the vampy vibes are, of course, strong out the gate. Things are dark, bloody, and everyone is some flavour of goth. But here’s the kicker: I get the distinct impression you’re a member—or at least a victim—of the Sabbat, VtM’s faction of outright villainous vamps who don’t give a fig for maintaining their humanity and are really big on mass murder, nefarious conspiracies, and building living furniture out of people (well, that one’s mostly just the Tzimisce).
I say this because, well, the introductory narration says a whole lotta Sabbat stuff. It sounds like you’re a fresh vamp who’s the only survivor of a traditional Sabbat mass embrace (what the Sabbat calls it when they vampify a bunch of people with no explanation and bury them alive). What’s more, you were buried beneath the Temple of Eternal Whispers, the communal haven of the Montreal Sabbat. So it’s all sounding very Sabbat, is what I mean.
As for the gameplay snippets we get, that’s very vamp too, filled with oddballs and freaks and skillchecks in dialogue. Interestingly, I don’t detect a whiff of combat, which would be in-keeping with the Disco Elysium inheritance and an interesting move for a vamp RPG, especially a Sabbat-focused one. Sign me up either way, but I’ll be doubly interested if this is a low-to-no-combat experience.
Anyhow, my hope is you’re a full-on Sabbat member. We’ve gotten a lot of the sect in previous vamp games—they feature heavily in Bloodlines 1 and 2—but you almost never get a chance to see it from the inside. A Vampire: The Masquerade videogame that finally let me pick up the Sword of Caine? Sounds like a great time to me. You can learn more on Steam.
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