Now that Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has a new developer, The Chinese Room, we’re going through the whole rigamarole of teasers and reveals all over again, starting now and carrying on into 2024, and possibly beyond. I hope you’re prepared.
This is why, more than four years after I wrote “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’s first full-blood clan is the Brujah”, I’m once again introducing you all to the Brujah. I am very tired. And while the 2019 reveal gave us details on the Brujah Disciplines—their fancy vamp powers—we’ll have to assume they have all been changed in at least some way. Unfortunately, this re-reveal doesn’t go into much detail.
All we know about this version of the clan is that they are very into smacking things around in melee combat, and their first revealed Discipline is a charge attack that lets the undead brawlers gain momentum before grabbing foes, dragging them around and slamming them into things.
In the original Masquerade videogame, Redemption, we played a Brujah vamp who starts off as a medieval crusading knight before eventually ending up in the modern age. The clan cropped up again in the first Bloodlines, where it was one of the playable options. So even if you’ve not played the TTRPG, you might already know what their deal is, even if it’s not entirely clear how The Chinese Room is adapting them for Bloodlines 2.
If this is your first introduction to them, though, here’s the skinny: Clan Brujah was once full of philosopher warriors, thinking big thoughts while also smacking people around. In the modern age, however, they are the bikers, punks and anarchists of vampire society, all covered in tats and leather. They don’t like rules, and they don’t always play nicely with other vamps.
I dig their look, but the clan is not nearly as exotic as the Nosferatu or Malkavians, so it is perhaps not the most exciting one to lead with. Also tempering my excitement is the Brujah art that The Chinese Room is showing off. This Brujah vamp has all the leather you’d expect, but they are so much less flavourful than the art we got with the original reveal, which was of an intimidating leather daddy. This new take just seems a bit too subdued, less striking, though I don’t want to draw too many conclusions from a single piece of key art.
There’s also a very brief teaser, which you can watch above, but it gives us very little to go on. And from the brief snippet of combat, I worry that the first-person brawling has inherited some of the issues of the previous version—where it just looked awkward and jerky, with lots of outstretched arms flailing around. We saw a bit more in the announcement trailer in September, and yeah, it still looks off to me.
Another clan reveal is coming next week, so my fingers are crossed the Malkavians get some love, and we can expect a list of the vampire Disciplines to appear early next year. The drip feed continues.