Paradox has finally revealed all the playable vampire clans in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. The last one is the highly-requested, fan-favourite Malkavians.
What makes the Malks special is their ability to hear, see and understand things no one can, but don’t know why. Sometimes referred to as the Oracles, Malkavians essentially can receive spoilers without context. And that is literally how it worked in the original Bloodlines, you get voices that foreshadowed things to come.
However, the ability of insight comes with a curse. Malkavian’s social interaction may not have the intended, desired result as they come across as a bit weird. They also suffer from mental illness- psychosis, depression and more. While the original Bloodlines portrayed the Malkavians as the more wacky and silly depiction of insanity- or as the community referred to as fishmalk- the take on Bloodlines 2 will be a bit darker.
There will still be special dialogue options for the Malkavians, just like the original.
The Malkavian’s signature discipline is Dementation, which imparts other people with a form of dementia the Malkavians suffer. The first active power is Haunt, which makes the enemy panic as they see things that are not there. The other is Berserk, which enrages enemies to attack anyone on sight. Or maybe attack the air if no one is on sight.
The other discipline the Malkavians have is Auspex. Shared with the Tremere, this allows them to see through wall, highlight targets and at higher levels, traverse outside of the body in astral form.
Paradox has stated that more playable clans will be added after launch for free, so there’s still hope for the other major clans like Nosferatu and Gangrel to make a playable appearance.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 will get its first gameplay reveal on June 10th and will be playable for the first time at PDX Con 2019. The game will be out in Q1 2020 for the PS4, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Paradox Store) and Xbox One.