A new Vampire: The Masquerade game has been released
But...
A new Vampire: The Masquerade game has been released - but, yes, it is a mobile game. However, it does look interesting.
Vampire: The Masquerade - We Eat Blood, available on Steam, iTunes and Google Play, tells a story entirely via text messages. You occasionally have a choice of responses but otherwise your messages to AI characters are completed for you. You can make the wrong choice, too, and end up dying.
The story revolves around your first nights as a vampire, coming to terms with something you didn't ask for and the desires - and enemies - that come with it. How will you approach the world opening before you?
There's a similar SMS-based game for Mage: The Ascension, and both games were written by author Sarah Horrocks and illustrated by artist Zak Smith.
The two interactive stories are the first products of Paradox's ownership of White Wolf Publishing and its World of Darkness IP, which comprises three core role-playing games: Vampire, Werewolf and Mage.
Both SMS games are referred to as "preludes" but we do not know what for. Paradox announced a major new Werewolf: The Apocalypse game for console and PC earlier in the year, though - perhaps they are preludes for that.
The last proper Vampire: The Masquerade video game was Bloodlines in 2004. Developed by now defunct studio Troika, Bloodlines was a diamond in the rough, a superbly atmospheric and detailed role-playing game at the start but unfinished and overly fighty towards the end. Lewis Denby wrote a Vampire: The Masquerade retrospective for us in 2009 (even that was a long time ago now).