After a long night out and more than a few cocktails, you find yourself alone in a seedy hotel room with a glamorous stranger. “I want to show you something” the stranger coos, but instead of unhooking a bra or unbuttoning a fly, they sink their fangs into your throat. You spend the final seconds of your life in the predator’s embrace, gazing at the stained wallpaper of that hotel room as the creature empties your veins. Moments after your death, you awake. This is the opening scene of VTM:B, a game hailed by many as a triumph of immersion and player choice mechanics. The player takes on the role of a newly sired vampire trying to survive in the cutthroat society of the undead. Begin by selecting your character from one of 7 vampiric clans, each with their own unique abilities and limitations. Clan choice will affect how the player character makes their way through the world and how the world will, in turn, react to the character. Will your strength to get your way? Does your bloodsucker rub elbows with blue bloods in clubs and ballrooms alike or do they skulk in sewers and cemeteries feeding on rats? The characters that populate this twisted vision of L.A. are really what brings the whole game to (un)life. From their first night forward, players are embroiled in conspiracies and conflicts. A dangerous web of tenuous alliances and frenemies lies before the player character and any missteps will bring them that much closer to their second, final death.