Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2's main quest is an elaborate, labyrinthine conundrum that spans a century, full of vibrant characters and evocative writing. Bloodlines 2's sidequests, on the other hand, are pointless, one-note tasks that will send you into a torpor.
Every night, the primogens of Seattle's vampire clans sit around in their havens, waiting for you, Sheriff Phyre, to come and solve things that one of their goons should be handling. The absolute best you can hope for is some murder, being sent to kill a human in need of a beatdown or a ghoul who's gotten too big for its britches.
Otherwise, you'll be searching for CCTV cameras, decorative crosses, graffiti and packages. Yeah, we're talking bottom-of-the-barrel filler quests here—stuff that you'd even roll your eyes at in a quest-laden MMO. In a brisk 20-30 hour narrative-driven RPG, they're unacceptably bad.
These quests are devoid of plot, have little to no impact on the rest of the game, and since this is an RPG without gear, the rewards are terribly basic. XP, which you'll get plenty of during the main quest, and blood resonance, which you can gain from feeding on Seattle's human population anyway. It's almost like The Chinese Room doesn't want you to do them. Maybe it's a test.
If you're absolutely desperate for another ability point because you're just on the cusp of unlocking a new power, then sure, maybe it'll be worth your time to do one of these odd jobs. But there's no point in doing them otherwise. There are some associated achievements, of course, but if you're willing to have a terrible time just so Steam will tell you that you've done a good job, you're beyond saving.
Now, if you want to embark on some undead romance, it still pays to visit these primogens. By asking them about themselves at different junctures during the story, you'll get opportunities to make a positive impression. You'll also get a relationship bump from the primogens who task you with the collection quests like smashing CCTV cameras or finding crosses if you respond to their request enthusiastically.
From my testing, however, it doesn't look like the sidequests themselves have an much of an impact on these relationships—if any at all. In most cases, I was able to have what The Chinese Room calls a "romantic feed" pretty early on, regardless of how many sidequests I'd completed. It's also worth nothing that these romantic scenes offer nothing but a fade-to-black and some awkward noises. They are completely disconnected from the rest of the game.
So I'm here to tell you that you don't need to do any of the the sidequests. This is not a case of an RPG starting you out with some busywork only to surprise you with a great story or some incredible rewards. No, this is a case of a developer best known for evocative walking sims forcing itself to cram some basic filler into its first RPG. Because it thinks it has to.
This is no excuse, of course. And The Chinese Room's narrative flair makes these rubbish diversions an even greater transgression. A bit of story, a bit of character, and these sidequests could have been somewhat worthwhile. But instead the studio opted to just tick a box and call it a day. Given all the delays, I expected more.
By committing to finishing them all, you're just derailing another otherwise tight story; choosing not to move to the next meaningful sequence, instead pausing the good stuff to rush halfway across the city to pick up a parcel that has zero bearing on anything. You deserve better.
Trust me, you'll have a much better time just focusing on the main quest, which is where The Chinese Room clearly put all of its energy.
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