Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong ultrawide and wider solution
Added 2022-05-18 14:31:17 +0000 UTCAs you may know from reading the previous posts, leaving PCGW meant that I could no longer request games from its press account, and my /r/ultrawidemasterrace contact mostly moved on to represent a manufacturer of PC peripherals, which effectively put a stop to my ability to obtain review copies. No more getting people to wonder how I could put out the Kena patcher the minute of its official release!
Representing WSGF, there was not much I could offer, given its narrower reach, while asking as an individual for the sake of modding would be a lot like asking the question "Can I hack your game?". Moreover, I don't think that any publisher would love the assumption of their game being broken, nor could I know that in advance.
Thankfully, I still had access to a personal contact from Nacon, whose representatives had been super nice and giving in response to each of my requests via PCGW. The person knew of my work on Werewolf and multiple other titles from the publisher, so it must have played a role, as my request for a copy of Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong was fulfilled.
I was happy to get back on track and I definitely had a personal stake in it too, as it's been my most anticipated game probably since its announcement. As everyone waited for Elden Ring, the Final Fantasy 7 Remake or anything major that comes to mind, all I wanted was Swansong. I mean, as a huge fan of the franchise, what else could you want so much since Bloodlines? There were the visual novels, the text-based games, a BR game, but nothing close to a 3D RPG. How is this for a premise? :D
Having early access to the game, I did not have to rush as much as usual when working on a brand new game, and I was happy to discover that the game was quite like the other modern Unreal Engine 4 games without any special quirks, so relying on the past knowledge was good enough to walk through the code and fix it.
The easy-to-use drop-in solution removes the black bars from the cutscenes, dialogue, menu and other screens, and corrects the FOV reduction at the gameplay. I also covered the game as thoroughly and accurately as I could in a Detailed Report on WSGF.
The review embargo is already lifted but the game is coming out on May 19, at 10 AM CEST. Based on my playtime so far, it's as promising as I would have wanted, and it plays much like a game from Quantic Dream and Dontnod, or like The Medium.
