7 Vampire The Masquerade - Swansong Tips We Wish We Knew Before Playing

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong tips are super important, even though it may seem like a simple investigative, story-driven game where all you need to do is talk to NPCs to get to the end. However, your experience with VTM Swansong can be improved by following this list, because each tip here will make your life easier. From learning where to find valuable information to how to approach failure, there are many aspects of the game you should learn about before jumping into it. So, here are our top VTM Swansong tips to give you a hand in solving its mysteries.

• The Swansong Red Implant puzzle is one that stumped us for a while, so check out our guide to learn what you need to know to solve it.

VTM Swansong Tips: Pay Attention To Every Word So You Don't Miss Anything

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VTM Swansong leaves a crumb trail of hints to help you solve the puzzles or at least to know where you're supposed to look for an important item. Although sometimes it does that visually, more than once you can hear a NPC commenting on where a specific character was seen or how an accident happened in a certain room.

Since it can happen with less important NPCs, what they say can be easily ignored. Pay attention to them whenever you can, because it'll save you a lot of time trying to figure out something quite simple.

VTM Swansong Tips: Retread Areas You've Already Explored To Find New Interactions

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From the very start, it's clear how important exploration is. Checking as many places as you can and interacting with items is necessary to understand the possibilities the game is giving you to finish a mission. By doing so, you eventually find doors that can’t be opened or boxes that you can interact with but seem pointless, so it's easy to forget about them.

At the same time, you will find new items that can be used in these previous places, but the game does not give you any indication this is the case. Since the relation an item has with a specific element is not always explicit, it's important to go back and check if new interactions have become available. Otherwise, you'll end up ignoring too much side content or getting stuck somewhere because you've forgotten to go back and check areas you've already been to.

• The Swansong Freud Books solution isn't immediately obvious, so our guide is here to help.

VTM Swansong Tips: Later Levels Aren't Linear So Explore Your Options

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While solving puzzles is a major element in VTM Swansong, they don’t always follow the same pattern. Initially, most puzzles have only one way to be solved but eventually, the game will introduce missions in which you can utilize more than one method to complete them.

In a specific chapter, you must get a door open and to do so you have three routes to choose from. So always keep in mind that if you are stuck at one location, there may be another option of how to finish the level.

VTM Swansong Tips: Restart The Level If You're Not Happy With Your Choices

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It's not an exaggeration to say that the choices you make while talking to NPCs in this game are important because you'll be funnelled down a specific route and other paths will be locked off. Using your skills is necessary to attempt the best outcome, but if you fail, you can restart the chapter without any penalties.

This may sound simple, but it's easy to avoid doing it because it takes too long to return to the point you were at. Thankfully, this isn't the case in Swansong because you already know exactly where the items you need are and which dialogue options to pick, so you can speed through.

VTM Swansong Tips: You'll Find A Lot Of Hidden Items If You Take The Time To Explore

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Items and consumables come in very handy throughout Swansong, especially if you don't fancy restarting the level as per the previous tip. It's easy to restrict yourself to the dialogue screen rather than using something like a potion inside a drawer in the last room because you forgot to explore that far, so make sure you're taking full advantage of the entire level.

VTM Swansong Tips: Dealing With Hunger Is Actually Pretty Easy

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Vampires need blood to survive, but rather than letting you loose on anyone in a mad killing spree, VTM Swansong addresses the thirst for blood via the Hunger mechanic. Whenever you use your powers, your Hunger increases, measured by a gauge shown on-screen. If this gauge reaches its limit then your character may lose control and attack a human, which sounds quite tragic, but it's actually quite easy to satiate your hunger. 

Besides the consumables you can find, there are a considerable amount of safe spots to send a hypnotized human and suck their blood far from anyone to see. As your last option, during most levels, you will find rats that can help lower your Hunger level.

VTM Swansong Tips: Write Down Important Info Because The Game Doesn't Keep Track For You

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A big part of your experience in VTM Swansong is based on collecting clues or important data to solve puzzles. To do so, you go through many documents, little notes left by unknown NPCs, audio files recorded on tapes, and so on. Even though you stumble upon passwords or hints on how to get through the challenges you face in this game, VTM Swansong does not keep these pieces of information for you to access through the menu.

So to avoid facing the frustration of forgetting the sequence a set of books must be pulled, then having to go back to another room and listen to a whole recording to remember it, you should always take note of any piece of information you find that seems important.

Now you know all of our top Swansong tips, why not read about how to solve the Swansong Oedipus puzzle?