Forget your bloodsucker RPGs and your gothic vampire drama - the next World of Darkness game to get the reveal treatment is a Werewolf metroidvania. Yes, you read that correctly. Someone looked at the Camarilla, the Sabbat, and all of vampire fiction's centuries of brooding lore, and said "nah, give me a furry platformer with interconnected maps." According to PC Gamer, that is exactly the game being unveiled next from the World of Darkness IP stable.
The developers are apparently not shy about it either - they led with actual gameplay footage, which in today's gaming landscape of CGI trailers and "in-engine" smoke-and-mirrors presentations is practically a speedrun world record for transparency. Show don't tell, as they say, except in this case it's "show don't howl."
Now look, on paper this sounds absolutely unhinged. Werewolf: The Apocalypse already got its shot at the spotlight with Earthblood back in 2021, a game that was received with the enthusiasm of a wet sock. But slapping the metroidvania formula onto a lycanthrope power fantasy? That's a different kind of crazy - the kind that might actually work. The genre rewards exploration, ability gating, and transformation mechanics, which maps surprisingly well onto a character who literally has multiple forms with different power sets.
The World of Darkness IP has been on a bit of a comeback arc lately, with Vampire: The Masquerade getting multiple game adaptations of varying quality. Expanding into other corners of the universe makes sense from a business perspective, even if "Werewolf metroidvania" sounds like something you'd generate by asking a random RPG fan what their dream game is at 2am.
The real question is whether the gameplay footage they've shown actually holds up under scrutiny. Early gameplay reveals can be a buff that wears off fast - looking at you, every Ubisoft showcase ever. But if the movement feels good and the transformation mechanics have some meat on the bone (pun absolutely intended), this could be one of those delightful genre mashups that nobody predicted but everyone ends up playing. We'll be watching this one closely.
