Vampire: The Masquerade Expands With New Card Game

The popular Vampire: The Masquerade franchise is getting a brand new card game. Earlier this month, Renegade Game Studios, Paradox Interactive, and White Wolf Entertainment announced Vampire: The Masquerade - The Expandable Card Game, a new card game set in the World of Darkness. Details about the new game, including exactly what a "Expandable Card Game" is, weren't provided in the initial announcement, but it's another sign of Vampire: The Masquerade's continued resurgence in recent months. The game is currently slated for release in 2020.

Vampire: The Masquerade is one of the most popular tabletop RPGs of all time, and attracted a huge fanbase in the 1990s. The game allows players to play as a vampire hiding within human society, balancing their need for human blood with avoiding the Beast, the feral side of vampires that transforms them into mindless bloodthirsty monsters. The game has received praise for its balance of horror, moral quandaries, and a focus on interpersonal and internal struggles rather than external forces. Last year, White Wolf Entertainment released a new edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, leading to the game's resurgence. A new video game, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is also planned for release next year, which will likely help the game expand even further.

Coincidentally, Vampire: The Masquerade was used to create one of the first collectible card games. Back in 1994, Wizards of the Coast released Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, which was designed by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield. New expansions for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle came out until 2010, and Black Chantry Publications recently announced they had obtained the rights to Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and released new cards for the first time in nearly a decade.

Vampire: The Masquerade - The Expandable Card Game will be released in 2020.