"Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines blends the best parts of an RPG and a first person action game, allowing players to explore a sophisticated character development system in an open non-linear realm while experiencing intense action sequences," states Larry Goldberg, executive vice president, Activision Worldwide Studios. "We are going to take full advantage of Valve's Source Technology to send you deep into a dark and intriguing Vampire underworld filled with haunting images."

"With Vampire, Troika is proving Source can reach beyond the world of FPS games," said Gabe Newell, managing director and co-founder of Valve. "The character system, rendering abilities, and contextual AI features of Source combined with the veteran RPG design talent at Troika is a great representation of the innovation we hope to enable with this technology."

"We are very excited to have Activision and Troika producing Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines," said Chris McDonough of White Wolf Games. "They are among the elite few companies capable of taking our property into the world of first person action gaming while still maintaining the story, setting, characters and role-playing aspects of the game."

Players begin their journey into darkness by choosing to play as any of seven different vampire clans. Each clan in the game offers a distinctive set of skills, traits and abilities including: supernatural speed, stealth, invisibility, mind control, inhuman strength, combat, and stamina, each of which will be further refined as players progress through the game. Players will earn and apply experience points to increase their powers and skills, allowing them to create their ultimate creature of the night, from stealthy hunter to seductive charmer to a feral, brutal killing machine.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines' combat will be instantly familiar to players of first-person action games. In addition to vampire skills and powers, gamers will be able to call upon a devastating arsenal of weapons including stake guns, shotguns, flamethrowers, submachine guns and sniper rifles, to name a few. Once players arm themselves to the teeth they will be ready to tackle the host of human vampire hunters, ghouls, werewolves, and enemy vampires that inhabit the City of Angels after nightfall.