Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2: Loose Cannon Review. When a DLC Is Sold as an Event

Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2: Loose Cannon is one of those cases where the marketing promises you a significant story expansion, and what you actually get is a quest that feels like a cut piece of the main campaign. Officially the DLC is presented as the story of Bennie Muldoon, one that's supposed to expand the narrative, show events before the Nomad's arrival in Seattle, and add new context to the base game. In practice, after roughly 150 minutes of playtime, the impression left is not of a proper DLC but of a paid story insert selling for fifteen dollars.

The main problem with Loose Cannon isn't even its length but its scope. When you're promised an exploration of Bennie, you expect to see his past, another side of his life — perhaps a period before Seattle, or at least a deeper look at how he became who he is. Instead, the game stays almost entirely in familiar surroundings and simply states what was already clear: Bennie was an aggressive type who got tangled up in something dark, was seduced by power, and predictably turned into an embittered dog of the system.

At its core, this isn't a standalone drama but a gloss on an already-existing character — and a blunt one at that. A Masquerade violation, a drive to a confrontation, a strange entity near a statue, a deal, a betrayal, one more attempt to figure out what happened. All of it functions as a plot summary but not as a story worth buying a separate DLC for. If you're looking for more role-playing games with strong stories and atmosphere, take a look at the best RPGs of all time: Top 77 on PC and Consoles.

The bet here is on Bennie's tougher, more combat-oriented style: a new take on the Brujah clan's fighting approach, with an emphasis on weapons, violence, pressure, and close-quarters brawling. Bennie plays like a walking battering ram — rough, heavy, mean — and in the first half-hour there's even a certain energy to it. But then the realization sets in that nearly the entire expansion runs on fights. The abilities are there, some even amusing, but the most impressive ones quickly hit a resource ceiling, and the majority of encounters boil down to grinding through waves of enemies. Because of this, the DLC starts to feel less like a story expansion and more like a long combat section with lore spliced in between.

Loose Cannon tries to create a sense of dense storytelling through jumps between 2014 and 2024, flashbacks, and returns to familiar locations — as if this were a genuinely layered narrative. In practice, this structure does more to mask a simple story than to actually complicate it. You're not so much discovering new dimensions of the world as walking through already-familiar locations again, this time through Bennie's eyes, closing the narrative gap between his fate and the start of the main campaign. If you remember the end of the game and the statue storyline, it reads immediately. If you don't, the DLC barely functions on its own — it leans too heavily on context you're assumed to already have. For a similar dark atmosphere and occult undertones, check out our selection of best lovecraftian games and Cthulhu-inspired titles on PC and consoles.

And here's what's genuinely frustrating: as a free bonus quest, all of this would be perfectly acceptable. Not something to get excited about, not essential content, but a reasonable bonus after finishing the main campaign — a bit of lore, a couple of tough fights, one character who gets at least some additional texture. In that format, there would be far fewer questions about Loose Cannon. But as a paid story DLC it can't sustain its own ambitions. Formally this is a standalone story DLC with new quests, new enemies, a new perspective, and additional context for the campaign. And yes, technically all of that is present. The problem is that it's assembled into such a compact and limited piece of content that it feels not like an expansion but like material that should have been built into the base game from the start. And if you're looking for RPGs that will run fine on older hardware, take a look at the best RPGs for low-end PCs and laptops in 2026.

It's no surprise that the expansion has mixed reviews on Steam — 47% positive from 100 reviews. That's not a failure or a catastrophe. There's a working connection to the main story, there are a few energetic fights, and there's a clear attempt to flesh out Bennie Muldoon a little more. But none of that is enough to call Loose Cannon a proper DLC. As a quest, it'll do. As a paid story expansion — no. And if you're simply looking for something to play without spending much, we have a dedicated selection of best free PC games in 2026 in 2026.