The Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 – Loose Cannon DLC was released a few weeks ago. I was contemplating whether I wanted to play it or not because out of all the Camarilla characters in the game, Benny is my least favorite. Granted, he’s barely in the main game, so there isn’t much I know about him except that he’s quite literally a loose cannon. I ended up buying another game to play, so I added this DLC to my cart. I ended up enjoying Loose Cannon more than I thought I would. Is the DLC worth the cost? It depends. In this post, I’ll break down what the DLC includes, so you can decide for yourself.

Spoilers for both Bloodlines 2 and Loose Cannon

Loose Cannon has four story missions where, as mentioned, you play as Benny Muldoon, the former sheriff of the Seattle Camarilla. The four missions are as follows:

• “The Meet” – Meet with Mr. Sunshine. This mission takes place ten years before Bloodlines 2.
• “The Tail” – Tail a contact of Katsumi’s to see where they are going
• “The Drop” – Make a delivery to Weaver Tower. Portions of this mission take place four years before Bloodlines 2.
• “The Sting” – Last story mission. Completing this mission will end the DLC

The first three missions listed can be played in any order. I listed them in the order I chose to play them in. Out of all the missions, “The Meet” and “The Sting” are the combat-heavy portions, whereas the other two provide more to the story. Starting with “The Meet”, Benny goes to meet Mr. Sunshine, a contact he’s been hearing from when Bloodlines 2 begins. The game flashes back to ten years ago, when Benny is instructed to deal with a breach of the masquerade. He ends up meeting an associate of Mr. Sunshine, Mr. Night, and after he defeats him, he meets Mr. Sunshine. Mr. Sunshine, unsurprisingly, is Gideon Hall, Fabien’s former sire. He shows Benny visions of the events of Bloodlines 2, and Benny latches on to Katsumi’s potential involvement in them. This helps explain Benny’s violence towards the thin-bloods and anarchs who he believes are responsible for Seattle’s downfall. In “The Tail”, Benny finds out where Katsumi’s base of operations is. In “The Drop”, there’s a flashback to Benny receiving the title of sheriff from Prince Campbell. It’s mentioned how the previous sheriff, Mr. Hayward, betrayed the Camarilla, but it’s left ambiguous as to what he did. This is how Benny received the sheriff title to begin with. Once the memory plays, Benny brings a box along with his resignation to Weaver Tower. Safia opens it and sees Campbell’s severed head. The last mission, “The Sting,” is unlocked after completing the other three missions. This mission shows Benny going after Katsumi and showing how he got staked, which is how Phyre finds Benny in the game.

Regarding the story, I wasn’t expecting this DLC to go into Benny’s background, although it would have been cool if it did. Why did he become a cop? Why was he chosen by Max, his sire? I feel there was a lot that could have been explored with Benny that would have been interesting to see. With that said, I enjoyed playing as Benny more than I thought I would. I liked how he had access to his Brujah abilities and a few others, so you could mix and match. It felt true to Benny, considering that he’s an elder, so of course, he would have access to other disciplines. This DLC also introduces guns and other weapons. This didn’t do much for me. It felt more awkward than anything else, and I preferred going into combat with my abilities than using Benny’s gun.

As far as how long this DLC was, I didn’t time myself when I played through it. I wanted to say it took me two hours. Maybe three? to complete. It depends on the difficulty you play on. Fun fact: if you play on Easy, it doesn’t automatically unlock the Casual PlayStation trophy. It’s written in the trophy description. I just figured if I played on Easy, it would unlock since it’s a greater difficulty, but that wasn’t the case. I ended up playing through the DLC twice, so I could unlock the Casual difficulty trophy. There’s a side quest where Benny can hunt down various anarch groups around Seattle. The only pain point there is that you still can’t set a custom waypoint, so even if I were following a walkthrough to complete everything, I still can’t mark a specific location. It makes this side quest more of a pain than anything else, but it’s the last thing I have in this DLC that I want to complete. For $15, I think this DLC kept me busy enough that I got my money’s worth.

Is this DLC worth it? As I mentioned, it depends. I had my grievances with Bloodlines 2, but one thing I loved about the game was the Camarilla contacts. The DLC catered to what I liked about the game. If you are someone who thought Bloodlines 2 was okay or mediocre, this DLC may not be worth it. If you’re expecting this DLC to go in-depth into Benny’s history, that’s not what this is. I think $15 is reasonably priced for what I got, but I can see where someone may disagree, and that’s fine. Loose Cannon was entertaining, and I’m not mad that I picked it up. I’m not sure if I will play the Ysabella DLC knowing what I know about Loose Cannon, but that’s something I’m debating on.