In May, Darkness Emergent is a Vampire: The Masquerade LARP and convention event that happens in LA. For the past few years, there has been a steady stream of major news announcements for the brand. Last year, it returned to the White Wolf name. This year, a mysterious announcement indicated that Vampire: The Masquerade would return to Gen Con in a big way. There will be play tests, but honestly, I don’t really know anything else about what will be happening. When I read the announcement, I immediately went to the World of Darkness Discord, and there’s been a ton of speculation. What does this mean for the future of both Vampire: The Masquerade and the World of Darkness brand itself?

The first theory is that this will be either an update to the fifth edition (V5) rules or a whole new edition of the game. Think how Dungeons & Dragons has 2024 rules and 2014 rules; that would be similar to this. As someone who owns a few of the V5 books, I wouldn’t be as excited about a new edition. If there were new rules to learn, do I really have the time for that? I’d more than likely wait until the book is released and read reviews online. According to the White Wolf wiki, V5 was released in 2018, which was eight years ago, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable that this is what they are moving forward with.

The second theory is that this could be Dark Ages. Before both this post and this announcement, I had no idea what Dark Ages were. Dark Ages was a spin-off to Vampire: The Masquerade, where players played vampires in 1230 CE. There were wars all across Europe and a divide between what was considered a high clan and a low clan. Okay, this could actually be interesting if World of Darkness and White Wolf made this into a recent edition. It would appeal to fans who have been with the brand from the beginning, and me, who was brought into the game through V5. I could see this being something exciting to debut at Gen Con of all places.

The final theory, even though this is incorrect, is that this announcement would include a fifth edition version of either Mage: The Ascension or Changeling: The Dreaming. I say incorrect because even though we don’t know what the announcement is, the wording was related to Vampire specifically. I have never played Mage or Changeling, but I have heard nothing but good things about both games. I know there are live-play podcasts that play these systems. I haven’t had a chance to listen to them yet. I will keep this short since I can’t really expand on them, but if there was a sneaky announcement involving either game, I’d be curious about it.

I’m fortunate that I have friends going to Gen Con, so you better believe I texted them once this announcement was released. My friends promised to keep me informed, whether they ended up doing a play test or not. I’m curious to see what ends up being revealed in the coming months.