Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is a narrative-driven, single-player role-playing video game[4] in which the player controls three vampires with different vampiric disciplines (abilities),[5][6] switching between them over the course of the game.[7] The player can customize the characters by choosing to upgrade their disciplines and character statistics to suit their preferred playstyle;[6] this influences character interaction and skills used while exploring the game world, such as picking locks and hacking computer terminals.[8] Because the player characters often are surrounded by humans, the player needs to be careful about when and where they choose to use supernatural abilities, to avoid revealing their characters' vampiric nature.[9]
Throughout the game, the characters are put in difficult situations where the player has to make moral choices,[5] with no obviously correct choice.[9]