Fundamentals (must know) before playing VtM:R or AoR

As you can tell, there are basic information and guides lacking here on Steam when starting this game. Here is what I believe is fundamental to know before playing Vampire The Masquerade - Redemption (VTMR) and/or the Age of Redemption version (AoR mod). This includes making sure it is working properly, what are the controls in-game, etc.

// Does not include walkthrough nor spoilers.

The controls are original and without a tutorial

Unless you check the file manual.pdf in the game folder, you cannot guess most of the controls. For example, Shift plus left-click does a heavier slower attack. Using a Discipline (once selected), is done by right-clicking.

Thou hath been warned ! Read the holy manual, at least the controls.

NEW CONTROLS were added in version 1.1 which are not in the manual
- They are listed in ReadmePatch.rtf. Here are a few I find more important:

• Stances: keys A / N / E act as if you pressed the Attack / Neutral / Defense button on the User Interface. Though clicking on stance buttons will change entire party to that stance, if you hold SHIFT or CTRL with those buttons, only the selected member will adopt that stance!
  
• SHIFT+Regroup button or R key will ungroup all, but G key toggles one character out/in...
  
• "pause break" on the keyboard will toggle the Pause Combat feature on and off.

Combat in VTMR is not about aiming or just slashing, but more about being tactical or using your party (coterie) and disciplines well. Knowing the keys to quickly switch orders or to pause will help.

Pausing and coterie control

Even if pausing is not very immersive, you will find it often a blessing. When paused, you can switch your weapon (eg. bow to melee), take the time to select the proper Discipline, and activate one (1 only) action (heal, attack, move, potion...) for each character in your party.

HOW - toggle "pause break" on your keyboard.
- do not use pause during cut-scenes. This freezes / bugs the game.

Coterie (party) control :

First, there are basic setting that tells characters to only use the powers placed in the Discipline Quick slots.* If you empty those slots, and use pause when you really want Disciplines (Blood) used, you can micro-manage your coterie a bit like a tactical game (well, to a certain extent, but the AI will still continue using many actions in combat without your consent).

Even finer control..

- In the controls named above, note how you can tell a specific character to be in a Stance that is different from the group (ex: one character aggressive while the others wait for orders). In addition, un-grouping a character (g key) allows to order them to stay put instead of following the leader.

- If you use the AoR mod, you can set the AI Discipline Use to None (under Player tab), turn off AI Fully Aggressive and turn off AI Hunts For Blood if you want to really control which powers they use.*

* Exceptions : though, no matter what settings you chose (both vanilla and AOR), they will use their healing ability and use items to heal themselves even if they are not placed in the quickslots (this is a vanilla minor bug in my opinion). Brujah vampires will also often use Awe anytime no matter your settings.

Game-breaking: make sure the game can overwrite past saves

TEST - Pressing ESC in-game, try to Save over a used save slot and use a different name for your new save. If you can see the new save, all is good.

If not, this will cause game-breaking bugs. You must fix it before playing more.

WHY - With Windows Vista to 10, the game may fail to autosave, overwrite past saved games, and fail to save related world events, if it is not "Run as administrator". This can cause dialogues, items and cut-scenes to disappear or be buggy when you load a past saved game.

When you launch the un-modded game from Steam, the game will normally request administrator elevation. If not, or if you are using the AoR version, you MUST make sure the game is set to "Run as administrator".
--

Other possible fix on Windows 10 :
(I greatly doubt this fixes anything, but the source was credible)
Open the Properties of the folder for your saves (normally inside the game folder). Make sure the options under Advanced > "Archive and Index attributes" are checked on (check them off, apply, set them back on, apply, and accept the dialog box about setting all files the same).

Behar's Widescreen Fix (link repaired)

The game was originally designed with a screen ratio of 4:3. When playing with the wider screen resolution of today (ex.: 1920 x 1080), the UI and menu are overly stretched and become blurry ; and take up a lot of space away from the action screen.

The following mod/fix stops the UI from over-stretching and becoming too big and blurry.

Place the folders named Miles and UI inside the game folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/salbfqyfz8hlyu1/VTMR%20Widescreen%20%282015.05.05%29.rar?dl=0
( Linked updated here in 2025. as the e-mods site has fallen.)
--

Nb: For resolutions beyond 1080p, there are other guides and fixes, but that I have not tested.

Another fix, which is said to "stretch the UI and fix the FOV", can be found here :
https://www.moddb.com/addons/unofficial-widescreen-fixes

Adjusting the darkness (gamma)

The in-game setting for brightness/darkness (gamma) will not work for technical reasons.

Some missions are in dark interiors and therefore are very dark.

SOLUTIONS :
a) The very immersive option: use the torches in-game during the first mission ;
b) The vampiric option : later, you have some abiltiies to see a bit better in darkness ;
c) The Path of Geekness : your graphics card certainly has a Control Panel. It allows you to modify the brightness or gamma and this will work in-game. Changing the brightness directly on your monitor might not work so well.

Age of Redemption (AoR) - recommended

This very popular mod for VtM:R ...

• improves the game logic of some actions
  
• fixes some game-breaking and minor bugs
  
• adds some Disciplines
  
• rehauled weapons*
  
• allows you many game configuration options. You can make the game easier or harder. For example, I dislike quick un-immersive respawns, so I set the respawn timer to the maximum (8 hours).

Important : make sure you launch AoR from the shortcut it installs. The shortcut includes required command lines. Set that shortcut to "Run as administrator".

* Mild warning : the weapon damages are very steep or high. It makes the game more challenging. If you feel it is over-the-top (eg. two-handed weapons can almost one-shot an elder and other extremes), the mod offers you rather complete configurations, notably decreasing Damage Resistance for the player side and/or enemy side (Yes, decreasing seems wrong, but it reduces all damage. The term "Damage Resistance" is wrong and should be called "Damage Output").

That said, I wish AoR 2017 was much closer to the tabletop rules. It makes it closer to the tabletop on many aspects (feeding rules, Disciplines, etc.), but be warned the 2017 version has extreme damage values for many weapons, that you can change in the user-friendly AoR Config window.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/age-of-redemption
[ the original site e-mods.net has fallen ]

Launching AoR as VtM:R from Steam

RESULT - When I play the AoR version, Steam shows that I am playing VtM:R and counts my playtime. Ok, this bit is not really fundamental.

HOW - In "Set Launch Options..." (Properties) on Steam for the vanilla game, add this line:

"C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Age of Redemption 2017\Run Age of Redemption Mod" %command%

Of course, adapt the path if it is different on your PC. As you can see, we run the AoR shortcut as it contains proper commands for the mod to work well.

(guide version)

This is version 1.3b of this guide (Sept. 2025). For game version 1.1
- I updated the links for the widescreen fixes and the AOR mod.
Your feedback may help improve it.
--
See also -3xA'Lu©κy guide that names some of the controls:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=909946411

[Cassian]

Yea, I saw that in the guide. I was just wanting to lower two handed cause it was insane. Like 2-3 times a 1h. BUT I already beat it without changing it lol. It was hard AF but I did it

[Baraz]

@Cassian
I presume you mean with the AoR mod. Without the mod or another mod (?), no.

With AoR, using the configuration exe, you can decrease the damage you take by ticking "decreasing Damage Resistance". I know the wording does not make sense, but it actually decreases how much damage you take, which is needed because the mod changes the damage output of weapons and it is too high for some weapons.

[Cassian]

Thanks for the response. I thought it did cause I googled it and it told me f9 lol.

Is there a way to just adjust 2 hander damage a tad? I can' even get through josef's tunnels in the begining of the game. Man one shots me, while I have a two-hander that does 160 and it tickles him lol.

[Baraz]

Hello @Cassian,

First, I don't think this game has any Quicksave option. It has autosaves and you can do manual saves.

If you cannot create new saves (test it by changing save names), then I had similar bugs at first and found a fix.

In this guide, check the section called
"Game-breaking: make sure the game can overwrite past saves."

If you saves work: great. Just do manual saves.

[Cassian]

Quick save does nothing. I hit f9 and...nothin

[π/@]

Having issues trying to install AoR. I've got widescreen fix, reshade, dgvoodoo, and Character Textures Improved and those all run fine.
Run the AoR installer tell it to go to the main file on drive D (have GOG version) but it keeps installing AoR in the shortcut file on drive C.
Just tried running the installer from the main file for VtmR got a half success. Half the files in the main folder and the other half this time just made it's own folder on drive C.
Tried just copying over files to main file but no luck.
Running the game from the "Run AoR" works up until the intro cutscene ends "loading" pops up, boom crash every time.
idk what else to try.

[kITE]

speaking on the deviant art fanfic scene that the age of redemption mod provides, it also cuts out one of the most important lines of dialogue in the entire game.

[kITE]

age of redemption would be cool to use on your first playthrough but it has the most forced scene after the time skip its like something out of a deviantart fanfic made by an 11 year old that ruins the immersion almost entirely, i dont even think the modern age ui pops up either some of the bosses during preliminary fight conversations literally will move into the wrong place before the conversation starts breaking immersion and making the game look more buggy than it really is. between that and the extremely unbalanced damage output from enemies even at normal settings its literally not worth the rest of the features except for multiplayer. just play vanilla first.

[capocapy]

Thank you! I haven't played this since 2000, but I always hoped for more from this game, such as some of the extra maps being used for additional player-created scenarios, or being able to play through the whole game as human Christof, etc. I'm glad people got it working. I'm not usually into rebalance mods so I will do what the other guide said and launch vanilla mode.

[Baraz]

@capocapy : I can only share the link to the mod. I do not know more than what they declare.
https://www.e-mods.net/

It mostly adds many options (for example, I hate quick respawns) and improves disciplines, but it also says to have improved some of the "level design", which I interpret as changing the placement of some encounters.