General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

NY by Night

NY by Night (full title Vampire: The Masquerade – New York by Night) is a sanctioned American actual play (show where people play a tabletop RPG, acting out the session) web series whose cast of performers plays Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition, tracking two youthful vampire coteries attempting to carve out their place within the shadowy plots of New York City's undead underbelly.¹ It was produced for the official World of Darkness YouTube channel as the successor to L.A. By Night, ran for two eight-episode seasons in 2022, and has since been paused with a planned third season unreleased.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Official actual play web series using Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition, led by Storyteller Jason Carl⁴
Premiere	July 1, 2022, on YouTube, with the episode "Dear New York"²
Run	Two seasons of 8 episodes each; the finale "Made of Strife" aired November 21, 2022²^•⁵
Season 1 focus	The Anarch story: four young Kindred fed up with living under the Camarilla's strict rules¹
Season 2 focus	A Camarilla coterie with an all-new cast⁶
Rating and runtime	TV-MA; episodes average 129 minutes⁷
Audience score	8.3 out of 10 on IMDb⁴
Status	Episode releases paused as of January 2025; season 3 announced but unreleased³

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The show is set in the World of Darkness, the gothic-punk setting of Vampire: The Masquerade, where players portray Kindred, vampires navigating politics, hunger, and their own humanity. Paradox Interactive, which owns the setting, describes the show as following two coteries of young vampires through the schemes of New York City's undead underworld.¹ Season one represents the Anarch story, centered on a group of four Kindred who are fed up with living under the Camarilla, the setting's ruling vampire sect and its strict rules.¹

The two seasons form a deliberate pair. Season one follows the Anarch coterie, while season two shifts to a Camarilla coterie played by an all-new cast.⁶ According to the show's official page, both coteries begin their stories separately but are on a collision course through a parallel narrative planned for season three.¹

Cast and characters

Jason Carl, who also created and led L.A. By Night, serves as the Storyteller, the game master who narrates the world and adjudicates the rules.⁴ The season one Anarch coterie consists of Fuego Walker (Aabria Iyengar), Isaac Brooke (Alexander Ward), Reyes Malcolm (Joey Rassool), and Serif (Mayanna Berrin).⁸ The season two Camarilla cast includes Noura Ibrahim as Khalida, Cynthia Marie as Coco, Xander Jeanneret as Brawn, and Michelle Nguyen Bradley as Kiếm, with Persephone Valentine as Simone, Gina DeVivo as Bree, and Becca Scott as Aisling among the credited players.⁷

The series also connects back to its predecessor. Community sources describe NY by Night as the official continuation of L.A. By Night, with at least one Los Angeles character making a guest appearance.³

Episodes and broadcast

Season one ran weekly from July through August 2022, opening with "Dear New York" on July 1 and closing with "Virtue Overthrow" on August 26.² Season two ran from October 3 to November 21, 2022, ending with "Made of Strife", which TVDB marks as the series finale.²^•⁵ Episodes are long-form: the average runtime is 129 minutes, and the first episode ran 2 hours 16 minutes 54 seconds.⁷^•⁸ An academic chapter on the series notes that the first episode aired on Twitch on July 4, 2022, indicating a simulcast or rebroadcast alongside the YouTube release.⁹

Reception and style

The series holds an 8.3/10 rating on IMDb from a small vote base, and is rated TV-MA.⁴^•⁷ Reviewers of the actual play scene describe it as roleplay-focused rather than combat-focused, with each episode moving quickly despite its length.⁶ An academic analysis in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies examined how the show's depiction of the Cage, a club that orients newly turned vampires and serves as a hub for power brokering and community care, ties the vampire fiction to real New York histories, including the AIDS crisis of the late 1990s.⁹

Hiatus and aftermath

No third season has aired. Fanlore records that episode releases were paused as of January 2025, and community discussion through 2024 and 2025 treats the show as on an extended hiatus rather than formally canceled, with scheduling for a large cast and production costs among the speculated factors.³ In the meantime, much of the cast continued playing together: Alexander Ward leads Private Nightmares, an unofficial Vampire: The Masquerade story set in Los Angeles produced under Project Ghostlight, with players including Aabria Iyengar, Xander Jeanneret, and Mayanna Berrin from LA and NY by Night.¹⁰ Paradox has since returned to the format with other official chronicles, including Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness and a 2026 Gen Con playtest led by Ward.¹⁰^•¹¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Genre web series: horror, thriller, science fiction, and mystery

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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