Vampyr
Publisher: Sony Interactive
Release Date: June 5, 2018
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: RPG
Drink Responsibly
Written by Joshua David Anderson
One of the best things about video games is the sheer variety of games that can exist. Sure, there is disproportionate amount of games where you are a generic soldier running down a hallway shooting the opposing force, but there are plenty of strange, unique titles that attempt to do things differently. Vampyr, from Dontnod Entertainment, is one of the latter games. With its strange combination of Action RPG and British turn-of-the-century hospital drama, the real question is whether Vampyr can stick the landing.
Taking place in post World War 1 London, Vampyr tells the story of Jonathan Reid, a military doctor trying to help out a district of London beset by an outbreak of the Spanish flu. Helping to cure patients and help relieve the beleaguered citizens, Reid must also face strange goings on in the night, nefarious criminals, and religious fanatics all vying for control of the city. If that isn’t enough to deal with, Jonathan Reid has to deal with the fact that he has recently been turned into a vampire and has to drink human blood to survive. That last part really complicates things.
The dialogue and leveling system is where Vampyr really tries some new ideas, and some of it really shines. A huge part of the game is simply getting to know the characters in the game. Outside of random enemies, there aren’t generic NPCs filling the town. Rather, the districts are filled with specific, named characters all with complicated backstories and interwoven histories. Developers Dontnod have some experience with well written characters, with their previous game Life is Strange, and that pedigree is on display here as well. Every NPC you meet is full of interesting quirks and story, with almost no character fitting neatly into an archetype. Getting to know the characters and finding out their secrets is half the fun of the game.
However, getting to know the people of London can be a double edged sword. Remember, Reid is a vampire, and you need to eat people to survive. Every single character in the game can be killed, with each one affecting the district in different ways, most of them always surprising. Additionally, you can elect to eat no one, but you make the game harder, as drinking the blood of a citizen gives you experience points, which you use to fuel you vampiric powers in combat. This is one of the most unique parts of Vampyr: playing the heroic good guy is absolutely harder than simply chowing down. However, the only way to get the most out of killing an NPC for experience is to fill out their history and learn all their secrets. In order to be a powerful evil vampire, you have to absolutely get to know your victims. This is a smart choice, as it causes even the most hardened of bloodsucker to have to think about who they kill.
With the dialogue and story being a high point, combat is where the game suffers a bit. It certainly isn’t bad by any stretch, taking cues from Dark Souls and Bloodborne with a stamina system and lock on combat that feels familiar. You also have vampire powers that are fueled by blood that are very powerful and make you feel a step above the enemies you are fighting. As simple as the combat can feel, it does elicit a raw thrill every time you knock an enemy down and bite them to refill your blood meter. You also have melee weapons to upgrade and firearms to use, but those feel pedestrian next to your vampire claws or shooting a spear made out of blood from your hands.
Vampyr certainly isn’t perfect. The game makes a big point of telling the player that your choices will always have consequences, and the game doesn’t let you out of that either with a single save system that auto saves after everything you do. It is exciting when you make a choice and things in the game happen that you did not expect, like in real life. It is much more annoying when you choose a dialogue choice that causes you to fail getting a secret out of an NPC for no real shown reason. Both of these things happen in Vampyr. You can also try and eat the person you think is most expedible to a district only to find out they were key to some side quest, but honestly that actually helps make the decision have more weight.
In all, Vampyr is a unique game that feels like it belongs to another generation, when weird, medium budget games were much more common, and developers took more risks with mechanics. Not everything works out, but the story and the atmosphere make Vampyr worth checking out.