In early 2017 a trailer dropped for a game that involved vampires. We had no idea what it was, but everyone can agree it looked cool. It was so cool, in fact, that the developers decided to change the spelling from Vampire to Vampyr (Yes, it’s pronounced like “vampire”, and not “vamp-eer” as I initially thought). Back at E3 2017, I was fortunate enough to see a live demo from the developer and was immediately curious once I witnessed the game’s distinct way of telling its story. After about 25 hours, I’d say Vampyr is the closest thing to a vampire simulator that we may get in a AAA game. It’s a macabre and eerie tale of supernatural entities entering our world that maintains it’s historical accuracy while simultaneously giving its own spin on the vampire genre. Still, it’s ambitious new way of storytelling ends up becoming the most underutilized aspect.
Exploring the streets of London does put out a very dreadful atmosphere with an excellent score by Olivier Deriviere. The score truly adds to the feeling of hopelessness and despair that majority of the NPC characters describe. The streets of London are riddled with disease and poverty. I could tell DONTNOD did an immense amount of research to create an accurate depiction of 20th Century London. Its atmosphere is enhanced due to the gothic color palette. As the game always takes place at night, the atmosphere always stays consistent. This being a vampire game, expect a mix of black and red littered around the city. For those who played DONTNOD’s previous game, Life is Strange, they’ll recall the game’s art design was similar to that of a sketch drawing. Vampyr takes a similar approach, but instead, it’s aesthetic was reminiscent of a gothic painting. I’m glad I was able to notice this as the game’s facial animations and lip syncing don’t look up to par, but they were able to get away with this due to its art design.
With Vampyr, players take on the role of Dr. Jonathan Reid during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Reid was once a doctor during WW1, and he’s been investigating a phenomenon where citizens are becoming ravenous beasts, and myths about vampires have been arising. Reid has always been a man of science, so the idea of immortal entities such as vampires have always made him a skeptic. He soon turns into a believer as his supernatural abilities start developing and he gains an insatiable thirst for blood following a mysterious event that he can’t seem to remember. This is where the game’s story begins, with Reid waking in some sort of trance. The game’s narrative is based around Reid trying to figure out the cause of his new tendencies and hopefully find a cure for it. Make no mistake, Vampyr is a narrative driven game before it is an action RPG. Players will spend the majority of the playthrough speaking to various NPCs and solving multiple mysteries with the game’s Investigations. The Investigations are where Vampyr truly shines, as there are many different side quests to partake in, each with their own self-contained stories. The game’s main story is fairly straightforward throughout, but in order to level up quickly, Reid will need some extra boosts of XP, which the citizens can help with. The game takes full advantage of giving players the ability to truly become a vampire, with over 60 NPCs throughout the districts that Reid can decide to either spare or prey upon. I also haven’t seen this many branching dialogue options since Witcher 3. It’s impressive just how much Reid can learn about a specific character from either speaking to them directly or finding out information from another source. In one occurrence, I just randomly looted a trash can only to find a character’s diary which gave me more information to confront her with. This organic way of storytelling is Vampyr’s biggest selling point.
Each citizen has their own personality, backstory, and most importantly, blood quality. The better a person’s Blood Quality, the more XP that person is worth to consume. As there is a sickness going around the city, some citizens may have diseases that can bring the Blood Quality down. Luckily for players, Reid is a qualified doctor who can craft cures for these diseases with various materials found in the world, and curing this disease brings up the Blood Quality. It’s a brilliant form of situational irony since curing a disease may seem like a grand gesture, but Reid may have his own sinister intentions. That being said, I found myself usually avoiding the urge to feed on most citizens as it made sense for Reid’s character to be a good Samaritan. I would spend my time feeling like vampire vigilante and only choose to feed upon the citizens whom I felt deserved it. Not only does it make sense morally, but the motivation to feed upon citizens will go away the more I leveled up. XP is earned at a consistent and comfortable rate. While a nice bump in XP is no doubt rewarding, the game’s challenge slowly dwindles down after it’s first few hours.
I’d say Vampyr’s combat is it’s similar to that of Bloodborne, since it mainly consists of locking on, dodging, and waiting for the right time to hit while maintaining stamina. Reid’s arsenal of weapons can either damage enemies, stun them, or even steal blood from. Weapon variety seems to be lacking, but luckily Reid can upgrade the weapons with various resources found throughout the city. It’s a very run-of-the-mill crafting system, but it has its purpose. Reid’s vampire abilities can only be used with blood, which can be obtained on and off combat. Enemies can be stunned, which gives Reid the opportunity to go in and bite them for their blood. This adds a new layer to an otherwise clunky combat system. The combat also doesn’t evolve much after it’s few hours since the abilities that Reid can obtain only get upgraded to become more powerful without many new bonuses. Soon the combat becomes trivial, thus removing any sense of difficulty. The incentive to feed on citizens goes away as the consequences of doing so are not worth the risk.
Since Vampyr’s cast of characters are generally well written and performed, I had sympathy and empathy throughout. I’m sure the purpose of the Citizen System was to put players on their own moral spectrum as they sacrificed characters throughout, but the lack of difficult combat encounters eventually diminishes its usefulness. Putting this all together made me realize that Vampyr didn’t need combat at all honestly. The main story and side narratives told throughout are, for the most part, top-notch in their execution. It’s almost as if combat was thrown in to differentiate this from other story-based games like Telltale. Instead, this decision ultimately hinders the experience as a whole. By constantly throwing players into a random combat situation, it takes the focus away from it’s gripping and morbid tale.
Vampyr does suffer from technical issues that can affect the experience. At times, the game will need to load while players are moving, and while these can be sometimes annoying, it happens sparsely to almost be forgiven. Other times, some bugs are much worse. In one instance, I couldn’t complete a sidequest due to the game not registering that I had found a specific item. This completely halted the progress on this one sidequest which soon became frustrating. I stated earlier that combat is generally easy, but there is one enemy type that will cause the most aggravation and fails: the camera. I had way too many occurrences of me completely losing a fight as the camera could not keep up with my movement and I would lose sight of the enemies.
Vampyr is a game that doesn’t fully live up to its potential. Technical issues aside, the Citizen System is a great concept, but it’s execution ultimately fails due to the combat. The combat is both uninspired and way too easy. I never felt forced to feed on citizens as much as the game wanted me to. This is a shame as I truly felt the weight of my actions whenever I did feed on a citizen, but the rewards just did not justify the sacrifice. At the very beginning of my playthrough, the game will even state that difficulty is based on the player’s actions. I only fed upon a very small number of citizens and the game was still way too easy. DONTNOD has succeeded in creating a wonderful and intriguing world, full of consequences and weighty decisions. Reid is a fully fleshed out protagonist as well as many other characters. It was quite interesting how well the historical setting meshed with the vampire lore. All these pieces should have made something special, but the emphasis on combat takes this potential away. I can say I’d recommend Vampyr for its unique way of storytelling, but just be sure to get this at a sale or rent. Maybe enough feedback will motivate the developers to come out with a harder difficulty mode that forces players to fully take advantage of it’s Citizen System.
