Hey now everybody, hope you're doing well, and welcome to my review of the game Vampyr! When I first heard about this I knew I had to try it out, being a massive fan of the horror genre. My plan was to pick it up at launch, but at that time I was preoccupied with other games, so I had to wait a little bit before getting it. Then I started to see the lackluster reviews from just about every major publication, and started to fear that this might not be worth my time. But eventually I did play through this in it's entirety, and I have to say that I found it to be better than it's getting credit for. The game isn't a masterpiece or anything, but it's definitely not a C- experience, not in my opinion anyway. So let me give you the rundown, and I'll try my best to let you know if it's something you might enjoy.
Vampyr is an action role playing game, developed by Dontnod Entertainment. You might recognize them as the team that made Life Is Strange. Much like that game, Vampyr is heavily focused on relationships with other characters, and is a narrative driven experience. Unlike Life Is Strange, Vampyr also features lots of combat, exploration, and leveling up, allowing you to pick from various new skills. The game takes place in 1918 London, in the middle of the Spanish Influenza epidemic. You play as Doctor Jonathan Reid, a specialist in blood transfusions, who just got back from the front lines of war to reunite with his Mother, and Sister. But when he returns to London he gets attacked, and wakes up in a mass grave in the outskirts of town.
He awakens in this pit of bodies, disgusted, and confused as to what has happened to him. Just then he sees someone, and this animalistic urge for blood takes him over. Jonathan lunges at this poor soul, drinking their blood, making himself stronger. Before he can collect himself a group of vampire hunters closes in on him, forcing Jonathan to flee for his life. He comes across the head of the local hospital, Dr. Edgar Swansea, and the two of them agree to help each other out in these difficult times. From that point on Jonathan uses the Pembroke Hospital as his base of operations, trying to come to terms with what he's become, as he and Dr. Swansea try to cure the disease running rampant in the city.
London is broken down into 4 districts that each have their own distinct features, as well as a dozen or so citizens. Since you are a doctor, and a vampire, you are perpetually torn about what to do with each district's inhabitants. The biggest part of the game is exploring each area, and talking to everyone. As you get to know them better they will open up more, sometimes giving you side quests, or sometimes needing medical attention. You have the choice to either help them, or feed on their blood, which will net you large amounts of XP that you can use to make yourself stronger. But killing people is not necessary at all to complete the game, and doing so will have grave consequences for that district. If the district's overall health falls below a certain point it will become overrun with enemies, and most of the citizens will die.
I killed one person my entire playthrough, and that was before I knew what I was doing. Once I started to get to know these people I couldn't bring myself to kill them anymore. Even though I didn't feed on random people, I still had plenty of XP to acquire a good amount of abilities, but it would have been nice to go all out, and become super powerful, maybe on another playthrough. The game has an excellent story that kept me engaged the whole time. The characters are very well done, with great voice acting, and depending on what dialog choices you make, things can play out very differently. Dontnod Entertainment seems to have that part down to a science now, and it was definitely the highlight of the game.
Another aspect of Vampyr that is extremely well done is the atmosphere. 1918 London looks awesome all throughout the game with the veil of night draped over it. Dimly lit side streets make you think twice about going down them, especially when you can hear someone lurking around the corner. Everywhere you go has something interesting to see, and the city is full of things to find and collect. As you explore the four districts you will unlock various safe houses that can be used as a refuge from the dangerous streets. In here you can craft new items, or upgrade weapons using parts you've collected from your travels. To upgrade Jonathan and use XP you need to sleep in a bed in any safe house. From there you can pick from a pretty wide selection of abilities, from more health, and stamina, to offensive, or defensive moves that can be used in combat.
This lets you customize how you want to play, and I'm sure everyone's experience with the game will be quite a bit different. As far as combat goes, you get plenty of options there too. You can equip a weapon in your main hand that will be for dealing damage, either a club or a blade of some kind. In your off hand you equip a side weapon, used for gaining more blood points. The blood points are like your mana, used for pulling off special vampire moves. These special moves are powerful, so you'll want to keep your blood bar full at all times. You can also equip two handed weapons that deal large amounts of damage, but wont net you any blood points, or you can use various guns as well. With so many options for combat, if you're struggling with it, just try something else that might work better for you.
Most of the complaints I've read about Vampyr are pertaining to it's combat, and that's very surprising to me. For one thing, you don't have to fight anybody if you don't want to, with the exception of a few bosses. Second, the combat is like a bonus, the game is all about getting to know the city's inhabitants, and making decisions on how to handle them. And third, I had no trouble with combat whatsoever, actually enjoying it quite a bit. With all the options they give you for fighting there was always a way to overcome any foe. It's not perfect, but it's far from terrible. My biggest complaint would have to be some of the big decisions. It felt like no matter what I picked, there would always be negative consequences, and you can't go back to try again. That, and the fact that there's no fast travel, resulting in a lot of aimless wandering, and some long load screens.
Regardless of some minor issues, I still had a blast with Vampyr. It's a little janky, but still a very unique, and well done game. If you like narrative driven games, especially with a supernatural element, then I think you will really like what Dontnod has done here. Watching the story unfold, and seeing my choices have such an impact on the city was so much fun. I could play through this again with different abilities, make different choices, choose other paths, and it would be a completely different experience from the first time around. This game gives each player a wide variety of options, has amazing atmosphere, excellent voice acting, and a compelling story, but it might not be for everyone. If you're unsure about picking this up I hope my review helped in some way. I personally enjoyed the majority of my time with the game, and I'm going to give Vampyr a grade of...………………….
B -
Thank you for checking out my review of the game Vampyr, I hope you enjoyed it!