Now that I'm finished with the Starcraft 2 trilogy (and Nova mission packs... reviews are coming in!), I've been searching around in my Steam backlog for things to play. This particular game caught my eye... Vampyr, developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Focus Home Interactive. It is a game that is a bit on the older side, published in 2018 and it caught my attention again as it appeared on the Nintendo Switch more recently.

For most connoisseurs of the Vampire RPG genre of games, there hasn't been a decent game since Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines which was published waaaaayyyyyy back in 2004! From what I had read in online reviews and the marketing materials, Vampyr has the potential to have the same depth of storytelling with a nice sprinkling of RPG and some 3rd person combat.

The Story

The story is set in 1918 just after the Great War and you play as the renowned battlefield surgeon Dr Jonathan Reid who has just returned back to his hometown of London. There is a pandemic sweeping through the world (Spanish flu) and the hospitals are overrun and there is widespread panic and depression... people are staying indoors and the streets are empty and desolate. People are scared of the invisible killer... (hmmmm... sounds familiar?).

The game starts with the player character waking up in a mass grave (okay... it's a bit different now...) in this weird black and white sort of vision... you've just pulled yourself out, and things are looking pretty grim!

There is a splash of colour ahead and for some reason you are compelled to go towards the glow... there are muffled voices but the colour and glow is just so mesmerising.

... after feeding on the blood of the woman, you come to this weird feeling that not all is quite alright with you. Your vision returns and you feel healthier and more alert... and over the course of the coming tutorial (starting by being pursued by some zealous vampire hunters), you start to realise that you have turned into a vampire... and all the unexplained murders (on top of the pandemic sweeping through the globe) are the cause of a supernatural infestation (okay... now it is quite different to our current predicament!... or is it?).

Needless to say, it is a pretty grim and dark setting for the game!

The Game

Vampyr is played in a third person, over the shoulder camera perspective. The movement and combat feels pretty simplistic from a PC gamer's point of view, there is the lock on for abilities, ranged combat and melee which is a bit of a staple of console gamers and it can be a touch irritating for a Mouse and Keyboard combination.

However, for the melee and ranged combat... it can be quite easily done without the lock-on (just don't toggle it on!). However, for some of the abilities that target both the enemy and the player character, if the lock-on isn't enabled... then you target your player character. This is really annoying! So, I've had a well thought out surprise attack ending up backfiring as I plant the first ability upon myself instead of disabling enemies! However, that said... I'm a relatively quick learner and I guess I will get used to the lock-on toggling in quick order.. that said, old habits are really hard to break, and the fast reaction point and click FPS mouse reactions just kicks in too strongly at times!

The combat is something that I will gloss over here... it is pretty lacklustre. Melee is floaty and there isn't any real heft to the weapons. The ranged combat and abilities are interesting, but I find it all bit ho-hum with the lock-on. Most of the time, you will just attack and dodge, with the boss characters needing a touch more timing. However, it generally appears to play out like a MMO fight... however, it is becomes quite apparent that this is not the real point of the game!

The bulk of the game lies in the discovery and exploration of the world and it's stories. From the beginning, you have no idea what is going on... your world is turned upside down, as the supernatural becomes real... however, the real effects of the pandemic are also covering up the existence of that other world.

Still, there are many people who do seem to know what is going on... and you are a complete stranger and noob to this world... there are many factions and you've just been dumped... clueless, in the middle of it all!

The RPG side of things is handled by a fairly extensive skill tree which is powered by the XP that you earn from completing quests, drinking blood and combat. The gaining of XP is handled pretty interestingly, and I will elaborate on that in a little bit.

Each subsection of the Active/Passive skill tree expands out into a diverging path which will determine the exact style of that skill... and by extension, your preferred method of play. Something that is handled quite well is the fact that there is much in the world to be done that doesn't involve shooting and killing. There is quite a bit on the talky talky side of things as well.

NPCs are handled in a really interesting way with respect to growing your character. As you are a vampire, they are a source of blood and food (or you can chow down on rats for minimal nourishment...)... which means that you gain XP for killing and drinking the blood of the NPCs. However, despite making you much more powerful... it sends you down the path of the monster.

What is more ruthless is the fact that you gather more knowledge about the NPCs from other conversations or snippets of found clues in the world... increasing your intimacy of the NPC... which means that they give you much more XP when and if you decide to harvest them!

Speaking of the conversations... the choices that you make will be hard-locked in (the game auto-saves), so you can't just try different options! Think about what you want to say!

Even worse.... you are a doctor... and the diseased have tainted blood. So, you have the choice to cure them of their ailments... and then harvest them for much more POWER! Wow... this is getting dark pretty quickly!

Draining people of blood from the neck is not all fun and games though... kill enough people (or important people in the district, pillars of the community) and things start to go pear-shaped on the societal front... chaos and ruin start to dominate the community, and you will find that things are much more dangerous...

By the end of the introductory section, you find that you have been recruited as the Head Surgeon at one overrun and decrepit hospital in London. Tasked with the hopeless and never ending treatment of Spanish flu and Great War victims whilst delving into the new found world of the vampires and the supernatural... it is a great exposition for a pretty involving RPG!

... the question is whether you retain some semblance of humanity or harvest the power required to defeat the shadowy evil that lurks outside?

Visuals, Sound and Performance

On the review hardware below, I was able to run Vamypr at 1080p with Ultra/High settings. I didn't use a frame counter, but I didn't run into any issues with lagging or screen tearing, I think the FreeSync of the monitor managed to smooth everything out with no problems. This really shouldn't be too much of a surprise as the game was also developed for less high powered consoles and even managed to be ported over to the Nintendo Switch!

The game does look really quite beautiful though... from the pretty confronting scenes of death and misery on the street, to the quite stark vision of the Vampire and his affinity for blood. It's a game with great visual style that is striking and bold.

Sound wise, I didn't really notice too much of the ambient sound... the combat sounds are pretty forgettable as well. However, the game does shine quite a bit more when it comes to the character dialogues and voicing. I love just hearing and watching the dialogues play out, there is a certain sense of gravity and lack of haste...

Conclusion

Vampyr is one very engaging game... perhaps it is due to the parallel circumstances that the world currently finds itself in (the pandemic... not the vampires...), but I'm finding the world of Vamypr to be incredibly compelling. The struggle to balance power against humanity... and the fact that you are learning more about people and their intimate desires/beliefs before harvesting them for maximum effect... well, it is a pretty gripping mechanic!

How much you appreciate the game will depend on how you approach it... I have seen it described as a 3rd person Action-RPG... NOPE! An Action-RPG is Torchlight or Diablo... action with lots of drops/skills and very little in the way of story... If you are looking for that, then you will be heavily disappointed.

Vampyr is primarily a deep story with some light RPG and 3rd person combat. It's strengths lie in the narrative and story telling and the gripping atmosphere and choices that you have to make to survive... if approached like this, then Vampyr is the best thing that we have that starts to approach the (buggy) genius that was Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines ... and I've been looking to scratch that itch for quite some time!

Review Hardware

Played at 1080p (144Hz) on:

Intel BX80662I76700 Core i7-6700 Prozessor (3,4GHz)
6GB EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING
GIGABYTE Z170N-WIFI
Ballistix Sport LT 16GB DDR4
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 512GB
S4 Mini Case (NFC Systems)

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