Vampyr (2018)


Vampyr (2018), directed by Philippe Moreau, developed by DONTNOD Entertainment, published by Focus Home Interactive

You know it is the beginning of a terrible day when you wake up dead. And the day turns way worse the minute you end you killing your poor sister, who has been frantically trying to find any sign of your cadaver amongst the mass graves of Spanish flu victims plaguing the populace of London in 1918. And to make things even worse, you have relentless killers on your heels, ready to snuff your unholy abomination of existence.

This is how you step in the boots of Dr. Jonathan Reid, who has thrown in his new existence as a newborn vampire in a world that is against him. Without knowing who his maker was, why he was turned into a vampire or how to use his vampiric powers, you take the first few steps into the world that is now eternal night and burning lust for blood.

Luckily for Dr. Reid, he soon finds an ally from another doctor, Edgar Swansea, who is also a member of an ancient society with an interest in the undead. Another ally he meets is an aristocrat vampire, Ekon as they call themselves,  Lady Ashbury. With their help, Jonathan begins to find out who his maker was and what is the root of the Spanish flu epidemic that is also turning people into bloodthirsty and savage Skals, a subbreed of Ekons.


The streets of London are not instantly open from the start. The story is divided into chapters, which all let you venture deeper into different districts from the alleys Whitechapel to posh West End, from where Reid is originally from. It's not all smooth sailing in the streets though, as the passages are patrolled by not only the vicious undead and monsters but the soldiers of the order of Priwen as well, aiming to eradicate every bloodsucker they see.

There are regular citizens living in the starry lit streets too, so not everyone Reid sees is hostile. Some of them have tasks for Reid to do, so not all experience comes from the fights. The experience system is what makes Vampyr genuinely stand out from other RPGs. See, you don't really get that much experience from fights when you play on normal or hard difficulty. Where the XP really lies is in the civilians.

As a doctor, you can take care of the people, making sure they are healthy because healthy people give more experience. The amount of experience you can potentially get from the people also depends on how well you get to know them and their secrets. You don't have to feed off the people though, you can rely on the experience gained from fighting, quests, discussions and healing operations. It just is, that game dangles the experience you can get from the people like a carrot by telling how much you can get from each individual. 


So there's the choice you can make in how you grow your vampiric powers. If you so choose, you can make the streets flow red from the blood of the citizens or you can be picky about whom you take, not all people you meet are up and above after all. Therein lies the moral dilemma, how much of a judge, jury and executioner you want to be or do you want to be one at all. Sure, the people are a source of fast experience but do they deserve to die by your hand just that you can evolve stronger.

The levelling up us a rather simple process. After collecting enough experience, you have to find a safe house to sleep in. During the rest, you can add points to different vampiric properties like strength, healing and bloodlust. Then there are several skills, attacks and defends you can improve to level up. But, as time moves forward, causing consequences on the things you've done during the rest period, you might notice that you've missed some missions because of that. So there's a balance there.

The combat system consists of using Reid's vampiric powers and different kinds of arms. As the strong vampire attacks need time to cool down or drain your own blood supply, you'll have to figure out the best method of close or ranged combat. The close combat is done by blades, clubs and axes, of which some are one, others two-handed weapons. The heavy two-handers take more of your stamina, while the lighter one-handed weapons do less damage, but allow you to attack faster as well as combine firearms to your combat routine.


The ranged combat works either by using vampiric powers or firearms. The other drains your own blood supply, which you need to replenish during the combat by either using weapons that drain blood or trying to bludgeon the enemies in a stunned state, which makes it easy to jump on them and drink their blood. With firearms, you are limited by the number of bullets you can carry, so you do need to fall back on the close combat weapons constantly if you do opt to use guns during combat.

All the weapons you find are upgradeable. You can loot materials from the fights and the houses of London as well as buy them from merchants. Upgrading can be done in the hideouts on a work desk. On the desk, it is also possible to craft medicines for the people of London and brew healing items for yourself.

Vampyr is, as far combat mechanics go, a rather standard action RPG. But what really makes it stand out is its approach to dangling the extra experience in front of you. That gives an interesting moral dilemma: does your attempt at trying to save London make it right for you to drain the people of that means faster evolution for you?


This kind of morality is rarely seen in games. There are games, where you have to make moral choices, but to tie your own character progression into such a system is rarely seen. On the top of my head, I can only think of Ultima 4, where instead of trying to defeat the big bad end boss, your goal was to improve yourself in the terms of the 8 virtues of the world of Britannia.

Vampyr also has a story mode, which makes the combat easier and makes feeding off the citizens less important, so if you are squeamish of action, there's still a way to experience the game. As I haven't tried to story mode, I can't comment on how much easier it makes the game. But as the normal mode already expects you to feed at least from a couple of people and there isn't a quick progression needed to do that in the story mode, I suspect it is considerably easier.

If you feel like diving into the existence of a blood transfusion specialist doctor turned into a vampire, the game is available for several different platforms. Besides GOG and Steam for PC, you can get it on all the current consoles, PS4, Switch and XboxOne. Whatever you choose, it is a great RPG.









Comments

MatchedContent