Vampyr is developer DontNod’s take on the vampire subgenre of RPGs. While DontNod nails quite a lot from combat to its morality system, they take some missteps in writing and exploration that dulls the experience.
Combat is slow, but tense. Jonathan has access to a number of pistols, shotguns, bludgeons, stakes, and swords to slay his vampiric brethren and those who hunt them.. Enemies are aggressive and dodging, healing, and counters are important to get them off your back in any encounter. Even basic enemies encountered in the overworld can give Jonathan a challenge, with some being even more powerful than a few of the boss creatures in the game. Some enemies will try to exploit the player’s vampiric weakness to fire and holy relics and will not wait their turn to attack--with some enemy types dedicated to swarming and overwhelming Jonathan.
There are two main attack buttons, a regular attack and a special attack button. While wielding one handed weapons, those two buttons correspond to your main weapon and to your off hand weapon respectively. When wielding a two handed weapon, the secondary attack button allows Jonathan to counter on coming melee attacks, with successful counters dealing a large amount of stun damage. The player gains access to more abilities and attack options as Jonathan grows more powerful and I did not use all of these options in my playthrough.
Though a little dull at first, combat becomes interesting once you understand how mechanics like countering, stunning, and combat feeding work and once you unlock a wide variety of vampiric abilities.
Saving London: At what cost?
The story in Vampyr is serviceable and chronicles the vampiric transformation of Dr. Jonathan Reid while he struggles to understand his blood sucking curse and mitigate its effect on his life and the people around him. Dotnod has created an interesting world with quite a few compelling characters and concepts but fumbles the execution. On several occasions I was blindsided by Jonathan mentioning some critical piece to the story’s puzzle as though it had been explained to the audience as either part of dialog or as an aside during exploration. It might be that some essential story elements are in optional texts, but that they are not explained along the critical path dialog options is a strange decision, especially in a more linear story experience like Vampyr.
Meaningful dialog options are scarce in Vampyr. Major dialog decisions take place at the end of a main story mission--and so far those options boil down mostly whether to spare or kill a character. These decisions have serious consequences for the various districts and their health, but it is a disjointed feeling to have the responsibility of dire consequences forced on you when all prior dialog trees have been largely inconsequential or even choice free.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t an interesting morality system in Vampyr. The morality system here is tied to the “embrace” system. Embracing entails speaking to any non-hostile NPC in the overworld and using the “mesmerize” ability to bring your chosen victim to a dark place. When you embrace an NPC, they die and you gain a certain amount of experience from draining their blood based on your relationship with them as well as their health. The quality of the blood of an NPC can be improved by completing side quests for the NPC or giving them medicine for whatever ailments they may have. The more characters you feed on, the more negatively regarded you will be by other characters in the story and their opinions will inform their behavior at pivotal story moments, including the ending which has four variations. Embracing NPCs also causes the health of their home district to decrease, usually the health of a district will decrease by one per each victim in that district. However, certain NPCs have close relationships with others. When you embrace an NPC with a social circle, their friends might go missing, affecting the status of the district more severely.
Experience can be gained in three major ways, by completing quests, by defeating enemies, and by embracing NPCs. Leveling up is done by resting at your bed. When you level, you may use your blood points to purchase abilities, they often cost different amounts of points and, as they progress, become more expensive. More than once and increasingly as the game progressed, I have been tempted to feed on civilians in order to overpower a certain boss early on in the graveyard and gave in during a boss fight attop a hospital. Nevertheless, I have never gotten the impression from the game that you must embrace characters in order to progress. Fighting the ever increasingly powerful enemies can be frustrating without feeding, but overcoming them and the baser desire for power can leave you feeling triumphant over even minor encounters.
Exploration in Vampyr is disappointing missed opportunity to explore Jonathan Reid’s existing vampiric powerset. Jonathan is mostly ground bound, with select areas to teleport to London’s rooftops. Exploring is mostly beneficial in finding the hideouts hidden around the map. The hideouts allow you to brew and restock on potions as well as to level up both Jonathan and his weapons.
The Sounds of the Suffering
The music in Vampyr is is eerie, and at times I was reminded of some tracks from the Witcher 3. However, the soundtrack has a tendency to repeat itself during dialog, which can get pretty annoying if you have to put the controller down between dialog choices. Overall, the music is competent in establishing the tone of the game as both bleak and disturbing.
The sound effects in this game are impressive, and paired with the unsettling sound track, create an atmosphere of foreboding. I was put off from exploring certain areas of London early on just of the blood curdling scream of nearby blood suckers. Melee sound effects are unsettlingly wet and create a sensation of really slicing up and hurting enemies. Guns sound every bit as threatening as they actually are in combat, booming loudly.
The voice acting in Vampyr, like the sound track, is competent overall. The performances of the NPCs all over London paint a good picture of the suffering of all of the city’s citizens at the end of World War I and during the pandemic of 1918. The performance given to the protagonist, Jonathan Reid, is particularly good, you can tell in certain moments that Jonathan is trying to hold back his more savage nature. If you find a character annoying, rest assured, that is intentional.
A Look into the Abyss
Vampyr is set in London at the end of World War I and during a historic pandemic, characters are dressed appropriately for the time period and the artistic direction visually articulates the gloom of the period.
Players will only experience London at night in their time playing Vampyr, the streets of the city are faintly lit and almost always filled with an oppressive fog. In many ways the visual design is representative of the themes of the game, Jonathan is struggling against a darker, oppressive nature in a world that was already dark, oppressive, and unforgiving.
I noticed a clear difference in performance playing on an original Xbox One and an Xbox One X, from texture pop in to some pretty severe frame rate slow down. It is best to play on the enhanced version of whatever console is your favorite or on a PC. On the Xbox One X, the frame rate and lighting created a picture that was darkly beautiful.
Judging the Soul
Vampyr is a good game with good ideas, but it is hampered by poor execution in a few key areas. Combat is tense and rewarding and the morality system is novel, but the simple and restrictive exploration is a missed opportunity to further explore the city and Jonathan’s vampiric abilities. The story, while thematically compelling, introduces certain key elements with almost no explanation for players that often left me wondering why certain events were happening or if I had somehow missed important dialog options.
Vampyr gets a 3 out of 5.
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