Investigate a deadly epidemic sweeping through London while dealing with your newfound status as a vampire.
Vampyr
Dontnod Entertainment
Price: $49.99
Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
If there’s one thing that could make the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic even worse, it’s having a vampire epidemic at the same time. As London is ravaged by illness and monsters alike, Dr. Jonathan Reid awakens as a vampire. After accepting the night shift at a hospital, he begins investigating the epidemic while struggling with a vampire’s need for blood. It’s up to you to decide whether or not he gives in to the need to kill.
Well… in a way. As an action RPG, Vampyr has plenty of combat, mostly against rogue vampires and vampire hunters. You have a few different options, with melee weapons, guns, and vampire skills, all of which you’ll need to use in order to exploit your enemies’ weaknesses. Combat is solid enough, despite a frustrating design choice where any items you use in a battle remain used even if you die and respawn.
Killing your enemies doesn’t count against you, only feeding on civilians does—and their blood provides you with much more experience than you’ll earn from combat and quests. From a mechanical perspective, it’s clear why Vampyr chose this direction. Although a “pacifist” earns enough experience to unlock upgrades, enemies can easily take you out if you’re underleveled. Combat is necessary to provide the temptation to feed on civilians for the experience they offer. Still, it’s jarring when you can slaughter vampire hunters without a care, but killing even a criminal on your civilian list will lower the city’s health.
Dealing with London’s civilians is one of the game’s high points. You’ll meet many characters across the city, each with their own troubles. As you talk to them (and sometimes eavesdrop on their private conversations), you’ll learn their secrets and get side quests, unlocking new “hints” that increase the value of their blood. Your vampire vision, in addition to showing you enemies’ weaknesses, also helps you locate NPCs and see their current status. It’s satisfying to heal civilians and learn more about them—whether you do it for their character development, for completion’s sake, or to make them worth as much experience as possible if you turn on them.
Vampyr approaches choice and consequence in an unusual way. Certain dialogue options might lock you out of hints for that NPC. Using your powers to resolve a quest in what sounds like the ideal way might bring disaster in one part of the story, but be the only good solution in another. I was torn between praising the developers for choices where you can’t easily predict the outcome, and feeling as though they were trying to trick me into making the wrong decision.
At the same time, your choices are often inconsequential to the bigger picture. Killing characters only affects the health of their district and the characters who knew them—all side content. In the main story, your decisions are relegated to dialogue options that never deviate far from Jonathan’s set personality and choices that won’t affect the overall plot. There are multiple endings, but they’re determined only by how many civilians you kill. Eventually, I realized that despite its trappings as a choice-driven RPG, it was better to view Vampyr as a linear story with a fun civilian-management side activity.
When viewed in that light, the story is an enjoyable mystery that brings together medicine and science, vampire politics and zealous hunters, and a city suffering from ancient evils. Aside from a rushed romance and a sudden shift near the end, the story is good and has intriguing twists and turns. Its atmosphere also deserves credit, especially the musical score, which creates the perfect gothic mood for a vampire story.
The Final Word
Vampyr has a lot of potential, but it doesn’t quite follow through, especially where choice and consequence are concerned. Nevertheless, it should be well-received by vampire fans, as long as you keep in mind that its main plot is a linear story masquerading as a choice-driven RPG.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
