Dontnod’s Teen Angst Grows Up to be Darker than Ever – Vampyr Preview

I’ve always been very loyal to the things that I love, almost to a fault.  I love every single Star Wars Film. Was Anakin annoying as a kid? Sure he was. Yet I loved every minute of that pod racing future Dark Lord’s story.

With that being said I played Remember Me last generation and, ironically, I found it to be less than memorable.  For that reason it took me quite a while to get on board and finally play Life is Strange. Nearly every one of the podcasts and gaming sites I follow had praised Life is Strange, naming it one of this generations best experiences. Still, I stayed away.  Finally, after all the episodes were released, I gave it a shot during a slow time for new game releases and was captivated almost right away.

I’m a huge fan of indie films and right off the bat I felt that I was playing through what could easily be one of my favorite indie films of all time.  Every decision that I made in Life is Strange actually mattered and, because of that, I took my time with each and every one of them. Then, of course, there is the soundtrack. I still pull it up on Spotify and let it be the soundtrack to many of my long drives to work and back.  Max and Chloe became friends of mine. Rachel became the friend I wish I knew and never had the chance to. And their enemies became my enemies.  I became fully engulfed in this world and fully expect Life is Strange to remain in my top ten games of this console generation.

When I heard that Dontnod was working on a new game,  I was in.  I didn’t care what it was, I was in.

Then came the news – it was a game called Vampyr.  Vampyr. Hmm…. interesting, though not at all what I was expecting.  Of course deep down I wanted Life is Strange 2 (which is coming at some point so that was just a bonus) but any game by Dontnod at this point will find a way into my library.  After extensive time with Vampyr I cannot wait for it to be released!

In Vampyr you play as Dr. Jonathan Reid, a newly turned vampire, who is finding out about his new fate as the game progresses.  All of the Dontnod staples are there: the decision making and dialogue choices, the chance to do what is right against all odds or embrace the darkness and let it consume you, and the ability to explore a world grounded in reality yet full of supernatural elements that set these games apart.

Vampyr gives you so much free reign over how you will choose to play the game. You are a vampire, and this means to get stronger you need blood.

So you need blood? Okay, no problem. I will just defeat an enemy and take their blood, right?

Wrong.

You get your blood from the citizens. Which citizens do you get blood from? Well, that is entirely up to you. The more blood you drink the higher your experience points get.  You have some choices to make.  Do I go on a killing spree at random? Do I follow people and spy on them, giving me information about who may be evil and who is good – making my decision easier?  Or do I kill as few as possible, possibly even none at all, and stay as pure as I can?  While this last choice is a possibility, it only makes your time with Vampyr that much harder.

You can earn experience points two alternate ways…

• The first is the aforementioned spying on citizens.  The more you learn about the people that live and occupy the world around you, the more experience you earn and the stronger you become.
• The second way to earn experience is by fighting.  This way becomes ultimately the hardest if you choose to not drink any blood along the way.  Fights become ever tougher if you choose not to drink blood ultimately making you weaker than you should be when fighting enemies.  The game can be completed without ever drinking a single drop of blood, and while there inevitably will be a trophy and achievement for doing so, I can’t imagine that will be the most popular way to complete the game.

The stage for all of this is set in 1918 London during the outbreak of the Spanish Flu.  The action and combat in the game will look and feel familiar to anyone who has played games in the genre, but the decision making is what will set it apart.  The Developers have said that Vampyr is more about who you kill than how you do it.  Choosing who will live and who will die will have direct impacts on everyone inhabiting this world.

In a jam packed November full of the usual suspects, highlighted by Call of Duty WW2 and Star Wars Battlefront 2, my hope is that Vampyr is given its fair due and that people take the time to play something a little more original this fall.