E3 2016 Impressions — Vampyr

Vampyr

While at E3 I was able to see Vampyr in a more intimate setting than just a trailer. Here’s my take on Vampyr

In a nice dark room on the E3 floor we were able to spy upon Vampyr in action. For those who still haven’t followed along, this is the new title from Dontnod that places us in the middle of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 in the role of a doctor who has recently been turned into a vampire. We’ve had a lot of news on Vampyr so far so hopefully you are up to date but if not then here are our first impressions of the game in action before all of the rest of the information from Focus Home Interactive drops between now and when it launches on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC next year.

One of the big aspects of Vampyr is the fact that your actions and dialog choices will affect everything in the world. Kind of an ambitious claim but right out of the gate in the demo show we see it in motion as we are approached by another vampire in London. While in the demo the developer’s selected specific options it looks like we can change relationships with anyone at any time by just saying the right or wrong thing as in real life. The level of planning and implementation on this is mind boggling if it works just as they claim and I am glad to see it work in a deeper way than many of the other “choose your own adventure” story games.

In Vampyr we of course don’t go unchecked at all. There is a secret society trying to rid the world of the vampire scourge and keep their existence hidden from the world. This of course is where the combat will come in for the most part where we will have to also fight to survive. Again in this demo it was obvious that the character was powered up further than he would be in the live game just to show some flashiness but in Vampyr things can go from strategic and planned to a fast free-for-all brawl. This made things all seem a bit one-sided as Reed was teleporting around and summoning the shadows to tear his enemies apart.

Thankfully, as explained, the enemies of Vampyr will also learn and adapt to keep the challenge of combat up to your style. I hear this and just see that the enemies will “learn” how you go about fighting and alter their stances and tactics accordingly. In this demo we obviously didn’t get to see it, as mentioned, but if Dontnod is able to pull it off as described then it will be just as challenging as keeping all of the characters in the game’s world in order. Not just the main characters but the NPCs and lower level “background” characters that inhabit London and are just trying to survive.

This brings me to my next big impressive aspect of Vampyr. As it looks each and every character in the game’s world has a fleshed out persona and background. Each of which having some kind of link to each other. As in the demo we ran into what felt like a random builder in the game’s world who we also learned had a son and all kinds of other history in the city. He was chosen for death by the person running the demo and after he was drained dry we also learned that he was causing issues for some of the shop keepers. His death not only leads to having an orphan in the world but now the shop owners have more items as they are not being harassed anymore.

I am completely stoked for more on Vampyr and the game to just launch based on this demo alone. Even if they can only pull of about half of what is promised the game mechanics will be enough to make it fun. Then when you mix in all of the real vampire lore mixed into the game and my love for the World Of Darkness franchise this will be the game for me. I really hope we are not held back on Vampyr news and updates. I guess we will all see here soon.