You know, it sucks having an insatiable lust for blood and being an undead creature of the night. Imagine you’re a physician who’s been recently turned into such a beast and you decide to feast on a couple patients to satisfy your hunger. But your heinous and desperate act attracts the attention of an ancient faction of Vampire hunters who would love nothing more than to find you and put a stake through your heart. That’s where you find yourself at the beginning of Vampyr, an upcoming narrative RPG from Focus Interactive.
Much like in popular titles like Mass Effect or the Dragon Age series, all actions and dialog choices will have consequences. Every NPC ties into a social web and choosing one over the other to feed upon when your bloodlust becomes uncontrollable. You could choose to try and play through without ever eating a single person but it will be a serious uphill battle. In practice it’s much more reliable to investigate the characters inhabiting the various neighborhoods or boroughs and using the information you find to select the right victim.
During the demo presentation at E3, we were shown an example of a man and his mother. The man was a drunk murderer who bullied his mom despite the fact that she supported him and his habits. So who’s the real evil? Well, our demonstrator decided that a little old lady looked more delicious than a young sociopath and gobbled her up as a sacrifice. Afterwards the area permanently changed. Everything seemed darker and the home where the woman and her son lived was ransacked. Inside we found her son crying and repentant for all the pain and strife he’d caused her throughout her life.
When you finally do meet up with your pursuers combat looks to play out in a manner similar to Dark Souls with an emphasis on timing your attacks and dodging. You’ll have access to a few ranged weapons, and as a ferocious terror of the night you’ll have your vampiric strength to draw upon. And if you prefer a less direct approach you’ll be able to use stealth and teleportation abilities to sneak up on your hunters and turn them into your undead minions.
Overall it’s looking like Vampyr is trying to harken back to the heyday of classic RPG titles with modern mechanics. We’ll find out soon enough if it makes the grade though. Vampyr is due out later this year but there’s no firm release date at the moment. We’ll be sure to let you know when we have more info.
Look for Vampyr heading your way in November.
NotPC
There are only a couple games I’m looking forward to this year and this is one of them.
William Murphy
A totally unexpected follow-up for Dontnod, and I can’t wait to try it either.