The new game Vampyr could have been something incredible. The ability to step into the shoes of a vampire in war-torn 1918 London, a city already dealing with a deadly flu epidemic, and feast on the citizens of a decimated city sounds brilliant. Unfortunately, Vampyr misses too many marks, and this open world game fails to live up to its potential.
Vampyr is the story of Dr. Jonathan Reid, a surgeon and blood expert who wakes up one night in a pile of dead bodies, thirsty and needing to feed. The first live person he sees is his sister, and blindly driven by his hunger, he drains her, killing her. He is spotted by some passers-by and is chased through the streets in a tutorial of what is to come. As the story progresses, Jonathan meets up with other vampires, takes a job at a hospital, and begins his quest to discover what happened to him and why.
Developed by Dontnod Entertainment, Vampyr is an open world game that gives the player many freedoms. By choosing who to feed on, the player also dictates how certain sections of the city grow or wither, giving an incredible amount of power to the choices made while playing. Dialogue trees with characters from all walks of life offer choices, and those choices have far reaching consequences.
Jonathan can choose to take on quests from the people he meets, or he can kill the person then and there. Working in the shadows is key, so leading victims to dark alleyways, away from prying eyes, will keep the neighborhood’s fear level down, allowing the player to work more freely. A city under great fear closes up and is filled with more enemies for the player to battle. This is perhaps the most interesting aspects of the game, and Vampyr does this incredibly well.
Jonathan can also develop and expand on his powers, most of which are tied to the vampire myths. This progression pushes the player forward on the main quest, as Jonathan gets stronger and stronger as the mystery of who made him an undead bloodsucker and why comes into focus. Various safehouses around London give Jonathan a place to rest for the day, level up with earned XP, and even craft and upgrade weapons.
The biggest concerns come from the fact that by being a creature of the night, with the powers, or gifts, of a vampire, Jonathan relies too much on melee combat and guns. Dontnod could have very easily taken a page from the books of better games, like the Dishonored series, and really created something amazing here. Jonathan gaining immense powers of the night to take out his enemies sounds like a no brainer. By the end of the game, I should have been an unstoppable force mastering all my powers of the night. Instead, Vampyr abandoned most of the potential, instead turning this into a mere shadow of better games in the open-world, third-person action genre.
Vampyr is a fun game, but playing through it, all I could think about was the missed opportunities. The story is solid and creates a well-rounded world with its own mythos and eco-system, which only highlights the fact that Jonathan is a vampire armed with a gun and knife, and the ancillary characters he interacts with are so much cooler. The voice acting is stellar, for the most part, and the music and sound effects do a great job for setting the mood and making this feel like a truly lived-in world.
Graphically, Vampyr struggles for balance, with character models that move somewhat clunky and facial textures that omit fine detail. This would have looked great on last gen systems, but the graphics here waste the processing power of the current gen consoles and PC. And maybe I feel this way because I’m coming off a play-through of God of War, which has some of the best character models I’ve ever seen. My assessment may not be fair, so take that with a grain of salt.
Aside from so-so character models, the streets of London look absolutely stunning, with fog and lighting effects that really help create a gloomy atmosphere for Jonathan to hunt in. So much attention to detail is made on the maps, buildings, and world around him, that the lack of detail on Jonathan and the supporting cast seems like another misstep.
Vampyr looked and sounded good on paper, but the actual execution is very blasé. The foundation is here for Dontnod Entertainment to build on, and a sequel could really make the needed changes to ensure that this game and potential franchise becomes the be-all of vampire-based open world games. For now, we have this missed opportunity to contend with, and while it is a relatively fun adventure with a cool story, it could have been so much more.
Vampyr is available now for the PS4, Xbox One , and Steam. This review is based off the PS4 version of the game, and a code provided by the publisher, Focus Home Interactive.
