Vampyr Interviews
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You've recently had the chance to peruse a number of Vampyr E3 previews, and now it's time for a couple of fresh interviews with the game's Lead Designer Florent Guillaume where we can learn a thing or two about the game's RPG systems, vampire lore, builds, factions, and more.
GameWatcher:
GameWatcher: Speaking of the lore of vampires, this is an open-world game and you can travel through it as you please, but it would appear there are certain rules at work. Could you expand upon how you adapted traditional lore of the vampire?
Guillaume: Yes, so for instance. There is a very old rule in vampire lore that states a vampire cannot enter a home without first being invited in by that home’s residents. So Reed can’t just barge into a house. The rules of his curse forbid it. The world of Vampyr is open, but barriers and obstacles like this keep you from going wherever you please. For that purpose, we also adapted traditional vampiric powers and abilities. There are abilities and powers for fighting, such as pouncing from place to place to reach a target and blending with shadows. That said, Vampyr also has social spells like the classic vampire charm spell. So charm allows you to manipulate any citizen whose will is too weak to resist and that’s one of the ways you can gain entrance to their homes. You need to be investigative as well. If you can learn the secrets of people, you’ll have more power over them. Sometimes that means talking and charming it out of them. Sometimes that means using heightened sense abilities to investigate nearby areas for clues. The more hints you discover about them, the stronger your charming powers over them will be.
GameWatcher: And of course some people will be more resistant to a vampire’s magic than others.
Guillaume: Yes. Vampyr is still an RPG at its core. We have a lot of progression in the game. Some citizens are weak while there are others that are stronger. Just as well there are stronger enemies in combat that will require you to evolve Reed’s power throughout the game, and to evolve, Reed needs blood. He needs to drink blood and take the life of some citizens, which makes for the core decision in the game on whether to take life or not to save others and which lives you will take to sustain Reed.
GameWatcher: Let’s get into that a bit. Vampyr’s London is a living, breathing city broken up into districts of people each with their own lives and routines. How does your interaction with those people affect the districts and your progression?
Guillaume: So in Vampyr, the idea is that we don’t require you to kill anyone. We don’t require you to kill no one either. You can kill everybody, nobody, or somewhere in between. However, you must kill people and take their blood in order to evolve and become a stronger vampire. There are different routes to evolution. You can get a little bit of blood by fighting and killing enemies. You can also progress by getting information on citizens. That said, I will say that choosing to kill a citizen is much stronger means of experience and growth than combat. So the idea behind it is that you decide who you’re going to kill and who you’re going to spare in this city.
What kind of weapons are in Vampyr?
There are a lot of weapons. You have a great variety of melee weapons. You have left handed and right handed handed weapons which you can combine. You also have ranged weapons, small fire arms and crossbows.
Can players put together certain builds to fit their play styles in combat? Furthermore, what is the loot aspect of the game like?
We believe we have a unique take on the RPG evolution. Usually RPG’s tend to give you classes, to orient you to some sort of specification. We really didn’t want that for the game. The player is free to evolve at his own pace. To evolve you need to take lives, you need to embrace people. You don’t need to kill anybody, you can play the game without killing anybody; or you can play the game with killing everybody. So this plan of evolution can really vary in the game. With the decision the player takes, with the amount of blood you acquire, you will be able to evolve and gain vampire abilities.
We have a lot of them that you can acquire. We have three branches of abilities: shadow abilities, which allows you to blend in with the shadows. We have the instinct abilities, that are more beastly. We also have social abilities were vampires can turn into their targets. We have a broad range of abilities you can have.
We don’t have random loot in the game. We are not a game like MMOs where you’ll have to replay, and replay, and replay to maybe, at some point get some random loot that will work. The world is filled with content, with a lot of things to loot. We filled it with weapons, we have a crafting system that you can use to craft medicine, to craft new gear. Each area has specific challenges to access equipment.
