Vampyr Previews
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We have rounded up a number of previews for Vampyr, Dontnod's upcoming vampire-themed action-RPG, which were all based on hands-off presentations given by the developers at a publisher event. So far, the developers' promises regarding morality, choices and consequences and narrative seem to have piqued the journalists' interest, but the combat seems to have disappointed.
Feeding on the humans you find out on the streets at night will help you grow stronger as a vampire and gain more and stronger abilities. However, each person you kill will have ripples through the city, as their bodies are found and newspapers bring knowledge of their deaths to their friends and family. They all have names, jobs, families and relationships, though you wouldn't expect to encounter the cream of society out and about at nighttime, even if it weren't for the risks of contracting the Spanish flu.
Walking through Whitechapel, he hears and sees two men arguing over medication and, as one tries to get away, the other pulls a gun and takes a few pot shots at him. Finding and talking to them both, you can learn the context and the reason for their actions, but also use the evidence from one to compel the other down a certain line of conversation.
Perhaps you can assuage your guilt over committing murder by taking the Dexter Morgan route and only killing criminals? Perhaps you'll struggle on without killing anyone, or will kill everyone that you meet? It will rely on Dontnod's ability to weave compelling characters and situations on whether or not this can go beyond what is otherwise a very binary choice between good and evil.
IGN:
Target found, an ability dubbed Mesmerise allows you to control the movements of what are described as London's 'weaker' minds, meaning you can guide victims without a fight to dark corners and back alleys with a view to feeding on them in peace. Still, despite killing in private, the death eventually becomes public, which then affects the state of local district.
This occurs in the form of reports published in local newspapers detailing the fact that a body has been found and that the cause of death is suspicious, a revelation that puts the community even more on edge and makes it more likely to become gripped by fear. In particular, the relatives and friends of the dead are hit especially hard; their stories and subsequent actions altering course forever. Just how meaningful these character arcs are will be key to successfully embedding within Vampyr the kind of narrative value and complexity we've come to expect from Dontnod and, without question, it's the potential for this kind of deeper narrative engagement that is the most enticing of the game's many elements.
The development team told us they absolutely want to create a believable world where every person you encounter has their own past, and even their own secrets sometimes. The importance of their connections and relationships with each other is also paramount in the game's design, as there will always be consequences when you decide to kill someone. We have been told there would be something like 50 unique characters living in the game world, and that every single one of them could be killed should you decide so. In the demo we saw, of the two characters Reid met on the street, only one stayed alive. The main thing is that the other man's death is supposed to affect the life of the other, which could lead to some interesting developments. To get what you want, you will be able to seduce people or even to control them completely, which will allow you to take them to a dark area to satisfy your thirst for blood. There should be some kind of mental resistance system to make it more interesting to play, and of course, being a vampire you will sometimes need to be invited in if you want to enter a building.
At this stage, the game's precise details aren't finalized, but it's got a lot of standard contemporary RPG fare. Crafting, skill trees, abilities, and equipment. Reed has Hemokinesis, the ability to control blood with his mind to stun enemies, as well as mysterious mist and shadow powers that allow for some fast moving, teleporting charges, and leaping to grabbable ledges. Crafting has a twist, since different materials can play a big part. (A wooden saw might not be dangerous to people, but since Vampires have a fatal aversion to wood, well, it comes in handy.)
It's clearly a post-Souls action RPG, with methodical button presses emphasizing timing over clever combos and hack-n-slash influences. I'm sure it'll draw comparisons to Bloodborne, since pistols find their way into the knife and saw play, but since this is Georgian London, not Victorian, those won't be quite accurate. Sure, they've got blood in common, but this is a much more character-driven, humanist style of storytelling. Not to mention the lack of die-repeat gameplay.
Admittedly, I've seen only a brief snippet of what is clearly a game of considerable scale, but at present it's the combat that comes across as the least interesting and most conventional and therefore predictable of Vampyr's constituent parts. Hacking and slashing through simple combos is the order of the day, the goal being to dispatch of the weaker vampires roaming London. Vampire hunters also make an appearance in an effort to take you out, I'm told, but such encounters were not shown this time around.
Learned moves such as '˜Spring', which sees you able to hop up to platforms otherwise out of reach, or dash forward at lightning pace to quickly close gaps, are designed to embed combat with a degree of personalisation and variety. As nice as that sounds, and while there is potential here should the final ability list include ideas we've not seen before, there's no getting away from the fact that the underlying core mechanics of combat seem to lack any originality or impact.
GameReactor has a write-up and a video interview. A snippet from the write-up:
As a vampire we can of course use various supernatural abilities. There is a ghostly leap called Spring, with which we can dash forward. In the short demo this was also used to progress more quickly. It is similarly useful during fights and we can reach higher places using it. And as is the norm according to the lore, a vampire can influence other people by manipulating their thoughts. This comes into play in the dialogue, but we can use it to completely take control of characters as well.
Three different skill trees are available that support different styles of play. The developer didn't want to go into detail on this for the time being. But we already know that the supernatural vampire abilities also come with a price. Our health bar also powers abilities, their use giving us an advantage, but weakening the doctor at the same time. So while fighting you always have to hunt for some fresh blood to replenish the bar.
It is quite interesting to see the new focus Dontnod has selected for their next game. All of the characters have their own personality, different tasks, and functions. They relate to each other, have their own problems and secrets. A personal loss in the environment will affect their behaviour. We need to weigh up how much we want to deal with any of them or whether a character for us is just prey that will ensure our survival. The devs are promising that these are meaningful decisions that will lead to very different results, and this is in addition to the aforementioned inner conflict. It sounds very ambitious to aim at such depth of play across all elements of the game.
