Vampyr

Microsoft announced and launched Xbox Game Pass for PC at this year's E3. For a monthly fee you get access to a selection of games on the Microsoft Store. The initially available ones included three titles from my wishlist so I thought I might as well spend the 1€ for the first month to try and maybe even play through them.

The first game I tried was Recore. I played it for a couple of hours and enjoyed it so much that I put it aside to wait for a good sale to actually buy it.

Next I had to jump through hoops to get Windows 10 May update. The other two games required it according to the store for whatever reason but my Windows thought it was up to date. I had to download Win10 Update Assistant to get things going.

We Happy Few didn't turn out to be worth playing. I had watched a lot of it being streamed and that had been entertaining. But those were the cutscenes; the janky-ass gameplay itself was too much for me to endure myself and I uninstalled the game and removed it from my wishlist.

The final title I tried during the month -- and also played through -- was Vampyr, DONTNOD Entertainment's third game. They had sought out yet another new publisher. And Vampyr does indeed seem more like a Focus Home Interactive than a Square Enix title.

A healer and a killer

Vampyr is a third person action roleplaying game. Although maybe I shouldn't put emphasis on the action because an equal portion of the game is talking to people. Vampyr's focal point is the conflict that comes from the protagonist, Jonathan Reid, being a doctor who has been turned into a vampire that needs to feed on people. The idea is that by talking to and doctoring the citizens of 1918's London, you'll discover who would be missed the least if they were to disappear. Whose death wouldn't hurt the community but still satisfy your thirst. The more you learn about an NPC before sucking them dry, the more experience you gain.

I've read that an NPC's death can affect their social circle in surprising ways. I, however, never got to see any of that as I chose to play the game in maybe the most boring way: never killing anyone after the scripted beginning. And by anyone I mean civilian citizen.

Vampyr has a bit of that ludonarrative dissonance going on. Perhaps due to being a fresh World War I veteran, Dr. Reid doesn't appear to have issues with killing anyone coming at him. And there sure are a lot of those when vampire hunters, the Guard of Priwen, fill the the streets. Their lives apparently don't matter for Reid's morality.

It was rather contradictory when I got the most positive of the four possible endings and Reid exclaimed how he had sworn to never take another life and succeeded at it, all the while ignoring the hundreds of vampire hunters he had cut through.

Witcher-like combat

By choosing not to mesmerize and suck on citizens you severely limit your power growth and thus make the game harder for yourself. The difficulty doesn't come so much off level difference -- as enemies seem to scale up based on your own level -- rather than from simply lacking upgrades. It's most noticeable at the start when a strong enough enemy can one shot you because your health pool isn't large enough yet.

Sometimes it was like when I fought that ?? level archgriffin in The Witcher 3, having to dodge every attack to not die. In general Vampyr's combat has a very similar feeling to Witcher 3 even if it has slightly different mechanics.

Reid's attacks and dodges are limited by his regenerating stamina and his vampiric abilities are powered by a separate blood pool. Blood can be sucked off a stunned enemy but a much easier way -- particularly on a Not Even Once run -- is using a fast, blood replenishing weapon such as the hacksaw. As off-hand weapon I used a gun, mostly to soften up the toughest of enemies; ammunition is fairly limited in the game.

Weapons' damage is based entirely on their upgrades. Thus on a more bloody playthrough killing speed would stay mostly the same. And I'd say it's not the fastest; sometimes enemies take awhile to go down. Admittedly with more experience you can ensure that you always have a damage type that's not resisted by a given enemy. I was good on melee and ranged but I lacked on blood and shadow.

I don't understand why every (non-boss) enemy in the game respawns if you die. I found it annoying and highly unnecessary. It's not really worth even for farming experience as you get 5 exp per kill no matter how tough the enemy. That's nothing compared to the thousands you'd get from killing a citizen.

There's a pretty common, sword wielding vampire enemy that starts showing up later and who was rather tough to beat for me every time. They reminded me of the duel with Olgierd in the Hearts of Stone expansion of Witcher 3. Having to fight them so often was a slog. Actual boss fights are easier than them. The final boss is also super easy if you have killed no citizens as they scale up based on that.

Playable with kb/m

Keyboard default keybinds are a tad finicky, which is not surprising considering the developer. It's like no one at Dontnod still has played anything with a keyboard and mouse. Seriously, who binds Q as walk key? I can imagine some developer there being completely perplexed at how to map analog stick tilt to keyboard. Walking is far from being an essential thing too in this game. You can occasionally surprise an enemy by walking and approaching them from behind but it makes no difference unless you have upgraded your bite ability. Q is one of the easiest button to press when using WASD -- a much better idea is to map something like one of your frequently used abilities to it.

Map screen causes annoyances for mouse use as well. Instead of dragging, the map is scrolled by just moving your mouse and left-clicking leaves a custom marker. That tends to happen accidentally when you click on the menu tabs while the map is slightly under the buttons. And then you wonder in-game what the markers in your compass are for. I considered playing with a controller but in the end decided I'd rather have the accuracy and speed of a mouse.

"I am a doctor"

Dr. Reid was voiced by Anthony Howell who I remember from Alien: Isolation as Samuels. I think he's also (uncredited) the short-lived Dr. Kuhlman in the same game which is fitting. (Or it's someone with a very similar voice.) Howell does a convincing job as Reid, delivering his lines exactly the way they should be. I think voice directing is also to thank for that.

A cool detail is how Reid's voice gets enhanced when you use a hint dialogue option. It gives the impression him using his supernatural persuasion to force the truth out of the person.

I don't know why they had to make Reid repeat his "I have this thirst for blood." or "This is despicable." lines every time eating a rat though. Once would've been enough. He also likes saying "It's locked, alright." when trying a locked door.

Other voices are of varying quality. Lady Ashbury (Katherine Kingsley) is another notably good one. Ashbury has a character quirk she admits later that makes her pique her friends and allies when she's feeling anxious. I thought that was pretty unique.

I reckon Vampyr got a considerable amount of attention because people were so hungry for a new Bloodlines game (that is now actually on its way). I think some even mistook Vampyr for a sequel or something. It should be obvious though that there's no relation beyond both drawing inspiration from vampire myths. Vampyr doesn't have the immense amount of sweet lore that Vampire: The Masquerade and World of Darkness have.

Vampyr's setting also slightly missed my favorite period of time and place, 19th century London. 1918 was probably required to have the wanted level of medical science. It was cool to play a doctor though. The profession comes with so much respect; people immediately consider Reid someone important for just introducing himself as a doctor.

Edited 2019-10-28: Fixed some wordings.
Edited 2020-06-09: Clarified the problem with the map screen.