Review - Vampyr... Hot Blooded, Check it & See

Image courtesy of Don't Nod Entertainment

Now at least once a year, any gamer worth their salt will play an absolute banger. Something memorable that will transport you to another world with its lore, gameplay, and storyline that will resonate with you for years to come. For me that already happened this year with Banishers, but I wanted to explore some more of what brought Don't Nod to their current stage by examining where they came from. As Banishers is something of a spiritual sequel (prequel, maybe? Thanks for normalizing this, George Lucas), I figured that Vampyr would be worth my time.

    London, 1918.

    Dr. Jonathan Reid is coming home from the Western Front to an ailing mother and his heartbroken widow of a sister. He wakes up in a pile of corpses, just as confused now as he probably was in the throes of the Great War's combat. To make matters worse, a sickness grips his belly as he makes his way to the street and the loving embrace of his sister. He embraces her back, unable to stop himself from biting into her neck and draining her of her blood. Transitioning to civilian life can be a real bitch...

    To make matters worse, the 1918 Spanish Flu is wreaking havoc across Europe in a way that can only make Covid-19 look like a tickle in the nose. London is in the midst of it, with people hacking and coughing their way about their daily lives while hospitals and morgues fill to the brim. Luckily for them, their resident vampire is a doctor well-suited to triage and intensive care. Not only that, but he's an expert in blood transfusion. No, that one isn't a pun. It's just the sort of irony that Don't Nod went with in order to give more credence to Jonathan's expertise in combating the epidemic.

    There are four districts across London that will demand Reid's attention, and each one is more taxing than the last. In order to pursue leads about the Flu, Jonathan has to work at night to research and diagnose those patients that need extra care. These are the same leads that drive him into conflicts with vampire hunters and even other vampires as Jonathan uncovers an ancient plot meant to cleanse as much as it's supposed to destroy.

The Good

The narrative here is most certainly the best thing Vampyr has going for it. Jonathan's story is told in an exquisite way with the backdrop of a deteriorating London adding a sense of urgency to his actions. He's also an intelligent character who cares deeply for others, in a stark juxtaposition with the fact that he requires blood to live. This makes Dr. Reid's internal conflict that much more pressing, and brings the player's emotional investment in fully.

    Audio is another thing to sink your teeth into. Okay, I'll stop. But in all reality, it's good. The score is done by Olivier Deriviere of Dying Light and A Plague Tale fame. He uses a mixture of creepy violin and cello notes to set the tone for an eerie London plagued by both influenza and blood sucking vampires. To match Deriviere's efforts in sound, you have a full cast of voice actors who all do an incredible job in breathing unlife into their subjects. Jonathan Reid and Lady Ashbury are the definitive greats of the game, but even the one-off characters loitering in the gutters have been voiced with an effort that matches the severity of Vampyr's mood.

The Bad

Gameplay is not great. I'm just going to come right out and say it.

    The controls are clunky. Any time that I have to sprint with a character and need to hold down a button in order to do so, I feel like I'm playing a game from early PS1 days. Vampyr uses a mixture of HP, stamina, and blood level bars to monitor during combat. While you can lock onto enemies like many games do in their fights, Vampyr practically commands you to do so. Not locking on is a surefire way to get killed, especially in hard mode, because the enemies will never miss but you'll be swinging a machete around with all the grace of a little-leaguer struggling at the tee.

    On top of this are the visuals. I know that Don't Nod used the Unreal Engine in order to make the game, but that should be a plus more than anything. The fact that the characters hands and faces look clunky just tells me there wasn't as much time spent on aesthetics as their could have been. Some of these moments take you out of the immersion of the game. Noticing Reid's hands looking like salami blocks, or a bite mark seeming like nothing more than an angry rash... This could have been better.

Vampiric Glory

Overall, Vampyr served as an incredible stepping stone for Don't Nod's magnum opus in Banishers. Jonathan utilizes a lot of the investigative practices that Red will ultimately rely on. While the level of writing elevates Vampyr into Glory territory... some poor controls and lackluster graphics keep it from achieving epic or legendary status.

8/10

Glorious