Overview
Vampyr is an action role-playing video game developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Focus Home Interactive. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on 5 June 2018, and for Nintendo Switch on 29 October 2019. The plot relates how Jonathan Reid, a doctor who has turned into a vampire, is torn between the Hippocratic Oath and his newfound bloodthirsty nature.
While some boss battles are mandatory, most combat can be avoided, and the player is under no obligation to kill innocents to finish the game. Dialogue options are used for conversation and hunting prey to feed on, which replenishes strength and levels up the lead character. Weapons and supernatural abilities are employed while combatting enemies. Set during the era of the Spanish flu, London serves as a fictionalised semi-open world composed of four districts, amenable to destruction based on the player's actions. The game was first mentioned at a Focus Home event in January 2015.
The developers researched the setting by travelling to London and consulting history books and documentaries. The visuals were made with fictional and factual reference points in mind. Olivier Deriviere composed the original score and infused it with industrial music. The game was met with mixed reviews from critics, who praised the primary game mechanic, setting, character development, and voice acting, but criticised the combat, overall narrative, technical problems, aspects of the choice-based system, and animations. The game surpassed one million copies sold within ten months.
Gameplay
Vampyr is an action role-playing game played from a third-person view. The player controls Jonathan E. Reid, a doctor who was made into a vampire, and whose thirst for blood compels him to kill innocent people. To do this successfully, he must study and change his targets' habits, collect clues, and maintain relationships with the sixty citizens under his care in London, which serves as a fictionalised semi-open world built around hubs of neighbourhoods tethered to other areas. A skill tree facilitates the improvement of abilities, which is fuelled by experience points gained from blood and, alternatively, investigation. Feeding on human blood provides nourishment in addition to unlocking new vampiric powers. Abilities can be manually activated and passively upgraded.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).