All right, so calling a vampire subspecies a cannibal is a little misleading, but when you watch Vampyr ’s latest gameplay trailer from E3 2017, you’ll understand. Check out the 10-minute alpha gameplay demo for Vampyr below:
In this slice of the game, protagonist Jonathan E. Reid is coming to terms with his new life as a vampire and deciding what kind of person he’s going to be in his new unlife. A character from the Guard of Priwen berates Dr. Swansea, head of Pembroke Hospital where Reid is employed, then turns threateningly to Reid. Swansea’s hospital is neutral, sacred territory where both vampire and hunter must coexist, though, so the Guard gives you a mean ol’ look that promises he’ll see you in the streets and moves along.
The Hospital has weathered an attack, and Reid wants to restore order and confidence in Pembroke Hospital. It turns out a man named Sean Hampton known as “the Sad Saint” who was rescued earlier on the Docks has been infected with whatever causes vampirism, causing him to turn into a ghoulish type of vampire called a “skal.” The Guard now suspects the Hospital of vampire activity, and Reid says he’ll put an end to the problem so that the fanatic Guards don’t cause a problem.
We see that Reid must chat with the denizens of London to make progress on his quest, something the Dontnod dev who narrated the demo calls “playing with the delicate social microcosms that tie the survivors of the Spanish flu and vampire society together.” We learn that Hampton runs a night asylum in the Docks neighborhood where he takes care of the hungry and homeless.
The skal are flesh-eating ghouls a step below a vampire who appear to retain their sanity, kind of. However, feeding on influenza victims has caused heavy mutations and increased aggression in the skal. The demo mission asks: should a skal who is doing good for the city’s most vulnerable and needy be put down, only because they might lose control some day and also because they are gross-looking and creepy? Mmmaybe.
Anyway, Reid wants to find out how the skals have turned into these creatures as well as hopefully discover a way to save them. The world moves on while Reid travels through it, with the Guard and skals engaged in their own battles as Reid makes his way around.
The dev narrating points out that feeding from the healthy is the fastest way to get stronger, but thins out London’s population dangerously. Do you want a London populated only by skals and those dying of the flu? If you do, you can avoid the dangeorus minibosses and eat the innocent for greater XP boosts.
While this segment of gameplay focuses on story and choices, we do see some combat as well. The combat is a mix of melee and ranged weapons supported by vampire abilities. Gameplay is based on “timing, positioning and managing of different resources.” There are three bars you must manage: a stamina bar for melee and dodges, a blood bar for supernatural abilities, and the health bar obviously represents your health. We don’t see too many vampire abilities, though, aside from a Reaper-esque teleportation skill.
At the end of the demo we see an extended scene between Sean and Reid. Sean is a critical figure in the Docks community and his destiny is closely tied to the neighborhood’s fate, so skal or not, Reid’s judgment affects far more people than just Sean. But Sean may have already murdered a helpless old woman as he fled the hospital, struggling to cope with his new condition.
The choice is difficult, but the scene is made even creepier when Reid walks in on Sean eating raw flesh off a plate and babbling about the doctrine of transmutation. Creepy string music plays throughout the scene, making everything even more disquieting. Reid exonerates Sean of murdering the old woman, but is unsure whether or not Sean may still kill in the future. As Sean whispers about being an instrument of God’s divine will made eternal, Reid can’t help but speak in horror of how the cravings will never end. Sean has made his peace with eating dead flesh, and it’s now Reid’s decision whether to spare him, embrace him, or take an intriguing middle route labeled “CHARM.”
The gameplay demo makes sure to note that it is “not indicative of the final quality,” as “visual elements and animations” are “still in development.” So save your comments on wooden facial animations or weird character models that still look better than Mass Effect: Andromeda on launch day, ‘cause this is just the alpha.
Vampyr is scheduled to launch this Nov. on PS4, Xbox One and PC, with more information available at the game’s official website here. Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below.
