Gamecom 2016 has been a pretty massive success really, with gameplay trailers coming out the wazoo. One such gameplay trailer was for Focus Home Interactive’s upcoming action-RPG – Vampyr.
For those who don’t already know, Vampyr is set in Victorian London, in the grip of a flu epidemic, so that beautiful but gloomy look to London is tainted with sickness. However, the flu is not the only thing killing people here, no as if that wasn’t bad enough there are also vampires at play. In a word, I’d probably say…poopers.
The gameplay trailer that was shown at Gamescom was a little rusty in parts, but that’s understandable to a degree, it’s in pre-alpha and there is a lot more work to go in it, but for the most part the game does look pretty good, even if it looks as though the combat could get pretty repetitive after a while.
When I say it looked a little rusty, the animations when characters were talking was abysmal, considering the generation of games that we’re in, getting mouths to sync with the words that are meant to be coming out of them should be sorted out – and I hope it is.
I’m a big fan of narratives in games, and I couldn’t quite get a handle on what was meant to be going on in this gameplay demo, however the demo was to show off the gameplay, not the story, but what snippets were there were a tad obscure. From what I gathered, you (the titular Vampyr) had to go tell the vicar that you’d killed the girl that was being buried at the start of the demo, and that you might just be related to her.
There was also a part where you approached a guy who you used your vampy-senses to see if he had healthy blood to ask him if you could enter his house, I suppose in true vampire style of not being able to enter a house without an invite. This questioning was fruitless and somewhat pointless, as you used some kind of vampire-Jedi mind-trick to ask him to walk another 4 feet away from where he was to then suck him dry. From the neck. Vampire style. So yeah, that looked…less impressive than I’m sure they were going for.
The gameplay through the actual game didn’t look too bad, with your Vampire being able to do a cool black-smoke warpy thing from one spot to another, crossing gaps or gaining a height advantage, and there was one kill in the demo that involved you impaling a guy with these weird hell tentacles that you raised from the ground. That was pretty cool, but what I immediately wondered was why these people were able to immediately recognise you as a vampire. I mean you weren’t even wearing your signature cape, you don’t have particularly pale skin, you’re minus your Eddie Munster hairdo and you’re also not wearing your “I’m a Vampire” t-shirt. You just looked like a guy with a pretty cool jacket. Maybe these Victorian era Londoners were just a bit miffed that his jacket was better than theirs. And they’d all turned up wearing the same thing, that’s bound to have put them in a bad mood…
All in all, I think this game has some potential, but I’d have to actually play the game and get a bit more of a feel for the characters and story to get more of a grasp on it, but for now I’m thinking I’ll probably give this a miss when it’s released in 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
What did you think of the demo? Do you agree or disagree with what I’ve put and why? Let us know in the comments below or in the RGM Forums.
