The adventure takes place in 1918, when the First World War is coming to an end and London is in the grip of an epidemic of Spanish flu. Just returned from the front, Doctor Jonathan Reid is attacked in the streets of the capital, dies, is thrown into a mass grave and wakes up among the corpses with an uncontrollable thirst for blood... which leads him to kill his own sister passing by. That's what you call having a bad day! Having become a vampire, our hero goes in search of information on his exact nature and in search of the creature that attacked him. If this initial statement may seem quite classic for a story of vampires, the developers of Dontnod had the good idea to impose on us a main character doctor, hematologist moreover. Our man is necessarily torn between his (human) desire to treat the inhabitants of the city and his (bestial) need for blood. Better yet, this dilemma is directly transferred to the player, who has the freedom to bite the NPCs or not. If he does, he will have more experience points, will then be able to unlock a maximum of powers, and will therefore see the difficulty of the fights against the other ghouls and the vampire hunters greatly reduced. In return, certain narrative arcs will be shortened or even deleted, and the neighborhood in which the victims reside will gradually fall into chaos. And as it should be, the player's choices will lead to a specific ending, the presence of four different conclusions having been announced by the developers. Added to this are a few subtleties, such as the relatively perverse possibility of treating sick citizens … in order to obtain more experience points when the time comes to drain them of their blood. Or the opportunity to unearth clues about the different characters, by finding lost documents in the scenery or by talking with other people, which again allows them to increase their "quality of blood" (without know too well why anyway), and therefore the experience obtained.
SANG PIUR NARRATIVE BLOOD
Packed with characters to meet and multiple-choice dialogue sequences, Vampyr lives up to its title of "narrative action-RPG". The lines of text are numerous (for a 2018 game…), fully doubled, and the writing is very correct. Well, the hero is a bit too inclined to settle for a simple "tell me more about..." or a silly "tell me about..." to broach the various subjects, but we don't care. won't be too strict. The most interesting thing is that certain dialogue choices are blocked until certain clues have been recovered (the same as those mentioned above). Suddenly, the round trips between the different characters do not seem too tedious, because we regularly have new things to tell them. The icing on the cake, our various interlocutors all have a real face, as well as a unique story. We therefore easily remember each of them, and the choice to bleed them or not is even more difficult. Halfway between realism and Dishonored-style stylization, the artistic direction hits the mark. As far as the faces are concerned (starting with that of the hero), but the decorations and the clothes are not left out. The atmosphere of post-Victorian London is perfectly rendered, the balance between warm and cold colors seems perfect, and the special effects illustrating the different vampiric powers flatter the retina. Because yes, even if it is very talkative, the game still offers many fights and a skill tree to unlock.
BLOOD TEST
Jonathan's state is represented by three different bars (life, stamina, blood) and the first talent he will need to unlock is autophagy, which allows him to regain health by biting his wrist and tapping some of his own blood. The range of aggressive skills include the claw strike, the blood lance and the mist of darkness (an explosive cloud), while the most defensive players can opt for the coagulation which paralyzes opponents, or the blood shield. Tacticians will opt for the veil of shadow which makes it possible to become invisible, and the charge which will surprise the enemies. Add to that various passive bonuses and three ultimate powers (rage, whirlwind of darkness, cauldron of blood) and you get a very rich combat system. It is all the more so since we must add to the equation the presence of firearms and melee, a dodging system, enemies who can benefit from four resistances (melee, distance , blood, darkness) on different levels, and the need to constantly juggle between standard damage and stun damage. Indeed, in the middle of a fight it is only possible to bite enemies to fill our blood bar after having stunned them. The clashes are therefore quite tactical, especially if one avoids bleeding the citizens and therefore has limited powers. Conversely, if we show no mercy with the NPCs, then we can improve each skill on many levels, sometimes having to choose between two branches that differ slightly. We find this principle of customization in the crafting system, thanks to which we can improve the different weapons. Incidentally, it is also possible to concoct different serums for personal use or for citizens.
VAMPYR EMPIRE?
The richness of the fights unfortunately comes up against an enemy artificial intelligence which shows its limits fairly quickly. It is enough for our hero to be high up or below for the adversaries to lose all their means, some of them then remaining motionless under the blows from a distance... our pursuers are suddenly seized with amnesia and return to their initial occupations. Fortunately, the fights are far from constituting the entirety of the gameplay! We still hope that a patch will quickly resolve this, because this one-time artificial stupidity is frankly a task when it manifests itself. We may also regret that the exploration is not freer. Jonathan indeed has a power of teleportation (in reality a supernatural speed) which enables him to reach places in high places or to cross obstacles (collapsed bridge, body of water, etc.). Except that it's all totally scripted. It is only possible to use this ability in certain specific and predetermined places. We would have greatly preferred to be able to move freely, like the "Blink" of the hero of Dishonored.
Finally, note that the game is not free of small bugs, hardly annoying, not systematic, but still very present. Here, it is the camera which will be badly placed during a session of dialogues and will make us admire a magnificent pole in place of our interlocutor. There, it is the color of the dialogue choices that will be erroneous, indicating that there are still unexplored topics in the submenu, when in fact this is not the case. While nitpicking, we will also notice some graphic artifacts, like certain lights which cause a flickering effect at a certain angle, or the inside of the mouths of NPCs which sometimes display reflections that are far too pronounced. This slight lack of finish is all the more surprising since on other points, the game really has an eye for detail. Thus, the graphic options are very numerous (on PC at least) and perfectly arranged, we can choose to display or not the interface in game, and it is even possible to choose the size of the subtitles among three, and whether or not the speaker indication is present. In the end, even if it does not quite reach perfection, Vampyr comes very close to it and will satisfy fans of RPGs and bloodsuckers.
