Focus Home Interactive kicked off this year’s E3 with a brand new trailer for Dontnod’s bloodsucking RPG, Vampyr. The trailer seemed to portray a very different game than what we’ve seen previously. Suddenly the moody, atmospheric tale of a doctor turned vampire in the midst of an epidemic looked more like an action flick, complete with bloody battles and rocking guitar riffs. So, which is the real Vampyr?
As if responding to my previous request for more publicity around the game, Focus has published roughly 10 mins of recorded gameplay. The new video shows our protagonist Jonathan Reid doing a little detective work to hunt a killer. The developer commentary explains that it’s in the players best interest to avoid random fights with those risking the flu and pollution of the streets to hunt vampires and their more feral counterparts, Skals. This again hints more towards the calculated stealth favoring combat we’d seen in previous videos.
Players are able to move through a semi open world, exploring, looting, and acquiring more information about London’s fate. Far from the war on the streets of the trailer, here Jonathan uses his power to traverse undetected past a pack of vampire hunters. “As long as we don’t move too close, we can just move on,” the narrator explains.
Closer, Yet Still Far Away
Since the footage was taken from the game’s alpha build some of the character animations are still rough. Mouth movements don’t always coordinate correctly and some of the combat dashing looked a bit clunky. Dontnod definitely still has some technical polishing to do to get the game ready for its November release date.
Even so, the gameplay video felt more in-line with our Vampyr expectations than the trailer. Jonathan is far more interesting as a troubled man learning to balance his dark nature with noble intentions than then another action hero, Wesley Snipes wannabe.
