Developers Dontnod sure do like time travel; moving on from their time travelling Life is Strange protagonist Max, their latest offering, Vampyr, plans to take players back to London in the year 1918. Other than the ties of time travel, though, with this latest offering Dontnod are continuing to show serious thematic variety in the games they’re creating.
Looking very different from the studio’s futuristic Remember Me, and the small town setting of Life is Strange, Vampyr is an action RPG set in a dark, dangerous and Spanish Flu stricken London, and stars a surgeon turned vampire coming to grips with his new supernatural status. In a Q&A on the Playstation Europe blog, Dontnod promised that the game will feature lots of exploration and investigative elements, such as finding clues and talking with NPCs, as well as “tight” and “visceral” combat mechanics for fighting the human and mythical enemies prowling the streets alongside you.
It’s also being promised that, like Life is Strange, player choices will have both an immediate and farther-reaching impact. The nature of these choices is pretty different from Life is Strange, though, as in Vampyr everyone is a possible victim to your bloodthirst and it’s who you choose to kill and eat that could have consequences for the story, rather than whether or not you want to water that houseplant. It’s clear that as a character you’ll have to kill to stay alive (it’s “the price of immortality”), but it’ll be interesting to try and justify your decisions over who lives and dies to yourself.
Dontnod claim that they thought post-war London was the perfect setting for the atmosphere they’re trying to create and the story they’re trying to tell. At a time when disease was in every home, and crime and death were rife on the streets, great social and political developments were happening. It was a period when medicine and science were advancing, but superstition still lingered, and you can see this in Dontnod’s decision to create a character who suffers from a supernatural curse but is trying to treat it like a medical condition.
The concept images that have been released for the game make it look wonderfully gritty and atmospheric, and we can’t wait to see more.
Gadgette’s resident gamer has four entire console setups in her house. With two TVs. Next to each other. If this wasn’t enough to convince you she’s the best, she’s also the biggest Pokemon fan you’ll ever meet. Like her writing? Use Follow, it’s super effective.
