Vampyr Reviews
Vampyr is a smart action game that poses regular moral dilemmas as you decide to either heal or kill characters in a wonderfully dark city. With decent melee combat and an interesting story, there are not many vampire games that taste as sweet.
A beautifully told gothic tale with interesting skill systems and some fun combat is only let down by window dressing and a location that feels like a stage and not an actual city. Vampyr might not be the game of the year, but it is certainly going to be one of the most interesting titles we see in 2018 and, sales permitting, a title that will only get better in future sequels.
Vampyr is a brilliant single-player RPG with deep social mechanics that make playing as a vampire a truly unique and satisfying experience.
Vampyr may very well be the video game personification of the phrase "diamond in the rough".
I'm left frustrated that Vampyr falls short of truly combining a smart choose-your-own-adventure game with a meaty action one.
Players assume the role of a once doctor turned vamp to help him whittle down a Spanish plague ridden 1912 London until the absolute oblong behind this whole mess is found.
Vampyr is a functional 30-hour diversion with occasional dashes of brilliance, but not much else.
Vampyr exceeds all expectations and delivers a thrilling vampire adventure with great storytelling and a gameplay that borrows the right elements from games like Bloodborne. If you can live with some longer loading screens and a missing fast travel option you'll get a well made Action-RPG with lots of enjoyable content.
Review in German | Read full review
Tying hard moral decisions to real gameplay in a compelling open-world RPG is an ambitious goal, and it’s one that Vampyr achieves to an extent.
The easy way out for Dontnod would have been to take the most time-worn tropes from dime store horror novels, season to taste with period melodrama and serve it all up for players to enjoy. Vampyr reaches for more, and I'm very interested to see if the finale does it all justice
Vampyr is a bloody good time that is marred by some tedious mechanics and some technical issues.
Vampyr did not live up to our expectations and did not reach the level of Life is Strange. So, if If you were expecting another Dontnod masterpiece, you'll be disappointed. If you're interested in setting, then it's probably worth a try, but only at a discount price.
Review in Russian | Read full review
There's no denying that Vampyr has some mighty rough edges to it and combat that is decent, but unspectacular. Yet there's a delicious sense of place to it that makes it undeniably interesting to get stuck into. Many of the game's flaws melt away as you get lost in the moody grime of this alternate version of wartime London. The most important job Vampyr had to do was to present a compelling game about the tragic romanticism of being a vampire, and the fight for retaining humanity or embracing the unnatural power it brings. Vampyr does drop the ball on many small things, but it does that important job superbly.
Although Vampyr's combat system is thoroughly satisfying, it's the dark atmosphere and narrative that genuinely makes the game a must-have. Your choices define the experience, altering a world full of discovery and intrigue all around you. Do you give in to your blight and feast upon the weak and unworthy inhabitants of London or do you become their salvation? It should take you anywhere from 20-30 hours to complete the narrative, but if you want to see all of the possible endings, you'll have to play through multiple times, altering your choices and decisions regarding the lives of the citizens.
Vampyr is a slow burn of an RPG, taking its time to ramp up its intriguing blend of science and the supernatural in an elaborately gloomy version of London. When it gets going you can see the potential of the way it offers you more power if you consume its interesting citizens. But Vampyr never commits to this idea to the point where I felt I needed to make that sacrifice to succeed in its relatively simple combat, which leaves it feeling toothless and vulnerable to having a lot of its fun sucked away by technical issues, despite its genuinely engaging story.
If you're looking for a story-focused RPG, Vampyr is a solid option. It offers in-depth conversation options, game-changing choices to make and an intriguing storyline full of plot twists and betrayal.
The story may be a tad lackluster, and the combat may be clunky as hell, but Vampyr does offer a compelling adventure for those looking for some blood-sucking fun. It also manages to effectively make you feel like a creature of the night at times. Unfortunately, the frequent technical issues sapped just about every ounce of joy from the experience, leaving this digital world a dry, lifeless husk.
Vampyr is an ambitious masterpiece with forgivable flaws
Much like its early 20th century setting, Vampyr feels like a bit of a throwback to a past age of action RPGs. In a time where the genre is evolving Vampyr holds on to past ideas for much of its tenure, and it doesn't have a story strong enough to overcome that fact. The world itself is ripe for lots of stories to be told within, with Dontnod having done a good job with world building, but while Vampyr isn't a bad game, nor is it as great as it could be.
Rather than going for size in the character roster, Dontnod might have done better to shoot for complexity.