Vampyr

 PC
Metascore
72

Mixed or average reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 35
  3. Negative: 0 out of 35
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  1. DarkZero
    Jun 20, 2018
    70
    This is another strong narrative release for Dontnot Entertainment, it’s just a shame that it is in a genre that has to be more than that, so Vampyr, while I can recommend, just don’t expect it to hit the superb heights of action RPG classics of the last few years.
  2. The Overpowered Noobs
    Jun 8, 2018
    70
    Vampyr takes the humorously ironic situation of a hematologist-turned-vampire and spins it into a compelling and poetic tragedy with a focus on both combat and decision-making.
  3. GameWatcher
    Jun 6, 2018
    70
    Vampyr is by no means a bad game. We never gave up on it, and the compelling story and characters drove us on, and nothing about it is truly awful - apart from the menus. It’s simply not as good as it could have been, which is a real shame considering how good some of its ideas are. You may well enjoy it, but we suspect you’ll be left hungry for more satisfying fare.
  5. Shacknews
    Jun 5, 2018
    70
    It’s far from spotless out of the gate, but DontNod has created an interesting concept in a world that I want to learn a lot more about. It’s a world that is a lot of fun to explore and manipulate at its best.
  6. PC PowerPlay
    Jun 5, 2018
    70
    Some marvelous mechanics don't add up to enough to detract from stilted writing, an overly grim aesthetic, and repetitive combat.
  7. Gameblog.fr
    Jun 5, 2018
    70
    Vampyr is a good surprise, with a delightful poetic and gothic atmosphere, a clever story and a satisfying system of choices. Sadly, its combat system is crippled by its locking mechanics especially, and most of the fights are not wall balanced. Despite this, Vampyr is a really good action-RPG.
  8. Gamer.nl
    Jun 5, 2018
    70
    Vampyr is an intriguing adventure filled with moral choices to make, it is a pity the gameplay is such a disappointment.
  9. PCGamesN
    Jun 4, 2018
    70
    What’s struck me most about my time with Vampyr is that it manages to turn you into a predator through its mechanics as much as it does with its storytelling. It does collapse under its own weight by the end, but the fact that it so effectively seduces you, almost trance-like, into roleplaying a villain makes it worth biting into.
  10. GameSpot
    Jun 4, 2018
    70
    And yet, the credits roll on Vampyr with the realization of how seldom we see an open-world RPG experience like this, where being a citizen with a responsibility to a place and its people feels personal, even if that investment lies in who looks delicious tonight. Vampyr is certainly shaggy and rough in the technical department, but its narrative successes still make for an impactful and worthwhile experience.
  11. PC Gamer
    Jun 4, 2018
    68
    There are some brilliant, original ideas in here, but Vampyr tries to do too much at once and suffers for it.
  12. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Dec 31, 2018
    60
    A horror action adventure game with cool duels, an impressive atmosphere with the need to think about the consequences of your actions. Unfortunately, the final experience is not perfect. [Issue#287]
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  13. Games.cz
    Jul 13, 2018
    60
    Vampyr can bewitch with its atmosphere and conquer with the skillful delivery of a quality story. However, the RPG and action parts didn´t succeed, and the intended main pull in the form of heavy choices, whom to kill and whom to let live, is also lost to the lack of impact of your action. Although the game can entertain in the end, it often disappoints instead.
  14. Game Informer
    Jun 19, 2018
    60
    Through the fog awkward mechanics and unsatisfying decisions (not to mention some dumb story twists), the fun and intriguing core of Vampyr is sometimes visible. Unfortunately, that fog lifts only rarely, leaving most of the experience shrouded in darkness.
  15. GRYOnline.pl
    Jun 5, 2018
    60
    Vampyre's issues lie deep within the core gameplay design. DONTNOD shouldn't have attempted to make an RPG. Vampyr would have been much better off as a shorter adventure or action-adventure production such as Remember Me. It's a great shame that this exquisite artistic vision and superb atmosphere were, in the end, squandered.
  16. RPG Site
    Jun 4, 2018
    60
    There’s too much unsatisfying combat, too many contrived moral choices, and too much corny writing they expect you to take deathly seriously. By the time the credits rolled, I was more than willing to pound a stake through Vampyr’s proverbial heart.
  17. GameGrin
    Jun 25, 2018
    50
    Vampyr is a game that's mainly focused on telling a good story and developing its characters, which it does respectably. That being said, things such as combat, mission variety, and even hardware, end up getting put to the wayside. All in all, it's a rather bleak experience.
  18. Slant Magazine
    Jun 4, 2018
    50
    Vampyr compromises its themes that emphasize the value of life by shackling itself to traditional, tedious game design that finds the good Dr. Reid slicing through hordes of faceless folks in hopes of upgrading his hacksaw.
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In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Jun 4, 2018
    I’m frustrated that Vampyr falls just short of truly combining a smart choose-your-own-adventure game with a meaty action one. It’ll never happen, but a director’s cut that thins the sombre exposition eases the medical busywork, injects more pep, and makes decisions decisions, rather than often either a roulette wheel or a railroaded path, would create a dream combination of darkness and light. Nonetheless, as a sprawling midnight world of tight fights and atmospheric exploration, this is a fat vein I keep returning to.

Awards & Rankings

23
#23 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
49
#49 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

User Reviews

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User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 745 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 401 out of 745
  2. Mixed: 212 out of 745
  3. Negative: 132 out of 745
  1. Saric2017
    Jun 4, 2018
    10
    HISTORY
    Vampyr already starts with an intense and heavy prologue to already let the player involved with the story, even though this may    HISTORY
    Vampyr already starts with an intense and heavy prologue to already let the player involved with the story, even though this may leave him a little lost about how the game will be since the first hour of play is fairly linear. You take on the role of Dr. Jonathan Reid, a renowned physician who served in the war and has now been transformed and seeks answers and revenge from those who did this to you. The story is rather focused on the city of London, devastated by an epidemic.
    The Vampyr universe is greatly expanded in terms of mythologies and cultures, creating space for various types of organizations and groups in the game, such as secret vampire societies, shady sororities, hunter groups, and high-class vampire societies that govern the region, as well as other things that you discover throughout the game. The game is full of characters, each with its own characteristics and missions. Although Vampyr's promotional images that show cities full of people moving and interacting are a deceptive advertisement, you really feel inside a living and functional place.
    In the game you will need to know how to divide your bloodthirsty vampire side with your renowned doctor side, taking advantage to feed on these characters or helping them and improving the city. Your choices will affect the direction of the story of the game, as well as the direction of each city district and the destination of the characters that are there. As the game progresses (the main story takes 15 to 20 hours to be completed) the story is getting as intense as the prologue but leaving more room for choices rather than demotivating linearity.
    A big problem of the game is to force you to have a certain personality and affection for a certain character, something that I as a player did not understand where it came from and I could not relate because of the choices I made in the game. The DONTNOD Entertainment team had done something similar and forced on Life is Strange and it seems they made the same mistake.
    Gameplay
    As Vampyr it is an RPG of choices, open world and full of combat, I will divide this session into two parts: Choices and Combat.
    In terms of choices, the game has more effect on your actions than on dialog options. While it's amazing that you can just go on an NPC that would normally give you several missions, interact with the world around you and simply choose to kill him to quench your blood thirst (and gain a lot, but a lot XP with it), the dialogue options are almost always limiting and in the whole game only in 3 or 4 moments you will make big decisions because of these options. In some moments where you think you need to make a decision of extreme importance in the game, he chooses the destiny for you as well.
    Whenever you sleep, that is when you can evolve, the game shows the results of your actions in each district, showing if the district has become healthier or gone into chaos. Depending on the level of the district, certain NPCs will act differently and may improve the status of some and in worse cases, leading to the death of others.
    Already in combat, the game is sensational in every way. The combat is very similar to Witcher 2 and 3 (this is not going to be the last time I'll use Witcher for reference in this review), except that instead of being a hunter with equipment prepared to defeat a certain monster, you are the monster needing to watch out for hunters who know all their weaknesses. The game does not have a lot of variety of enemies (inferior vampires, hunters, monsters and vampires of high level), but knows to vary in the abilities that each one of them has as you get stronger in the game, which is great since, in a universe only of vampires, to escape of the pattern with enemies only to satisfy the will of the combat player, would be a negative point in the whole lore of the game.
    Hunters will only start with swords, torches and silver pistols, but as you progress through the game, the same hunters will start to carry crosses, garlic, higher precision rifles and even flamethrowers! The same goes for lower vampires, who will be stronger and have some new abilities. High level vampires find you only in some areas of the game and will start to use more skills similar to yours.
    Another thing the game has in common with Witcher 3 (not that this is Witcher 3's original or inspired by it), is the Witcher's sense. In the case of Vampyr, vampire sense. And it works the same way and is used by the game in the same way, you change your you change your vision to follow traces of blood or see enemies hidden by the map. Unlike the Witching sense, the vampire sense is not so charged to be used in so many missions and can be used more strategically by the player to avoid fighting or locating things hidden by the map.
    Concluding
    Vampyr is a very, very good game.    … Full Review »
  2. Esthete
    Mar 22, 2019
    1
    It seems that the Dontnod took up a vampires theme against the background of the success of "Blood and wine". It would be good if notIt seems that the Dontnod took up a vampires theme against the background of the success of "Blood and wine". It would be good if not abominable implementation of Vampyr. Pros: interesting concept, which was shown in the first teaser. Dontnod tried to make at least a couple of interesting NPCs, Lady Ashbury and Sean Hampton plus main character - Jonathan E. Reid, but apparently Dontnod or Focus Home Interactive wanted to release the game as soon as possible and as a result, devs couldn't do it qualitatively.. But everything else is disgusting: combat system, level design, character animation, cardboard dolls instead of interesting characters, the chaos system doesn't work, because of the lack of interesting characters, so chaos system just doesn't care, weak plot, the mechanics of the game are repetitive and boring. The vampire Mr. Reid cannot knock out doors and locks, and, you need to spend time in the same mazes again and again. Vampyr tries to copy ideas from different projects, and the same time it doesn't have its own individuality.

    Total:
    - Vampyr isn't AAA game
    - Vampyr isn't RPG
    - Vampyr is just demo concept which never became a game.    … Full Review »
  3. Skyrant
    Jun 5, 2018
    2
    This is a game that would have been a bad AAA in 2005. I would not even call it a AAA now. This should be around $25 not more.

    The design    This is a game that would have been a bad AAA in 2005. I would not even call it a AAA now. This should be around $25 not more.

    The design is bland and uninspired. The presentation is beyond amateurish. Controls, camera and combat feel cheap and have no weight or punch to it. The environments are bland. Good sound design is nowhere to be found, the same goes for music.

    The "story" is as uninspired as the design. The voice acting is mediocre at best and the multiple choice dialog system was all the rage 10 years ago. "You are bitten by a Super Vampire, you "accidentally" kill your sister, you are hunted, you need to find whoever made you into a vampire." What a dreadful boring story.

    Of cause they had to throw in a skill system and crafting system that is as uninspired and boring as the rest of the game. They should have spent more time on combat animations sound and design in general.

    Stay away from this unless its in a bargain bin and even then you will regret the purchase.    … Full Review »
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