Vampyr (PlayStation 4) review "At least this vampire has legitimate reasons to be a bit melancholy!"

Dontnod Entertainment’s Vampyr is an intriguing game. It would be a truly good one if not for a pair of factors dragging it down a bit. Unfortunately, those factors are the combat system and a tedious and anticlimactic conclusion. Well, they can’t all be winners!

Vampyr tries, though. Thanks to a deep system by which you can have major effects on the city of London based on how you interact with its people, I found myself putting thought into conversations, while scouring buildings and alleys for hints that would unlock new dialogue options. The nighttime setting in a city afflicted by an epidemic created a nice horror movie atmosphere and there were a few properly grotesque baddies to dispatch while exploring graveyards, sewers and mansions.

You control Dr. Jonathan Reid, who just returned from World War I, only to be immediately turned into a vampire upon reaching London. Making matters worse, upon “reawakening”, he was in a feral state and had a bit of a whoops-a-daisy, immediately assaulting and draining the first person he came across…who happened to be his own sister. Obviously, after returning to his senses, the realization of what he is and what he just did don’t exactly help the good doctor’s mental state.

Fortunately, the chief doctor of a nearby hospital also happens to be a vampire enthusiast and is willing to take on Jonathan to work the night shift at his overburdened facility, which gives him the opportunity to examine his condition and find ways to alleviate his thirst for blood. Even better, the hospital’s financial benefactor, Lady Ashbury, happens to also be a vampire and has been one for a long, long time, which gives him a willing confidant to lean upon in his search for answers.

And that’s about it for the positives in Reid’s (un)life. The negatives are legion. Not only is there a major influenza epidemic turning large areas of London into quarantine zones, but there also is a vampire epidemic going on, with animalistic night-stalkers known as Skals proving dangerous to anyone stepping into their territory. To combat those creatures, the all-too-human Guard of Priwan is out hunting them with fanatical devotion. And, well, if you’re hunting vampires with fanatical devotion, the fact that one is a doctor and may be working to help alleviate matters himself isn’t going to stop you from putting him down. In short, any time that Jonathan leaves the reasonably safe confines of Pembroke Hospital, he is at risk from all sorts of human and undead adversaries.

Vampyr is a standard third-person action-RPG where you gain levels and put experience points into upgrading Jonathan and a small number of skills he can acquire. By biting vampire hunters or vampires, he drains their blood, which can then be used to either heal himself or deliver special attacks. Of course, to be able to bite most foes, he’ll have to stun them — which is only easily accomplished if he’s wielding certain weapons — so it’s also wise to use Reid’s doctor skills to craft various medicines. Not only can he craft stuff that will boost his health and blood, but also cures for all sorts of diseases, which is pretty important considering that when in a city suffering from rampant disease, there’s a good chance any number of local NPCs are under the weather.

Dealing with those people is a highlight of this game. The London of Vampyr is divided into four districts, each containing around 15 or so residents. By conversing with one person or another, you’ll get hints about them that can unlock new dialogue options, which also can be found on notes scattered throughout the world. The more you know about a person, the more experience they’ll be worth if you decide to harvest them. While killing too many people will lead to you getting a worse ending than if you were at least mostly merciful, the levels you gain from doing so can be a real difference-maker when going against bosses and other tough foes.

On the other hand, killing people has a detrimental effect on a district’s health. More people will become ill and, if matters progress too far, a district might wind up being totally taken over by hostiles. And there can be other repercussions for killing certain people, as many of them are connected to at least one other resident. Killing one part of that connection could lead to someone else becoming a high-level vampire or Priwan member you’ll be forced to confront down the road.

And I dug all of this. I got to know all the people, try to help them with their personal side quests and decide if they belonged on my “naughty or nice” list, just like Vampire Santa! And if I found myself getting thrashed by a tough encounter, I’d find someone who didn’t impress me (and was worth a lot of experience) and remove them from their life, telling myself they might have been bad people, but at least the power they gave me would allow me to do good!

Now if only the combat was as enjoyable as the adventuring. You have a few options: one-handed and two-handed melee weapons, knives and guns to be used as secondary ones and those special vampire attacks, as well as a flash-step dodge and a stamina meter to limit how much of this stuff you can do at once. And, for most of the game, I found myself doing the same thing because it worked wonderfully against all but a handful of bosses. I equipped a two-handed weapon that built up a foe’s stun meter and, when it filled, I’d bite that foe to replenish blood and health. It was simple, effective and kind of boring. But it’s not like I had tons of other options. I was reluctant to use certain moves because they used blood, which I liked to save for when I needed to use it for healing. My best special attack also had such a long countdown timer that I couldn’t count on using it with anything resembling reliability. There I was, a vampire…and I’m fighting just like any generic action hero, only with a vicious bite.

I still mostly enjoyed myself because this game is at least short enough to prevent things from getting too tiresome, but it does end with a resounding thud. So, you finish off the final boss and save London. All you have to do is find Lady Ashbury and spend the rest of your existence with the one you’ve grown to love. Cue you showing up at a crumbling castle. First, you have to find a way inside. Then, you have to solve a puzzle in order to gain access to a secret chamber. Finally, you have to endure tons of dialogue and exposition before finding out just how happy your ending is going to be. There’s no combat attached to any of this — it’s just searching and talking. And more talking. I felt most of this game was well-paced, but its conclusion just dragged on in that “Is this damned thing ever going to end?!?!?” sort of way.

Vampyr is a great example of a mixed bag. It has some great atmosphere and character work, to go with it being enjoyable to explore London and try to glean all the information about its residents as possible. You can kill as few or many of those people as you want, with there being legitimate consequences for those actions. I just wish that stuff was in a better game. One in which the combat didn’t routinely devolve into Generic Third-Person Action RPG #1435 hitting and dodging. And most definitely one that doesn’t require about a half-hour of busywork and dialogue scrolling to resolve things after overcoming its final adversary. I don’t think I can heartily endorse this game, but it is intriguing enough to be worth a person’s time if they feel the good might outweigh the bad.

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (January 10, 2025) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.