Dontnod has been churning out weekly episodes of a behind-the-scenes webseries for their upcoming title Vampyr. The third episode, Human After All, dives into the NPCs of their world.
The action-RPG will take a much closer approach than most games, diving more into the human element of a vampire story. In the latest episode, the developers talk about how none of their NPCs are background characters. The reason for this, other than immersion, is very deliberate. A vampire must feed to stay alive, but the main character, Jonathan Reid, is a doctor. A doctor’s oath, even in 1918, is to keep people alive in any way possible. But a vampire cannot fight their thirst.
This will make the player’s decision on who to feed upon a very difficult one. There are no generic NPCs that talk about arrows in knees or sweet rolls. Those types of characters would be a cop out, as they have no family or friends that we know of. The prey of your choice in Vampyr has a background, a life, people they love, and you will undoubtedly learn of these things before taking their life. If that wasn’t enough, a special feature of vampirism in Dontnod’s universe is being able to see a victim’s dying thoughts.
Considering the player may have no choice in feeding or not, this could lead to some very difficult decision making. Each dead citizen will also lead to the erosion of the district they come from. Too many feedings in a particular district could lead to a full evacuation of the citizens of that area.
Vampyr is due for release in Spring 2018 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Check out the first episode about Dr. Jonathan Reid himself, or the music behind the game.