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Vampyr - vampire action-RPG from Life Is Strange devs

Joined
Mar 27, 2013
Messages
3,914
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I'm kinda on the fence if LiS really was feminist; it sure was lieberull, that much I would agree on.
Anyway, I really still liked the game just for it's atmosphere. I mean, it's not like with Gothic where I say everybody who doesn't get the feel is a retard: for LiS it's highly subjective, either you like that emo-90s-high-school vibe or you don't. But I do. So I enjoyed playing the gaem.
 

Wirdschowerdn

Ph.D. in World Saving
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Clogging the Multiverse with a Crowbar
First screenshots released:

1456733917-vampyr-01.jpg

1456733918-vampyr-02.jpg

1456733918-vampyr-03.jpg


1456733918-vampyr-04.jpg
 

Aenra

Guest

For a game made by the LiS developers?
For a game made by the LiS developers that this time around goes out on the outting with the gay agenda "issue"?
For a game that does both the above AND has a central theme of "Take Blood. Save a Life"? Save a Life! Be inclusive!..

I thought better of you. Like seriously man :)

No, i don't have an issue with gays. Or blacks, reds, yellows or purples even. I have an issue with this trend of superimposing and emphasising minorities, alternative/different lifestyles in a way so blunt and insistent one feels he's watching a sponsored commercial. If for some this has by now become an accepted norm, their loss. Not mine. It's like sitting somewhere to have a beer, and the bartender keeps telling you 'i'm gay'. 'Did you know i'm gay?'. 'We too have rights by the way'.
 
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Martius

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 24, 2013
Messages
1,058
If it's as atmospherical as LiS and has about the same amount of choices it's so :d1p:.
Since its supposed to be action rpg I am worried about combat after Remember Me. It is worst part of this game. I still wonder who thought that invisible enemies in such game is good idea.
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2013
Messages
3,914
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
No, i don't have an issue with gays. Or blacks, reds, yellows or purples even. I have an issue with this trend of superimposing and emphasising minorities, alternative/different lifestyles in a way so blunt and insistent one feels he's watching a sponsored commercial. If for some this has by now become an accepted norm, their loss. Not mine. It's like sitting somewhere to have a beer, and the bartender keeps telling you 'i'm gay'. 'Did you know i'm gay?'. 'We too have rights by the way'.
Yes I actually agree.
But since I'm an incredible atmo fag I haven't been too annoyed by that stuff in LiS, simply because I totally liked the vibe and could really immerse myself into the world.
Also I have seen worse SJWism in movies and games than in LiS, where it wasn't just as in your face as it could have been imho.

Since its supposed to be action rpg I am worried about combat after Remember Me. It is worst part of this game. I still wonder who thought that invisible enemies in such game is good idea.
Never played Remember Me. Is it that bad?
 

Shin

Cipher
Joined
Jan 5, 2015
Messages
677
so do gay vampyres actually try to arouse other males in order for the blood to gather in the penis so it's easier to gather? for survival?

i need to know for roleplaying purposes
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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"Take Blood. Save a Life"?
Well ... that's the whole point. We're familiar with vampires as killing machines already - remember, this is a story about a doctor who becomes a vampire but doesn't want to let go of his human principles. It's stupid, but interesting.

Personally, I'm not sanguine* with "humanity" in vampire stories - they're undead, they should be unsympathetic monsters - but if you allow that a vampire protagonist is OK, struggling with that conflict is an obvious thing.

*Ha ha.
 

WhiteGuts

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2013
Messages
2,382
Remember Me had boring combat and boring story/characters, but in terms of worldbuilding/atmosphere it was one of the most convincing takes on "realistic" cyberpunk out there. If only they didn't put all those invisible walls...everywhere.
 
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toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,031
It looks like a combination between Dishonored and Thief. Which is cool ... but I sincerely doubt they will be able to make a good game.

Anyway, they are half-way there.
 

Martius

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 24, 2013
Messages
1,058
Never played Remember Me. Is it that bad?
After beating game once I would say so. Its not unplayable although I dont think its close to even mediocre. I can agree that setting is interesting but its pretty much wasted and I doubt many people enjoyed platforming with gps and combat. Its like studio tried to make something inspired by recent Batman games and failed at that. In theory there are some interesting ideas like option to customise combos but sadly it ends in making combo for damage, healing and cooldown reduction because its most effective. Same with enemies, for each there is pretty much one way to take them down. Invisible ones - use skill which makes them visible for short time and wait for cool down, guards which deal damage when you attack them - spam healing combo and so on. Many people praise memory remixes but it is pretty much trial and error.
 

Tao

Savant
Joined
Sep 13, 2015
Messages
343
Holy crap. i want this so much to be good that i cant put the words together. But Dontnod dont inspire me confidence at all. Why God? Why?

VtM, VtM:B, saga Kain and Castelvania Symphony of the Night. That's all, they are the only "good" games (rps ish) with a fucking vampire protagonist theme, the bad ones are so bad that shouldn't count even if there are like 4. In like what? 40 years of history in this fucking industry? As an old fan and player of White Wolf this is killing me guys.

So yeah


Me too man, me too.
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Given the choice - whether to risk playing a game made by a retarded and failing developer, or to challenge the Fates for another replay, a better replay of Legacy of Kain- what was a storyfag to do?
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,938
Given the choice - whether to risk playing a game made by a retarded and failing developer, or to challenge the Fates for another replay, a better replay of Legacy of Kain- what was a storyfag to do?

Play the old standard first then bitch when the new game isn't nearly as good?
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
History of Dontnod, from Naughty Dog wannabe to Sundance wannabe: http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/25/11473076/vampyr-dontnod-life-is-strange

Here is a bit about Vampyr:

To date, Life is Strange has sold more than 1 million copies. It's a financial success that's had a large impact on Dontnod: It's given the company a more prestigious profile, and made for an easier time hiring new talent. At the studio, developers speak as affectionately about the game as a parent parading good grades would. The game's heavy focus on emotional narrative and its staying ability in the minds of players exemplify some of Dontnod's goals.

That's something Guilbert has on the brain as attention shifts to Vampyr. Unlike with previous titles, there's been no pressure to change the game's vision. Guilbert credits this freedom to trust between Dontnod and the game's publisher, Focus Home Interactive.

"We [had] a lot of pressure after Remember Me, because the game was not as successful as we expected," he says. "So yes, we had really a lot of pressure to do a game which worked and was sellable. But who knows that? No one has the recipe to know what will be successful and what will be not. We decided to do really what we wanted to do, what we liked, and push it as far as possible.

"[Vampyr] brings the same kind of surprise with Life is Strange in a totally different universe."


DOOMED TO BE A VAMPYR

Vampyr
surfaced in early 2015, a mere week and a half before Life is Strange's inaugural episode launched; at the time, Dontnod was still best known forRemember Me.

Dontnod had little to say about Vampyr then. The vampire RPG was set to star a doctor, a man turned against his will, after returning home from the First World War in 1918. As 2015 wore on, the developer dropped some details about the project: a city in the grip of the Spanish flu; choices on who to kill and who to spare that will affect the game's story. Duality — the struggle between protagonist Jonathan Reid's desire to be a humanist, a man of science who wants to heal, and a creature of darkness compelled to survive by taking the lives of others — is burrowed deep into its themes.

Stéphane Beauverger, the game's narrative director, often describes Vampyr's story as a gothic one: dark, despair-filled and full of melancholy. It's a romanticized tale of immortals, without the romance.

"Very far from Twilight," Beauverger says.

Twilight, in case you were wondering, has worked its way into the cultural fabric of many countries, including Dontnod's home of France. Beauverger addresses the sparkling elephant in the room without provocation, eager to dispel any ideas that the team's creature of the night might shine in the sun.

"There is a whole genre of pop culture [that focuses on the] not very frightening figure of the vampire for the teenage [audience]," Beauverger says. "That's not at all what we're going to do."

Vampyr is dark, both in the context of its story and the nature it wants to convey. Jonathan is turned into a vampire and abandoned in a mass grave; when he attempts to return to work, he learns he must kill to survive. It's a tale of choice and damnation that hearkens back to the fiction established by Bram Stoker with Dracula, or even Anne Rice with her Vampire Chronicles novels.

"A vampire is a doom creature," Beauverger says. "It's a human who has been condemned to live eternally, but he has to take lives, to kill, to survive. It's very interesting for us because it's one of the very rare creatures who is conscious of what he's doing. Zombies, mummies, ghouls, werewolves are, most of the time, just stupid killing machines. A vampire is seducing his prey. He is totally aware of what he's doing, but he's compelled to do so.

"As a vampire you just go deeper and deeper and deeper into hell ... there is no escape. You are doomed from the very beginning. You can just decide the speed of your slow descent."

Jonathan Reid's evolution, and by extension the game's, is intimately tied to the number of people you feed on. The more you kill, the stronger you'll become. You can advance your character's strength and skills through fighting — hunters, other vampires and so on — but feeding on humans is the fastest, most effective way to advance Jonathan's abilities.

Dontnod plans to include a stack of RPG features in Vampyr, including skill trees to better tailor the vampire experience to the player. During an early demo, the developer showed off a few of Jonathan's supernatural skills. While some give him strength and speed, like a spring attack that allows him to quickly close gaps, others are more insidious. The doctor has the ability to mesmerize citizens and manipulate those with weak minds.

In the demo's case, this led to one character revealing information to Jonathan that he wouldn't have otherwise. Players have the choice to mesmerize even further, during which Jonathan leads them off into the shadows and feeds on them. Unfortunately for his victims, there is no such thing as a quick bite; players will either feed and kill, or not feed at all.

According to game director Philippe Moreau, however, players are never forced to feed on anyone.

"It's really up to you," he says. "You can decide to feed on nobody, or to kill everyone. It's your experience. ... The death of a citizen will impact, in a meaningful way, the game's world."

Players have to make hard choices. Specific moments in the game will ask them to either kill or spare a character, and "depending on if you choose to do it or not — because you always have the choice to not kill someone — it will change the story," Moreau says.

In one ominous image, the city of White Chapel appeared to be burning — a consequence of attacking too many people. Death is part of Vampyr, and so is murder, but it's not glamorous, says Beauverger. It's aggressive, with players killing quickly and with power suited to a damned being.

"You take a life," Beauverger says. "You kill someone. It's a murder. We already knew we will be rated [M for Mature], and we hope for that. We want to tell an adult story about vampires, immortality, honor, responsibilities."

The idea of responsibility — in both a sense of morals and consequences — is the thread that ties all of Dontnod's work together, says Beauverger. Players must face the same dilemmas as the hero and find a way to overcome it.

"We like to put the player in a situation where they are confronted with the consequences of [what] they do," Beauverger says. "This was true in Remember Me. This was very true in Life is Strange. It will be true again in Vampyr. You are going to take lives in order to survive. The decision is, who will you kill?"
 

Wirdschowerdn

Ph.D. in World Saving
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http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/25/11473076/vampyr-dontnod-life-is-strange

[...]

The company is done chasing dreams of AAA, co-founder and CEO Oskar Guilbert says, and has a more specific vision in mind.

"We see ourselves as more like the Sundance Festival of movie independence, American movies," says Guilbert. "Maybe like — it will be pretentious, but — like HBO in TV. They [brought] something new to the TV series in the '80s, the '90s. This is something we want to do in games — to bring the content, the emotion — and I think we've shown that it's possible with Life is Strange. We want to continue like that."

"There is a whole genre of pop culture [that focuses on the] not very frightening figure of the vampire for the teenage [audience]," Beauverger says. "That's not at all what we're going to do."

Vampyr is dark, both in the context of its story and the nature it wants to convey. Jonathan is turned into a vampire and abandoned in a mass grave; when he attempts to return to work, he learns he must kill to survive. It's a tale of choice and damnation that hearkens back to the fiction established by Bram Stoker with Dracula, or even Anne Rice with her Vampire Chronicles novels.

"A vampire is a doom creature," Beauverger says. "It's a human who has been condemned to live eternally, but he has to take lives, to kill, to survive. It's very interesting for us because it's one of the very rare creatures who is conscious of what he's doing. Zombies, mummies, ghouls, werewolves are, most of the time, just stupid killing machines. A vampire is seducing his prey. He is totally aware of what he's doing, but he's compelled to do so.

"As a vampire you just go deeper and deeper and deeper into hell ... there is no escape. You are doomed from the very beginning. You can just decide the speed of your slow descent."

"You take a life," Beauverger says. "You kill someone. It's a murder. We already knew we will be rated [M for Mature], and we hope for that. We want to tell an adult story about vampires, immortality, honor, responsibilities."

The idea of responsibility — in both a sense of morals and consequences — is the thread that ties all of Dontnod's work together, says Beauverger. Players must face the same dilemmas as the hero and find a way to overcome it.

"We like to put the player in a situation where they are confronted with the consequences of [what] they do," Beauverger says. "This was true in Remember Me. This was very true in Life is Strange. It will be true again in Vampyr. You are going to take lives in order to survive. The decision is, who will you kill?"


Those Dontnod folks really got their priorities straight. Focused, strong vision, upfront. This is besides Dishonored 2 my most anticipated game.
 

Llama-Yak Hybrid

Wild Sheep
Dumbfuck
Joined
Apr 1, 2016
Messages
321
It was bad all around. People only like it because muh edgy waifus. Subhuman nerds gonna subhuman.
 

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