Ahhhh Vampyr. That game i got on my steam recommendations so many times across multiple years ever since it was released back in 2018. This game was suggested to me so many times by steam i finally decided to buy it and actually play it in 2025 after clearing up my backlog a bit. And i dont regret doing so, because of how great the game actually is.

My reviews are always spoilers free.

Lets start with the fact that i started playing Vampyr with very low expectations, after watching a few videos and gameplays of specific mechanics that were something i never seen before in a game, but my interest kept increasing after i actually completed the first chapter, with a few exceptions in between chapter 2 and 3 where i felt a bit bored but it quickly got fixed just before reaching chapter 4.

The Story:

Fantastic. Brilliant. Over the Top.
You get plot twists that you could not expect happening. You get decisions of the fate of certain important characters like pillars, that will have an impact in the districts health.
The map and the story just evolved and unfolds to you the more you advance.

We play as a Vampire doctor named Jonathan Reid, who just woke up in a pile of corpses, fully resurrected and unable to control his vampire instincts, straight up in the first 3 minutes something tragic already happens and you are set on the run, being chased by vampire hunters known as Priwen Guards. The game immediately let you know that you are playing a soulsborne game, with souls like combat, that includes the stamina management, the dodging, patiently timing attacks, etc. You cannot defend yourself from the first priwen brawler you encounter, till you drop down and grab your first weapon.

As you progress thru the story, you meet new characters that obviously distrust you at first but then become your friends. Some you can decide the fate, and some you cant. The game is pretty lineal and straightforward, yes it is true it lets you explore previous areas before advancing to the next chapter, but the only things you can do there are investigations (side quests) and killing enemies for ingredients and materials in order to create medicine and upgrading your weapons. You also cannot explore some areas until you reach them by advancing in the main quest. The xp and level up are mostly tied to side quests and main missions, but half of the available xp (if not more than half) is tied to a mechanic i never seen before in any videogame, called "embracing". Embracing is basically feeding on a citizen and is the core of the game basically, the consequences for doing so can be either minimal or brutal depending on who you decide to embrace and how many people you "eat" for the xp. There are 4 districts and each of them have a health status, you need to go around checking and ensuring everyone is fully healed by giving medicine to the citizens that become sick, because if health status drop below stable, things can get tough really quick, with enemies increasing in power and numbers. If you are a hardcore masochistic gamer like me and play every game on hard on their first run, i strongly recommend embracing only a few citizens per district, never embracing the pillars during story decisions, because, i am really serious about this, if one district goes hostile or even critical by chapter 4, you will have a nightmare time trying to explore it, the game will go from a challenge bloodborne to dark souls sl1 new game plus level of difficulty with stuff that 1 or 2 hit kill you and are 10+ levels above you. Especially in the west end district.

I personally went without embracing almost anyone at all, except the 2 or 3 that truly deserved it, but i found myself stuck on some story bosses forcing me to embrace some questionable npcs that had a "is this guy bad or good, idk" type of reputation. So i feel like you must embrace at least a few in hard mode or you will get extremely underleveled for certain encounters and have a very bad time. So dont bother getting the "No embrace" achievement and the good ending in your first run, if you play on hard. Yes the ending of the game is tied up to the amount of npcs you embrace. You have 4 endings and the one you get depends on the amount of people you "eat", be it by yourself or during story choices.

There are over 50 npcs you can talk to, and the story will have you talking to many of them, if you are an ocd gamer prepare yourself to hear . So be aware that there is gonna be A LOT of talking, and i mean a lot.

The Gameplay:

The gameplay, unless you ruin a district health, is challenging but a bit easier than soulsborne games in terms of bosses and enemies, and you get used to the mechanics and dodging very easily if you are familiar with dark souls and bloodborne, but hey i have thousands of hours in soulsborne games so maybe that made it easier for me personally.

You can find several weapons that you can later upgrade with materials you find in crates and chests, or enemy drops. You can also adquire some weapons from certain npcs you embrace.

You have 3 types of weapons, 2h, 1h weapons and off hand weapons like stakes and guns. Personally i liked going 2H and parrying everything i came across, while ocassionally switching to 1H and a gun.

The combat can get repetitive, and will get repetitive over time, that is why i was switching weapons constantly.

The abilities you can get are cool to use, you can get passive ones that increase your health, stamine, blood, biting damage, etc. And offensive skills that melt your enemies health bars.

The Graphics:

Decent, the game aged well, you wont get the red dead redemption 2 or the witcher 3 level of graphics, but the environments and athmosphere is really great. I found no visual glitches whatsover.

The Animations:

Pretty good i would say, nothing much i would like to add, it has the AAA animations level of quality from games released on that year. And i found only a few bugs where some enemies were t posing on me, or a miniboss that got stuck and forgot how to attack.

The Side Content:

Hmm, this is where i have to be honest. While the healing mechanic can be cool at first, it gets boring and gets repetitive really fast, the fact that you are forced to do so unless you want a district to go nuts makes things kinda worse. The investigations (aka: side quests) can range from a cool story culminating in a boss or mini boss fight, to a "go there, pick up this, return" type of fetch quests. The documents collectibles are the only collectibles you can find, and the reward for finding all of them is PATHETIC.

Final conclusions: While the story, the gameplay and the healing mechanic are very enjoyable and the embracing is great and makes you think twice before getting that "free" xp. Only a few side quests are good, most of them are boring. The combat can get repetitive and the fact that you can end up easily underleveled if you go around without embracing anyone can be annoying a bit. The fact that killing enemies give you 3 xp points and only useful to do for mats, is something that i personally found underwhelming.
Overall i got unlucky this time and found a lot of bugs as well, one side quest glitched for me and i could not rescue a specific girl attacked by priwen guards, because the door that led to her was permanently locked for me, even if it is not supposed to be locked, so she kept screaming for the rest of the game while passing thru that area. A boss got stuck for me too, another miniboss forgot to use his weapon and twice i got t pose disrespect from priwen guards. I usually get lucky and rarely encounter bugs in games, but not with this one. This was also the first time i was able to play as an actual Vampire, the only other time i played as a Vampire was in Skyrim, but that was nothing in comparison.

Giving Vampyr a solid 7.5/10.