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| © Dontnod Entertainment/Focus Home Interactive |
By Charlie Hall, Polygon
Vampyr, the atmospheric action role-playing game, is getting a story mode. The new difficulty option, which lands Sept. 26, will also be accompanied by a hard mode that makesthe game’s action sequences even more difficult.
Vampyr tells the story of medical doctor and WWI-veteran Jonathan Reid, a recently created vampire, trying to make his way in a version of early 20th century London during the Spanish flu. The game was critically praised for its narrative structure, including here at Polygon, where we were so taken with its characters that we found it hard to kill them when we needed to. Vampyr is not without its flaws, however. It launched with plenty of bugs, some graphical and others mechanical. We also found the combat to be relatively unsatisfying.
It seems that Dontnod is taking that criticism to heart.
“Story Mode de-emphasizes combat, placing a greater focus on narrative so players can enjoy Dr. Jonathan Reid’s journey with less challenging gameplay,” Dontnod said in a post on Steam. “On the other end of the scale, Hard Mode makes combat much more difficult. Players will receive less experience from killing enemies too, forcing them to rely even more on embracing citizens to grow in power. Upon starting a new game, players will be given the option to choose from these two new modes or a third ‘Normal Mode’ if they wish to play the original Vampyr experience.”
You can view the full patch notes on Steam. Wednesday’s update will also add hooks for Nvidia’s Ansel, allowing players to take dramatic screenshots in-game.
Game fans weren’t the only ones taken with Vampyr’s storyline. It’s now being adapted for a television series by Fox 21, the studio behind Sons of Anarchy and Homeland.
