Vampyr, the morally ambiguous action-adventure from the studio behind Life is Strange, has a release date. The game will be out June 5 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, publisher Focus Home Interactive announced today.
The Dishonored-style game focuses on Dr. Jonathan Reid, a former soldier and a medical doctor cursed with vampirism. In 1918 London, players will become intimately involved in the lives of citizens and will ultimately have the power to choose whether they live or die.
From our interview with developer Dontnod Entertainment last year:
Reid wakes up in a mass grave during the Spanish flu epidemic in London. The early game will be about coming to grips with being a vampire, while the arc of the game will focus on how he deals with the malady and his quest for a cure. The team said it chose 1918 because it was such a period of dramatic cultural change, a time when a vampire could perhaps secretly find a safe place to live alongside mortals.
Dontnod has been teasing the game with a series of short developer diaries on YouTube, the most recent of which we’ve embedded above.
My favorite moment comes near the very beginning. It’s a darkened theater packed full of the people making the game. In the background, you can see the office Christmas tree. It’s likely that they’re watching a scene or a trailer of the game together for the first time. After years spent working on the project, often in secret, their faces are full of joy.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10183101/Screenshot_2018_02_08_09.53.36.png)
It’s a beautiful moment that they’re sharing with us, and a reminder of all the people working in the background to make the games we love to play.
The developer diary, “Stories from the Dark,” discusses how Dontnod applied the principles of traditional theater to Vampyr. It also details some of the motion capture that went into the game. Fans of Dontnod’s previous work, of the Dishonored series and even of the cult classic Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines take note: Vampyr looks like it could be special.
