Dontnod's Strange New Game is 'Vampyr'

Hopefully this game doesn't suck...you know what, no, nevermind. We won't make that pun.

I'll say this about relatively new developer Dontnod Entertainment; with just three games under their belt, the studio has already proven themselves to have quite the varied resume. Their first ever game was the 3rd person sci-fi platformer Remember Me, which they then followed up with possibly their biggest success, episodic teen drama Life is Strange (which also featured time travel and stuff but, really, was mostly about the teen drama.)

Following the success of that game, it would have been very easy to understand if Dontnod simply decided to make another episodic adventure game or, heck, a sequel to Life is Strange in and of itself. But instead the developer is taking another big 180 turn, as their next project is a London set action RPG about vampires in the early 1900's. So yeah, not like Life is Strange at all, really. But once again, I respect Dontnod's desire to tell different stories quite a bit, and what they revealed so far of the game sounds really fascinating.

Vampyr will tell the story of one military doctor, Jonathan Reid, who finds himself turned into a vampire at the peak of the Spanish Flu's ravage across Europe. Reid, being a doctor, doesn't want to harm anyone...but being a vampire, he can't deny his thirst for blood. For that reason, the player will have to choose which people to feast on, letting their moral compass ultimately be the guide on who deserves to become a vampire snack. That's the basic pitch of the game of course but, considering that it's an action RPG, there's probably a whole lot more about the game Dontnod has chosen not to reveal at this time.

For now we do have our first screenshots from the game, and the dimly lit, eerie atmosphere they present certainly paints a picture of what it's in store. Vampyr doesn't have an exact release date quite yet, but publisher Focus Home Interactive is aiming for a launch sometime in 2017.