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Get the most out of Vampyr with these top tips
How to get rewards, gain XP, upgrade weapons and win your battles in Dontnod's new game.
In the game, you will explore London and interact with different communities within the city, given the choice of helping them out or feasting on them to quench your emerging blood lust. Below we’ve put together a guide for you to sink your teeth into. It will run you through all you need to know from upgrading your gear to finding missions.
1. Talk to citizens
Make sure you chat to people to unlock cool missions
© Dontnod
Vampyr’s open world is broken up into several hubs, the first of these being Pembroke hospital. While you may be tempted to ignore your surroundings and run towards the quest marker, you should instead find time to explore and talk to the people you encounter in these environments.
The dialogue system in the game is dynamic and will open up as you speak to more people or find objects in the world. It can also lead to cool quests, which will give the necessary XP to level up your skills, as well as flesh out the game’s setting.
For instance, in Pembroke Hospital, you can visit a woman suffering from Cotard delusion. Talking to her reveals she believes she is a vampire and will lead to a mission where you need to find out who is spying on her and whether she has attracted the attention of a particular nasty group of vampire hunters known as the Priwen.
2. Attend the sick
Curing the sick will raise their XP
© Dontnod
Talking isn’t the only meaningful interaction you can have with citizens. By activating your vampire senses, you can also diagnose illnesses and treat them.
These can spread between the inhabitants of the settlements if you’re not careful and can cause chaos if they get out of hand, so you will need to keep tabs on who is sick and craft the relative cure at the workbenches found in hideouts.
Curing patients also has the added effect of increasing the potential XP of a recovering patient, should you later decide to feed on them.
3. Explore and rescue
Save innocent people from monsters
© Dontnod
While exploring the city of London, you will also sometimes come across monsters attacking innocents. If this happens, try to save them as they can offer you new rewards and quest lines.
The first of these events can be found in the sewers near the hospital, but you can also find them in the cemetery and near the docks. If you really want to see everything Vampyr has to offer, it is strongly advised you stop and help out others every once in a while.
4. How to gain XP and levelling up
Leading your prey into the shadows has consquences
© Dontnod
There are a few different ways to gain experience in Vampyr. The easiest is to simply lead characters away from the crowd and feed on them in the shadows, but this is likely to have consequences across your play through. This is because most characters are linked to at least one other person who will notice their disappearance and respond.
If you want to try and go down the pacifist route, therefore, you will need to instead look for and complete quests to earn the necessary points to upgrade your vampyric abilities. After you’ve got enough XP from doing this, your next step is to find a safe house or hideout and interact with the bed. This will open up a new menu where you can expand your abilities.
You can unlock new attacks, increase the amount of blood you can store, as well as improve your endurance and health. Considering how difficult the early moments of the game can be, though, it’s recommended you throw some points into your defensive abilities first and foremost.
5. Gathering resources and crafting
You need to upgrade your weapons
© Dontnod
You can find workbenches In hideouts – these are used to craft cures for illnesses and also to upgrade your gear.
In the game, there are four different types of weapons you’ll want to upgrade. These include a stun weapon, a one-handed weapon, a two-handed weapon and a gun. If you want to go for brute force, then you should probably prioritise levelling up your two-handed and your gun. If you care more about speed and technique, then the one-handed and stun options are the way to go.
You will need resources to level up your weapons, but these are pretty easy to find. They can be bought from merchants in the game’s world or scavenged from bodies, chests, and trash cans.
6. Using your blood lust in battle
Make sure your blood bar is full when going into battle
© Dontnod
The specific function of the stun items in the game are to give you a chance to reduce your enemy’s stamina. If you manage to deplete their stamina all the way to zero, it will allow you to feed on them and fill up your blood bar.
This is a bar, that, when slightly full, enables you to perform special vampyric attacks. You can claw at your opponent, freeze them in place, and replenish your health, or enter a frenzy and attack all nearby enemies.
Make sure to keep your blood bar full, especially when entering into the more challenging battles with vampire hunters and Skals (lesser vampires). It will give you an edge on your opponent and a wider variety of attacks to ensure you emerge unscathed. Happy hunting!
