In DONTNOD‘s followup to the episodic, heartbreaking Life is Strange, Vampyr allows players to question their own morality while flirting with immortality. The action RPG follows Jonathan Reid, a doctor returned from war a changed man, as he traverses 1918 Spanish flu-ridden London and comes to terms with the inner turmoil of what he has become…a vampire. Being a doctor, he feels the immense obligation to help the people of London, while at the same time needing to feed on them to survive. Sounds difficult, right? Vampyr has only one question for you:

Discover Vampyr’s London crumbling under the spanish flu. Will you heal the city in its death throes or embrace the beast you’ve become ? pic.twitter.com/NNY29eGKDi

— Vampyr Game (@VampyrGame) November 10, 2016

Zoe Delahunty-Light from GamesRadar+ sat down with Vampyr’s Narrative Director at DONTNOD Entertainment, Stéphane Beauverger, to discuss the constant moral struggle you face as the game’s protagonist. As GamesRadar+ says, in true DONTNOD fashion, Vampyr focuses on narrative and that “a poet performs his work outside a cemetery in the dark of night, there’s in-depth dialogue with NPCs, and Reid experiences thoroughly understandable turmoil about whether he’s a monster now that his canines are much sharper.” This, of course, is not all that the game has to offer. After all, you are a vampire, and perhaps at one of the best times to be one.

With bodies littering London’s streets from the Spanish flu, it makes a great cover for someone of Reid’s nature. Despite being able to cure Londoners of the pandemic that is sweeping across their city, he still has to survive, and can only do so by feeding on his fellow citizens. This anguish will be shared by none other than you, the player. Zoe states, “Beauverger knows that when vampires are depicted as an enemy they can easily be “monstrous and evil to give the players a reason to confront and destroy them”. But with Reid as the main character Beauverger wants us to see that vampires have a “human side” and can “express doubts” about their condition and the acts it forces them to commit.” What this means is that you have to decide how far you are willing to go to indulge your needs as a vampire.

“…everyone has heard the line ‘the decisions you make affect the whole game’, but Vampyr takes it to new levels as you can influence the health of the entire city of London, which draws slightly uncomfortable parallels with what it must be like to own livestock.”

Vampyr is seemingly all about choice. You can save everyone and likely die as a result of being too weak to fight stronger enemies, attempt to create a balance in London by helping some and not helping others, or kill them all and watch London fall while becoming more powerful than you can imagine. Sounds thrilling! With that being said, your decisions will have their consequences. Let’s say you want to start killing citizens left and right, which you can totally do if you so choose. While this may make you powerful, you’ll have less to do quest-wise, as you have been killing the NPCs who supply you with those quests. Have I mentioned that your decisions matter? They do.

You’ll have plenty of opportunities to feel terrible about yourself while playing Vampyr! However, that is what will make the game great. The ability to relate to an entity that is normally perceived as evil, and have that character be humanized before your eyes. You have until sometime in 2017 to get your morals straightened out before this game comes in and wreaks havoc on them. As Zoe says, “…everyone has heard the line ‘the decisions you make affect the whole game’, but Vampyr takes it to new levels as you can influence the health of the entire city of London, which draws slightly uncomfortable parallels with what it must be like to own livestock.”

Who’s excited to have their vampiric needs met when Vampyr drops next year? Do you believe you’ll try to help everyone and only kill enough to sustain, or will you become the greatest vampire to have ever vampired? Let us know in the comments down below! Before you go down there, however, have you seen the latest hints dropped about the future of Dragon Age? Exciting times, gamers! Be sure and stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers because when there is a story about video games, we’re going to write the pants off of it!