Vampyr is an action role-playing game played from a third-person view. The player controls Jonathan E. Reid, a doctor who was made into a vampire, and whose thirst for blood compels him to kill innocent people. To do this successfully, he must gather information about his targets—study and change their habits, collect clues, and maintain relationships by communicating with the sixty citizens under his care in London, which serves as a fictionalised semi-open world built around hubs of neighbourhoods tethered to other areas. A skill tree facilitates the improvement of abilities, which is fuelled by experience points gained from blood and, alternatively, investigation. Feeding on human blood provides nourishment in addition to unlocking new vampiric powers. Abilities can be manually activated and passively upgraded. Active skills afford defensive, aggressive, healing, and tactical measures; passive skills increase health, stamina, the blood gauge and absorption, bite damage and regeneration, and carry capacity.
If one so chooses, anyone can be targeted, bearing consequences for London. It is possible to finish the game without killing citizens, which best preserves the character's cover as a doctor, but leaves him nearly incapable of levelling up. Killing no one unlocks one of four different endings. Reid can turn people into vampires, and is only able to enter a house with an invitation. Locals each have their different backgrounds, relationships, and daily routines. If killed, they impart their last thought to Reid. The "Mesmerise" ability can control the behaviour of weaker targets, like coercing them into revealing information, or guiding them to less conspicuous areas so as to feed without resorting to combat. With crafted medicine, Reid can heal injured or sick victims, whom if eaten, will yield more experience points in the process; the rate of their affliction can be viewed using vampire senses, which also detect blood. Each of the four districts has a score based on the average health of its citizens. Reid navigates London using a waypoint, and collectible documents are scattered around the city.
Reid can wield improvised melee weapons, such as a saw, as well as ranged weapons including the Webley Revolver. Being able to use three-hit combos, dodge rolls, and parrying, he can fight against other vampires like him—aristocrats who go by the name of Ekon; sewer-dwelling vampires known as Skals; the Vulkod—a stronger breed of vampire resembling werewolves; Nemrod—vampires who hunt their own kind; and the Guard of Priwen—a secret society of vampire slayers. Boss fights are featured, and in some cases mandatory. Reid is adaptable to other vampire features, like the claws of a Vulkod. Weapon improvement through crafting is made possible by looting items. While using vampiric powers in combat, the character's blood bar drains. This forces him to feed so he can immediately replenish his strength. With the vitality attained from killing a human being, he can boil the blood of his enemies, cast blood spears, throw mist bombs, and turn invisible. He uses his control of shadows to hide himself and strike at his opponents. He can use "Spring" to scale locations otherwise out of reach and charge more rapidly across gaps, which is also useful for avoiding combat altogether.
Plot
Doctor Jonathan Reid, returning to London from the Great War in 1918, awakes in a mass grave as a vampire. Overwhelmed with bloodlust, he causes the death of his sister Mary, who was searching for his body nearby. Reid takes shelter from vampire hunters in an abandoned house and starts hearing the disembodied voice of his maker, a typical feature in the progeny of vampires. Realising London is profuse with corpses, he follows a blood trail to a bar. The bartender points Reid to William Bishop, a suspicious patron. Bishop is caught feeding on a man named Sean Hampton and is killed by the vampire Lady Ashbury. Doctor Edgar Swansea rescues Hampton and hires Reid to practice medicine at Pembroke Hospital.
After the room of patient Harriet Jones is found covered in blood and Hampton disappears, Reid tracks him down for questioning. Hampton insists he did not murder Jones and directs him to an underground haven for corrupted vampires known as Skals, where it is revealed that Jones faked her death. Reid later discovers a corpse in the street bearing his mother's brooch. He pursues the perpetrator towards the cemetery in Whitechapel and finds his sister Mary with their mother Emelyne, realising Mary was turned into a vampire the night he fed on her. Mary is intent on killing him to rid herself of his voice, but dies trying. Reid vows to uncover what is behind the Skal epidemic, which he learns has been mistaken for the Spanish flu.
Lady Ashbury invites Reid to the West End on behalf of the Ascalon Club, a secret society of highborn vampires. By the order of its leader Lord Redgrave, Reid roots out the source of Skals in the district. Swansea is later kidnapped and, once located, admits to attempting to heal Jones with Lady Ashbury's blood, thereby creating the Skal epidemic; once Ashbury finds out, she flees in shame. It is made known that the entity Myrddin, claimant to the role of Jonathan's maker, sired him to defeat his mother Morrigan, also known as the "Red Queen", after she possessed Jones to wreak havoc upon London. Reid defeats Morrigan in battle, resolving then to travel after Lady Ashbury to her family castle, where she hid with her maker William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
