Just when I would think I had completely given up on Vampyr, it would surprise me. I’d slam my head into one clumsy, frustrating boss fight for an entire hour, then be rewarded with a lapsed anarchist’s fascinating life story. Then, just when I’d think I could peel back the layers of Vampyr’s captivating cast all day, I’d get frustrated all over again by the unpolished presentation or slipshod action.

Vampyr takes some thick adventure game influences from Life Is Strange developer Dontnod’s previous project. Vampyr is indisputably at its best when it follows that series’ focus on conversations with well-constructed, interconnected non-player characters. The game only really starts to fall apart when it leans into combat, and there’s far too much of that bad action to go around.

All chewed up

Believe me, I understand the desire to play with the power of vampirism with some bloody action scenes. Dr. Jonathan Reid, our protagonist vampire (despite the game’s title, the subtitles spell it without the “Y”) has all kinds of fancy-pants supernatural abilities. He can see people through walls, sculpt weapons out of blood, and mutate into a neck-munching monster.

There’s a lot of action-game potential in those kinds of supernatural abilities. It’s just absolutely miserable in practice.