Vampyr’s first patch takes a bite out of some funny bugs
A low-stakes series of changes
While no amount of patching (short of a Final Fantasy XV-style rewrite) will address its clumsy final act, flawed but fascinating gothic RPG Vampyr received its first patch this week. It addresses a few minor bugs and smooths out mouse and keyboard controls, including better lock-on targeting. Still, we're a little sad to see some of the less game-threatening (and more YouTube highlight-worthy) bugs fixed, as they were a funny old lot.
The quality-of-life improvements here are the best part. Hitting the right person in a fight should be a little easier as you can switch targets using your mouse wheel now, although some players are reporting that it's too twitchy. For when you'd rather just mope broodily through the streets, you can now make walking a held or toggled action. Mouse and keyboard users should no longer get stuck on one inventory page either. Good changes for those without a gamepad.
Still, there are some fixes that we could could honestly have done without. For instance, an amusingly one-sided conversation is now more of a dialogue:
During the cutscene between Dorothy and Darius, Dorothy will now properly be shown. A new playthrough is needed for this.
This man's commitment to politely taking a seat has been dramatically reduced:
Fixed an issue where Sean Hampton was stuck in a chair while reloading during certain dialogues.
And the game now no longer gets ahead of itself, correctly remembering what part of the story it's telling:
Fixed an issue where spoiler characters would incorrectly spawn.
If for some reason you're insistent on playing Vampyr on an Intel HD Graphics 530 integrated chip, developers Dontnod have figured out why the game was crashing for you, and have a workaround listed in the full patch-notes, although it's a bit more work than just letting the game auto-update.
While this one was just immediate bug-fixes, Dontnod promise that more and bigger patches are on their way in the coming months. I'm hopeful that this includes plans to hammer out the bigger kinks in Vampyr's design.