“Like all soldiers before you, your first opponent will be a terrifying rat. Why a rat you ask? Well, if you can’t kill a rat, you can’t kill anything else either.” -Captain Angmar, Vampire’s Fall: Origins

Format: PC via Steam
Play time so far: 26.5 hours

Released Jan 31st, 2020 by Early Morning Studio

Quick Overview

Rarer weapons have additional stat bonuses

In-depth Review

Vampire’s Fall: Origins is an open-world role-playing game where players take on the role of a newly turned and utterly alone vampire seeking out for revenge against the Witchmaster who slaughtered their village. Players travel across the continent to build their combat prowess and gather intel of the Witchmaster’s location. Along the way, they meet many amusing characters with optional side quests.

One of the humorous background characters

Combat in Vampire’s Fall: Origins is turn-based with the player and opponent alternating turns. Players build up focus over time in order to use special abilities or combo attacks. Building up enough focus allows for a combo turn where the player can use as many abilities at once as they have focus for. As players level up they can increase their stats such as focus gained, as well as gain additional traits such as healing a portion of the damage dealt.

Each enemy has its own damage type weaknesses and resistances

The story of Vampire’s Fall: Origins largely focuses on the player’s character trying to locate the Witchmaster after he’s taken over the continent and slaughtered their village. The game doesn’t try to spin the trope storyline into something original but rather laces it with meta-humor and ridiculous side quests. I really enjoyed the humor as the game was able to laugh at some of its silly mechanics that are common in the RPG genre.

We are in agreement then

There are two parts to the story of Vampire’s Fall: Origins, with the first half focused on the Witchmaster. Unfortunately, by the time I finished the first story I had already hit the pseudo-level-cap and it became effectively impossible for me to gain more levels. I’d also reached the max of the standard tier equipment and the enemies dropped tiny amounts of gold in comparison to what I needed. I believe this happened because I focused on completing all the side quests and defeating all the optional bosses. By the time I entered the second half of the story, fights were trivial and rewards of new gear or abilities were essentially gone. I stuck it out for a while because after completing the story the player can choose to rebirth with harder enemies but more gold and experience, but ultimately I put the game down without completing it because of the repetitive combat grind and constant running across the map.

Trying to take shortcuts through the woods means running into a lot of trees

Recommendation

Overall, I enjoyed the time I put into Vampire’s Fall: Origins. I enjoyed the humor and trying out the different builds and abilities. I really liked hunting down and defeating the optional bosses and following the ridiculous side quests. Ultimately I put the game down early due to the end game grind and constant running across the map. I recommend Vampire’s Fall: Origins to open-world RPG fans looking for a casual game with some good meta-humor and potential replayability.