What could be better than an old-school first-person RPG with dungeon crawling, combined with a tactical, isometric combat system and plenty of horny action? That’s exactly what Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of Moonfall promises. This intriguing RPG doesn’t rely on mature content alone to grab attention—it aims to deliver an impressive graphical experience and a richly developed world populated by vampires. Let’s take a closer look at this title, which is making great progress on its Kickstarter campaign, having already surpassed its initial funding goal.
Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall is an upcoming old-school RPG with a mature, cyberpunk aesthetic set in a vampire-dominated underworld. Developed by A Memory of Eternity and published by TinyHat Studios, the game is currently in pre-alpha, with a release date yet to be announced.
Story and Setting
The game immerses players in the sprawling metropolis of MoonFall, where ancient vampire lineages vie for control of the criminal underworld known as the Uzakh Drucah. Players begin as a Familiar, a human servant to a powerful vampire lord, tasked with expanding their faction’s criminal empire.
The ultimate goal is to earn enough favor to ascend to vampirehood, gaining immense power and immortality. However, vampirism isn’t guaranteed, and players can choose different paths, focusing on crime, exploration, or even challenging the elders of the vampire factions.
Gameplay
Vampire Syndicate blends elements of classic cRPGs with modern features, including:
- Turn-Based Combat: Combat is strategic, allowing for skill checks, classes, and customizable weapons and armor.
- Choice and Consequence: Player choices significantly affect storylines, missions, and faction relationships.
- Faction Dynamics: The city of MoonFall is divided among several vampire lineages, each offering different abilities and political dynamics.
- AI Antagonist: An unpredictable AI-controlled antagonist adds complexity, influencing faction relations and the broader game world.
Key Features
- Character Customization: Extensive character creation options and skills that affect gameplay and story progression.
- Crime Syndicate Management: Players are encouraged to conduct criminal activities for their faction, with options for heists, raids, and more.
- Crew Building: As a Familiar, players can recruit a crew of miscreants and thugs to assist in combat and other missions. Crew members are subject to permadeath, and their loyalty must be maintained through rewards.
- Respect System: Building respect within the criminal underworld opens new opportunities, including access to black market shops and more influence over vampire lords.
- Romantic and Adult Content: Given the vampire theme, the game includes explicit sexual content and the option for players to engage in casual or long-term romances.
Visual and Art Style
The game offers an anime-style visual option for those who prefer that aesthetic, although the core design follows a more gritty cyberpunk theme. There is also a first-person mode for immersion alongside the overhead view used for turn-based combat.
Factions, Vampirism, And Freedom Of Choice
The vampire lineages in MoonFall are diverse, with each lineage offering unique abilities and perspectives on vampirism. Players can align themselves with these factions, navigating their political intrigue and rivalries. Vampirism grants new mechanics, such as enhanced combat abilities and possibly even control over their own familiars.
While the game provides a main storyline involving the dark origins of vampirism and the fate of the Uzakh Drucah, players have the freedom to pursue side missions or simply carve their own paths as criminals, assassins, or thieves. Below, you can find the Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall overview via Steam, screens, and trailer.
Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of MoonFall is an old-school RPG set amidst the vampire-dominated gangs of a cyberpunk city. As a Familiar of one of the ancient vampire lineages, you have been tasked by your undead masters to expand their criminal empire.
If you play your cards right, that criminal empire may one day be yours; along with eternal youth and power beyond the imagining of mere humans.
Note: The current demo was made in a different engine and is now very outdated, but will still give an impression of what the game is aiming for.
Old-school cRPG
Vampire Syndicate is inspired by legendary cRPGs, but also seeks to add new features to the formula.
Traditional Features:
- Nuanced character creation
- Turn-based combat
- Classes
- Skill checks
- Choice and Consequence
- Customizable weapons and armor
Other features listed in detail below. As we are in pre-alpha, everything is subject to change.
The Factions of MoonFall’s underworld
The vampires of MoonFall are different from the ones we may be used to. While all vampires are undead, immortal and must drink blood, how vampirism is spread and the array of powers (and weaknesses) a new vampire gains will vary depending on the lineage. Each lineage is, in effect, a different “species” of vampire.
The major vampire lineages have been fighting over control of the Uzakh Drucah, or the True Underworld, for many centuries – even millennia in some cases. Since MoonFall is one of the world’s largest, most populated and wealthiest cities, it is of little surprise that the lineages now focus their battles here.
Players will encounter both vampire and non-vampire factions, each with their own motivations and rivals in MoonFall’s complicated web of alliances.
Being a Familiar
The player will start off as a newly-initiated familiar to any vampire faction they wish. In order to rise in the dark hierarchy, they must curry favor with their new masters, accomplish great deeds, and otherwise prove themselves in the Uzakh Drucah.
The ultimate prize of the player’s undying service is to be reborn as a vampire. Immortal, powerful, and the ultimate predator masquerading as a human. Becoming a vampire can be achieved halfway through the game and will offer new gameplay mechanics.
Decide the fate of the Uzakh Drucah
Or do whatever you like. Vampire Syndicate offers players the chance to challenge the lineage elders for the right to rule the underworld… or the player could just make a name for themselves as a professional assassin, (or thief, or even skilled lover, etc).
Very little is forced on the player, and vampirism is not guaranteed. Even the main storyline is completely optional.
Main Storyline
For those who want to be fully immersed, Vampire Syndicate offers a lengthy main storyline that will plumb the depths of MoonFall and reveal the terrible origin of all vampires.
Additionally, the vampire lineage that the player chooses will alter story events, making each playthrough with a different lineage significantly different.
Crime pays
As the name suggests, the player’s main activity in Vampire Syndicate is to conduct criminal activities for their lineage faction. With the exception of a few rules, the player is offered complete freedom in how they go about this, and can take on missions or contracts as they wish.
Missions (such as heists or raids) take place on the overworld map. Players can encounter a variety of different groups, such as corporate officers with their protection retinue, mercenaries, street-level gangers, rival familiars, etc. Or visit new locations and faction headquarters.
Encounters can be benign, or they can result in violence. The choice is yours.
A thinking opponent
Vampire Syndicate does not seek to simulate so-called “living, breathing” RPG worlds. However, The main villain in the game will be an AI-controlled antagonist, reacting to the player’s decisions with a degree of unpredictability.
This AI opponent is the other main force of agency in the game besides the player. It’s independent actions will change the relationships between factions, the power dynamic in the game world, and have a major impact on the main story.
Build your crew
Every Familiar needs a crew: a team of violent cutthroats, thieves, hackers and flamboyantly-dressed thugs. You won’t have to look far in the dark underbelly of MoonFall to find them.
Familiars often have dangerous duties, and they aren’t expected to complete them alone. A crew provides extra muscle for Familiars in combat, but also lends their expertise outside of fighting.
Recruiting and permadeath
Followers can be recruited all over MoonFall, in a variety of different classes and with different attributes. Each of the major lineages will also offer a follower class unique to their faction.
However, unlike the player character, followers can die permanently. If a follower falls in combat, they are dead forever, so be careful how you use them.
Loyalty
Followers are eager to help you rise through the ranks of the Uzakh Drucah, but they do not do this for free. Your crew expects to be rewarded aptly for watching your back, and failing to do so could have consequences.
Each crew member has a loyalty score that’s tied to how you treat them. Abuse and neglect may lead to them turning on you at the most inopportune moment.
Creating Familiars
When (or if) the player character becomes a full-fledged vampire, they may request for followers to be elevated to Familiars. Followers who are promoted this way can act independently, undertaking their own missions and generating passive Income and Respect for the player.
Respect
In the Uzakh Drucah, Respect is even more valuable than hard currency. Respect is a measure of how the player character is viewed in the dark hierarchy of the vampire lords.
The higher the Respect, the more options available to a player. Black market shops now open their doors to you, rival gangs begin to fear you, while your allies treat you as an honored guest.
With a high enough Respect, even a lowly Familiar can command the attention of elder vampires… or a vampire may seek to usurp power over their lineage.
Morality
Make no mistake, as a familiar you are a criminal. You work for sinister, loathsome “people.”
Your duties often require you to mete out violence and injustice. While you may certainly go about this according to your own morals and ethics, do not expect to be ever called a hero.
Adult content
Vampires are inherently sexual creatures, and during the course of the game, the player will have ample opportunities for casual sex or pursue long-term romances. Expect explicit sexual content.
