There are a couple of different routes we can take here as we reach Vampyr’s endgame, and a lot of it will depend on your playstyle and how you want London to evolve (or devolve) based on your choices. If you’re doing the Not even once playthrough, these strategies are irrelevant, as all the citizens have to survive.
The final encounter of this game is directly scaled to your power, so while killing every citizen in London (or at least the 64 you can affect) is certainly a choice, it will drastically affect how powerful the final boss will become, ranging between Levels 30 (no embraces) to 51 (embrace almost everyone). To add to the confusion, every time you rest, the districts’ health can rise and fall depending on transmitted diseases as well as who is still alive, and if a district is hostile, citizens will die randomly. So the trick is to try and embrace only who you need to in order to collect the final weapons and turn the districts hostile or – if you want a challenge – embrace all of them, let London burn, and face the final boss at the highest difficulty imaginable.
So then, whom to kill? I’ll share my strategy as soon as we’ve concluded Usher Talltree’s investigation.
ACT I – Antidote
Before you do anything else, check the mirrored dresser in this room to find an Old love letter. This will give you Calhoun Russel’s Hint 1. (Make sure when you read this letter that you DO NOT SCROLL OVER IN YOUR INVENTORY to Usher’s notebook. It would be really frustrating to fail “Pandora’s box” at this point!) You should now be able to get the remainder of his hints, if you haven’t already.
Antidote.
Talk to Lady Ashbury.
Exit this room through the western door and follow the stairs up to reach the stage once more. Proceed out through the theater’s main entrance. Once on the street, Reid will state that he needs to tell Elisabeth about the latest developments. The streets will be crawling with Priwen (around the 30-33 range) hunting down the creatures of the night, and their numbers will only increase as you move forward. Best to tie up a few loose ends before visiting with Lady Ashbury.
Pandora’s box. Bring back the notebook to Usher Talltree. Return to Usher’s office by any route you choose, evading or engaging Priwen, Skals, Ekons, and Beasts at your discretion. Upon telling him you did not read the notebook, Usher will give you Origin of the brotherhood (29/30 Lore-Keeper). You’ll also receive a notification that a hint for Usher (Hint 2) has failed, meaning that you can’t receive his full XP if you choose to embrace him. This is a decent trade-off, however, as this collectible is the key to getting another weapon.
Maybe you’re the type of player who hasn’t been delving into the Vampyr lore throughout the game, poking at every citizen, reading every collectible, etc. If that’s the case, you definitely want to read Origin of the brotherhood, or at the very least look in the upper-right corner of the page itself (not the text box, but the image of the document.) The page features an image that is – unfortunately – random, but this is what mine looks like:
So what does that mean? Remember those tiles in the entryway before Usher’s office that click when you run across them? Well, they unlock a secret door in this area. Looking at the image like a compass, the west image is the tile just before the steps leading down to Usher’s area, and the south image is the tile leading back to the street. This is only part of the solution, though.
Usher Talltree has penned other documents you’ve come across (and one we haven’t) that translates this image into a type of code. Specifically, The crime of lost knowledge says that right-facing fish is 1, Laughing at the Guard says circle is 2, The myth of the horned vampire (not found yet) that a square is 3, Rare species of vampires shows an oval as 4, Origin of the Skals shows a left-facing fish as 5, and Blood as addiction that a diamond is 6. Unlike the image in the upper-right corner of Origin of the brotherhood, this sequence doesn’t change. Don’t let the different orientations of the shapes throw you, the code to unlock the door in this area is: fish, circle, square, circle, fish, and diamond.
For my game, the image in the upper-right corner has the west image of a diamond (or 6). Moving clockwise from that position, I have a square (3) in the north, fish (1 and 5) in the east, and a circle (2 and 4) in the south. So for my game, my sequence is: east, south, north, south, east, and west. Stand on each tile until it stops making the click and grinding sound before you move on to the next and one of the walls (the one that corresponds to the north of your image, but roughly east on the actual map) will open, revealing a chamber within. You’ll also unlock Bloody Roots.
[As another example, let’s say you have the fish at the north position, square on the east, diamond on the south, and circle on the west. Your order would be north, west, east, west, north, south.]
Step inside this chamber and interact with the bier inside to retrieve Recollections of Paulus Aurelianus (a collectible, but not tied to Lore-Keeper), and interact with it once more to pick up the True Dragonbane (10/20 Melee).
London’s burning. Now begins the night of blood and anarchy, if you’d like. You can also speak with Ashbury now and conduct your massacre district by district as you gather the ingredients for the cure. Either way, you may want to find a nearby hideout (there’s one just north-east of the West End church) and spend what XP you’ve accumulated thus far and see what damage Swansea’s fate has done to Pembroke (and – if he was charmed – Dawson’s fate to the West End) before you go any further. Or you may want to embrace the essential citizens and then see how many more need to succumb to your murderous fangs before each district turns hostile. The choice is up to you. Below is a list (by district) of which citizens are carrying weapons to add to your collection. Ensure you’ve killed these people off to ensure they aren’t killed accidentally if the district turns hostile.
West End. Charles Albright (Charles’ truncheon 7/13 Off-hand); Louise Teasdale (Louise’s machete 11/20 Melee); Clarence Crossley (Clarence’s parabellum 6/11 ranged)
Whitechapel. Albert Palmer (Albert’s revolver 7/11 ranged); Christina Popa (Christina’s Dagger 8/13 Off-hand); Joe Peterson (initially killing him gives you a small key, which opens a box inside the Peterson house. Since you have to enter the house anyway to kill Harry Peterson to obtain Joe’s Semi-automatic pistol 7/11 ranged, do so and head upstairs to open the trunk at the foot of one of the beds to obtain Joe’s barbed cudgel (12/20 Melee) (Optionally, you can kill Tobias Whitaker for 5 White phosphorus, an easy source for weapon upgrades)
Pembroke. Clay Cox (Clay’s Hatchet 13/20 Melee); Gwyneth Branagan (Gwyneth surgical knife 9/11 Off-hand) Milton Hooks (alternatively, you could just buy his shotgun if you have the shillings to spare (Milton’s shotgun 9/11 Ranged); Newton Blight (Newton’s saber 14/20 Melee; Rakesh Chanada (initially killing him gives you a large key; use it to open the chest behind his chair to obtain Rakesh’s surgical saw 15/20 Melee)
Corcoran Tippets and Thoreau Strickland give you keys to the doctor’s office as well as small keys; kill them together before going upstairs to their office. At the back of this office, the right medical cabinet is Thoreau’s. Open it to get Thoreau’s surgical knife (10/13 Off-hand) The trunk in the lower right is Corcoran’s. Opening it will give you a tiny key. This key opens a trunk in the basement morgue (remember that from Chapter 2?!?), located next to Samuel’s corpse. You’ll be coming down here for a story-related event, so you can hold off collecting this for now.)
Docks. Booth Digby (Booth’s Axe 16/20 Melee); Edwina Cox (Edwina’s double-barrelled 10/11 ranged); Seymour Fishburn (Seymour’s bludgeon 17/20 melee); Sabrina Cavendish (Sabrina’s dagger 11/13 Off-hand); Tom Watts (Tom’s Revolver 11/11 Ranged); Archer Woodbead (Archer’s hatchet 18/20 melee); Giselle Paxton (Giselle’s dagger 12/13 Off-hand); Ichabod Throgmorton (Ichabadod’s Stake 13/13 Off-hand) ; Rodney Grader (Rodney’s scythe 19/20 Melee)
All that should be left to collect is the last melee weapon in the morgue. As I said earlier, we’ll be reaching this area during the main questline. For now, make life easier on yourself and utilize the hideout just north-east of Lady Ashbury’s estate and spend your absurd amount of XP before we push forward.
(If you did this in one sweep, don’t be alarmed if it takes a while to load between screens. Vampyr apparently has a fit trying to calculate the huge amount of lost citizens.) With any luck, you should have murdered enough citizens to unlock Anarchy in the UK. If one or more of your districts is being stubborn, return to those areas and kill a few more to turn the district hostile. (For best effect, take out those worth the most XP. The final boss’s power is derived from the number of citizens you’ve embraced, rather than your actual level.) Once all four districts have become hostile, you will unlock London’s burning.
With the slaying done, head to Lady Ashbury to fill her in on the latest developments.
Gather the ingredients for the antidote
. The note you picked up in the theater lists out the ingredients you need to collect and the game is kind enough to plot them on the map. The first stop I chose is Pembroke in order to finish our weapons collection.
Search for insulin in the old morgue of the Pembroke Hospital. It’s been quite some time since we visited the old morgue on the back side of the hospital. Rather than the Skal infestation we originally dealt with, the vampire hunters are here in force, with an array of mid-30s spread throughout the morgue.
Make your way to the lowest level of the morgue to the table where Samuel’s body lays. (Remember the investigation “The harder they fall”?) To the left of this slab is a locked trunk, where you can use Corcoran’s key to pick up Samuel Connor’s mace (20/20 melee)
Now make your way upstairs, to the second floor. There will be some more Priwen up here for you to tangle with, including a Chaplain, so put him down first! After the fight, enter the office in the south-east corner of this floor to find a box of insulin on the desk. It’s not quite as shiny as the other collectibles, because it’s only the dose of insulin glowing, rather than the whole box. Plus, the desk lamp is shining right on the damn thing
Obtain a drop of King Arthur’s blood from Geoffrey McCullum
. Our next stop is Whitechapel, specifically the Stonebridge Cemetery, near the grave where you battled the boss from Chapter 3. When you find him, McCullum will either be fighting Skals (if he’s a vampire) or quietly moping in the courtyard. (As a bonus, as you move through the courtyard during an Anarchy playthrough, some of the gravestones will be glowing. There are no collectibles here, but the gravestones are reminders of the citizens you’ve embraced. WHO THE HECK IS BURYING THEM? I keep wanting to see a grumpy and overworked gravedigger.) Astonishingly, McCullum gives you the blood without doing more than yammering at you.
Obtain a drop of William Marshall’s blood from lord Redgrave.
Our final stop is West End, specifically at the Ascalon Club. Depending on Dawson’s fate, the Club may or may not want you there. If they have been sending their bounty hunters out after you, when you come to the Club you’ll have to enter through the back entrance where you’ll fight their most elite bodyguard … a 35 Rogue Ekon. After you put down this pitiful guard, enter the office on the ground floor to find Lord Sulky-McSulky Pants (if you’re persona non grata with the Club, at any rate). Considering his initial anger at your reappearance, he gives in pretty quickly to your demands.
Find a hideout to create the antidote.
The closest hideout to the Ascalon Club is your bedroom in the Reid Mansion. Use the crafting table to analyze Marshal’s memoirs to unlock the recipe (much like your serum creations), and then craft the recipe.
Act II – Guinea Pig
Okay, you’ve crafted an antidote. Now you’re in the game’s finale. If you want to collect all the weapons, you must do this before embarking on the next leg of the quest. Once we enter the final area, there is no turning back and no free roaming. We will be collecting the last Lore item very shortly. You’ll want to have as many serums as you can carry, a full load of ammo, and weapons with Incendiary Damage, preferably.
On both playthroughs, I opted for the True Dragonbane maxed on damage, with Perfect Parabellum as my off-hand. My alternate off-hand for Not even once was the pump-action shotgun with Incendiary damage (576 damage at level 5), but for my Anarchy playthrough, I went with Edwina’s double-barrelled with a whopping 749 damage.
For abilities, I had Autophagy maxed out, and Abyss as maxed as I could get (absolutely brutal Shadow damage, maxing out at 2000 Shadow, plus it freezes the opponent.) I maxed my Bite skills, especially since I utilized a stake or the parabellum to dole out stun damage. Your strategies may differ, depending on your play style and story choices. Of course, you can always do a skill reset before embarking on your final push, just don’t try and cheat the final boss and not spend your XP. Again, the final creature’s strength and level will be dependent on how many citizens have been embraced, not your actual level.
Reach the Hive.
Okay, remember when I told you to hang around and watch Carina Billow chase rats around? Well, that’s where we’re heading next. Head to that area and enter the door to the right of those steps to enter – once again – the sewers.
Like most of the sewers you’ve explored, there’s only one path. However, as you follow the walkways above the rushing sewer water, you’ll reach an area with a short staircase ahead of you. Glance to your left and you’ll spot a large box that contains your final collectible, The myth of the horned vampire (24/24 Lore-Keeper) Oh, look at that, it says that a square is 3! Hmm, what’s that used for? Anyway…
Continue along the long, pretty boring path until you finally reach a spot where you can open a gate which leads to the flooded area you battled Fergal several chapters back. (Why you couldn’t just drop in on the Skals from the Night Asylum area is beyond me.) Anyway, with Fergal’s arena as a point of reference, you should be able to follow the tunnels back to the Sewer Skal’s location. However, the hideout is empty and everyone has vanished.
Locate Harriet Jones.
Follow the blood trail. Well, this is a familiar game mechanic. There are no enemies to fight, so just follow the trail of blood, which begins at Harriet’s room, but – surprise – leads you back down the tunnels you just followed to reach here in the first place.
Eventually, you’ll be confronted by that mysterious shadow of blood. (The horned vampire!) Unlike your other encounters with this entity, you can actually converse with him, and learn quite a bit more of the Vampyr lore and why Jonathan was chosen to become an Ekon vampire… er, vampyr.
The horned vampire talks up Harriet Jones quite a bit, but don’t be deceived. She’s only Level 35, and while she’s resistant to melee and highly resistant to blood attacks, she’s got relatively low hit points and stamina. Save your ammo for the next battle, and focus mainly on draining her stamina and biting her. Just beware of her poison attacks and her final poisonous explosion. (With the True Dragonbane, I actually managed to end her in about 7 hits, before she even got a single attack on me.)
Oh ho, but the next battle starts right away, against the Red Queen. Highly resistant to blood and resistant to shadow, and with unlimited stamina, this was quite a beast. Plus, she summons blood creatures to attack you. At 51, she is a beast to put down, but Abyss still did enough damage to her, plus it held her still long enough to get some good hits in. Focus on dodging away from her attacks, Springing forward to close the distance, “stun” her for a second and get in a couple of hits before repeating the process while Abyss recharges. Use your ranged weapons as much as possible. (Serums also helped, blood and health regen mostly)
After the battle, you’ll have a couple of cutscenes before being taken to the final chapter.
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