On April 29, MeinMMO was invited to Bandai Namco in Frankfurt to test their upcoming game Code Vein. Our author Irie was there and has examined the latest demo of the game.
What is Code Vein? Code Vein is an action RPG in anime style developed by Bandai Namco. It aims to provide players with a deep story and a large world to explore together with an NPC of their choice.
Code Vein was originally announced for fall 2018 but was then postponed to 2019. The developers wanted to polish and improve it further to ultimately deliver a good game.
You can watch one of the earlier trailers here:
What’s new in Code Vein? At the event at Bandai Namco, we were given the new demo of Code Vein to test. It is the latest build of the game that the developers have been working on over the past months.
In the demo, there were four different features and aspects of Code Vein that were in the foreground:
- The story
- The “Buddy” system
- The combat system and difficulty level
- The character customization
In this preview, we will explain these individual points in more detail.
Welcome to a hopeless world
What is the story of Code Vein? In the demo, you could test a chapter of Code Vein, which places the players in a dark world and introduces some key characters.
In a distant post-apocalyptic future, humanity is almost extinct and the Earth is predominantly inhabited by so-called Revenants.
The Revenants need blood, obtained from special sources, to avoid going insane and turning into monsters. However, this blood is becoming increasingly scarce because the sources are slowly drying up due to a miasma.
It is not yet clear what this miasma exactly is and where it comes from, but the lack of blood brings the society of the Revenants to the brink of collapse.
In the demo, your character awakens as a Revenant in a dirty alley of a destroyed city, on the lap of a young girl named Io. Without any memories of your life or what has happened, you stumble with her to a nearby blood source to quench your thirst.
This is the role of the player character: It becomes clear throughout the chapter: your character is a special Revenant. You have the power to dissolve the miasma with your blood and purify the crucial blood sources.
With the help of Io and accompanied by various “Buddy” NPCs, you set out with your character to restore your memories and find out why you are a special Revenant.
So you are thrown directly into the game’s events without much explanation of the world. I actually found it quite exciting to be thrown into the deep end like that. Right from the start, you feel like you have a thousand questions, but they are gradually answered by the game.
I received just enough information at the beginning to become curious. While playing, I wanted to know what caused the catastrophe that devastated the world. Who are these NPCs that I just met? Why are they doing what they do? Can I also have a cool giant axe with tentacles like the guy over there?
This approach to the story managed to pique and maintain my curiosity in the demo.
The gameplay evokes a strong feeling of déjà vu
What is the gameplay of Code Vein like? As mentioned above, Code Vein is an action RPG.
During the demo, I was able to explore the first dungeon of the game, which represents a dark and decaying tunnel system. I noticed several special features:
- Almost all enemies are quite strong, and if you’re not careful, a fight can end quickly and fatally
- Throughout the dungeon, there were “rest areas” with a “mistle” where you can regenerate your HP and manage your inventory. When you do this, the previously killed enemies respawn
- You have a limited amount of healing, which is replenished when resting
- Opening the inventory and character menus doesn’t pause the game
- There were doors that could only be opened from one side, representing short cuts between two larger areas of the dungeon
- The dungeon was highly intricate and had multiple floors. You need to keep an eye out to discover new corridors and passages that lead to good loot.
Some of you may recognize all these points. The gameplay feels very reminiscent of the Dark Souls games at its core. There were also parallels in combat:
- Dodging and blocking play an important role in combat to avoid damage and not die
- There is a stamina bar that you need for attacks and dodging
- You can sneak up on enemies from behind and deliver a heavy strike to their back
- You can parry enemy attacks with good timing and execute a strong counterattack
- If you are above the enemy, for example, on a cliff, you can jump down and perform a heavy attack
Since I am familiar with the SoulsBorne games, I felt immediately comfortable in the demo. I knew exactly what to expect and what kind of game I could expect here.
For fans of big weapons and cool outfits
This is how the equipment works: Since Code Vein is fundamentally an RPG, the demo offered the option to customize and personalize your character in various ways. This includes equipment, for example.
Weapons play a significant role. The weapons include classic one-handed swords, greatswords, axes, daggers, rifles, and other familiar types. In the demo, I was able to try them all, and I was assured that more would be available.
The different weapons determine the combat speed. Greatswords and axes deal high damage but are logically slow. The opposite is true for light weapons.
I could carry two weapons simultaneously during the demo and switch between them freely in combat. The armor didn’t seem to have a significant impact on gameplay at least in the demo. I felt that in Code Vein, the armor is more of an enhancement to underline and optimize the playstyle you choose.
This is how the stats work: The stats in the Code Vein demo were very diverse. Besides classic values like strength, HP, and defense, there were also various resistances:
- Elemental resistances like fire, etc.
- Resistances against specific weapon types, such as melee or firearms
- Resistances against status changes like poison, etc.
All in all, the system left me with the impression that there are many different options for builds and character customization.
This is my buddy and I won’t let him go
What is the “Buddy” system? One of the aspects that were particularly emphasized during the presentation of Code Vein and throughout the demo were the so-called Buddies. These are NPCs with whom you explore the world of Code Vein and who will assist you in combat.
I got the impression that the Buddy feature serves as a kind of connection between the story and the gameplay. On one hand, the NPCs are a strong gameplay element:
- They follow you and help in battles
- They can give you a part of their HP when yours drops to 0, thus reviving you
- Your character can learn their abilities through the “Code” of the Buddies
Each buddy has their own combat style, which I would describe as a “class.” There’s a ranged fighter with a rifle, an NPC who fights with an axe, and similar ones. So you can choose a buddy who complements your playstyle.
On the other hand, the buddies are meant to contribute a lot to the story experience of Code Vein. In the first dungeon of the demo, I was accompanied by two different buddy NPCs, and they didn’t feel like a hindrance, as companion NPCs often do.
- They commented on the events and provided new information about the game world
- Occasional jokes lightened the mood and made the NPCs more likeable
- When they became incapacitated, I wanted them back and gave them some of my blood
The NPCs have their own personality and background story. So theoretically, you could choose a buddy that you just find likeable or cool, even if gameplay-wise they don’t fit your build.
This is the meaning of the Buddy system: The buddy NPCs have an impact on the story experience of Code Vein. You explore dungeons with them, learn more about their past, and what makes them characters.
According to director Hiroshi Yoshimura, a close bond is supposed to be built with the buddies throughout the game, making the story experience more intense.
In the demo, there was also a “gifts feature” with which you could give certain items to the NPCs to build a relationship with them. In the finished game, this is supposed to unlock new quests where players can learn more story and lore information.
Create your own build with diverse skills
How do skills work in Code Vein? The skill system is another feature that was particularly highlighted. Your player character is a so-called “Void Type” vampire. This means that you don’t have your own blood type that can be equated with “classes” in the world of Code Vein.
Instead, you can switch freely between different classes that you have learned from enemies or NPCs. My impression from the demo was that the classes have the following:
- A typical distribution of stats, meaning they can focus on strength, speed, HP, or defense.
- Different types of abilities that can be active or passive and used both in and out of combat
- A special “signature ability” that can only be used when a matching buddy is present
New abilities are learned by spending EXP earned in combat. There were seven different codes with their own skill sets that you could unlock gradually. The skills were:
- Exclusive to the respective code
- Freely usable
- Only functional in combination with specific weapons
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to test all the skills from the demo, but my impression was that the developers made an effort to make them all as useful as possible.
The active skills had cool animations and dealt decent damage. However, they also consumed a certain amount of “mana,” of which the character has a limited amount.
Passive skills had effects like boosting stats or higher chances for good drops and more EXP.
I was also assured that in the finished version of the game, there will be more codes, i.e., classes. One of the reasons for the postponement of the release of Code Vein was the developers’ desire to further expand and refine the skill system.
The Code Vein demo had its strengths and weaknesses
What I liked: Overall, I had fun with the Code Vein demo. The character creator has many different functions, and if I had the time, I would probably have spent half a day on it.
The story of the game made me curious for more. During the demo, it was exciting to learn more about the world you are drawn into and the laws that prevail there.
The buddy NPCs were also likable, and I would have liked to learn more about them or perhaps even had conversations with them.
As someone who has invested a lot of time in SoulsBorne games, I felt immediately at home with the gameplay of Code Vein. Many elements were the same or similar, and I could find my way around quickly.
The endgame dungeon Depths had a high concentration of boss enemies in one spot, which I personally found quite cool. Boss battles are one of the most enjoyable elements in games like Code Vein.
And the soundtrack is great. The good music caught my attention right at the start of the demo.
What I didn’t like: Even though the combat system strongly resembles Dark Souls, it sometimes felt clunky. There is no good feedback upon the death of enemies. It can happen that you attack an already dead enemy again, wasting valuable stamina.
The camera controls could be quite annoying at times. Especially when you get into fights in narrow passages of the dungeons, it was difficult to adjust it so that everything was clearly visible.
The boss enemies in both dungeons had simple attack patterns and were not very spectacular in design. This isn’t that tragic by itself. However, I was conditioned by the strong gameplay elements of the SoulsBorne games to expect that the boss battles would also be memorable and unforgettable.
However, this was just a demo of Code Vein, and I hope that the final game will offer more variety.
An action RPG with potential
Is Code Vein interesting? I think Code Vein has the potential to become a solid game. It closely resembles the SoulsBorne games but also has its own identity due to the buddy system and skill builds.
The story promises a lot of drama; however, you have to embrace the strong anime style of the game. The characters I encountered in the demo were often familiar anime stereotypes.
If this type of Japanese game doesn’t appeal to you, then Code Vein is not for you. Otherwise, feel free to keep an eye on the title; it could be fun.
By the way, Code Vein also has a coop mode. More information about this can be found in our interview with the game’s producer, Keita Iizuka:
