60/100
Players32 ratings: 60/100
Critics1 review

Where to get it

2009 · The Farm 51 · First-person shooter · Horror

NecroVisioN

NecroVision is a first-person shooter that takes gamers across the frantic battlegrounds of World War I and into a dark underworld of vampires, demons and dark magic.

Released: 27 February 2009
Platforms: Windows
Genres: First-person shooter Horror Shooter Vampire
Developers: The Farm 51
Publishers: Aspyr Media 505 Games 1C Entertainment
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Fantasy Science fiction Horror Historical Warfare
Engine: PainEngine, Havok Physics

About

NecroVisioN is a World War I alternate history horror first-person shooter developed by Polish developer The Farm 51 and published by 505 Games. It was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2009. The game was published by Aspyr Media in the United States, on May 26, 2009, and Canada on August 10, 2009. A prequel entitled NecroVisioN: Lost Company was released in February 2010.

›Story

Set in 1916 during the First World War, NecroVisioN casts the player as Simon Bukner, a young American recently recruited into the British Army. His war begins on the battlefields of the Somme, where a counterattack against the German lines collapses into carnage under machine gun fire and mustard gas. Separated from his squad, Simon is drawn into a nightmare that reaches far beyond conventional warfare. A rumor has spread through the trenches of a mysterious infection, one that twists stricken men into a zombie-like state, and the horrors soon prove all too real.

Alongside German soldiers, Simon finds himself confronting supernatural forces, including the walking dead, hell hounds, and stranger creatures rising from the mud and ruins. As he fights through the shattered trenches, he glimpses signs that something far more sinister is unfolding beneath the ordinary brutality of the war, and begins to suspect a deliberate, malevolent hand at work behind the manifestations tearing through the front.

Keywords

zombies
ghosts
vehicular combat
world war i - ww1
bloody
vampire
death
soldier
run and gun
hand-to-hand combat
war
achievements

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

NecroVisioN is a first-person shooter which also has a close-combat system and an ability to use both arms with different weapons. The health system is based on limited regeneration, with an ability to use a health pack or a red shard to restore it. Slain enemies may drop health or mana, which is used for spells. The gameplay is varied, and includes combo system, challenge mode, and storyline sections where player pilots a Vampire-made robotic exosuit and rides a dragon.

There are no demonic spells, weapons or powers. The player can choose either to be a Human, Undead or a Vampire. The modes are Free for All, in which players fight each other in a classic deathmatch mode; Capture the Artifact in which teams attempt to capture a vampiric artifact and bring it to their base; Team Deathmatch in which players are grouped into teams to fight each other in a classic deathmatch mode; and Last Man Standing in which players start the game with additional health and fight each other. The last player left alive wins the match.

Story

NecroVisioN is set in 1916 during World War I. The player takes the role of Simon Bukner, a young American soldier recently recruited into the British Army. In addition to German soldiers, Simon soon finds himself fighting supernatural forces, including vampires, demons, and zombies found in locations varying from the battlefields of World War I to secret laboratories and caverns. The main setting is the Battle of the Somme, during which a rumor of a mysterious infection has appeared, which causes all people to turn into zombie-like state. Later, the game takes the player into two new settings; the underground realm of Vampires, and the demonic realm, Hell.

The game begins with the protagonist Simon Bukner being awakened by a British soldier within a bunker. It is apparently time for a counterattack against German lines. After a rallying speech by the commanding officer, Simon is to follow his squad of soldiers towards the assault point. But as soon as they arrive, they are ambushed by heavy German machine gun fire and mustard gas.

Reception

NecrovisioN received average to mixed reviews. Where IGN award with 6.9/10 while GameSpot rated it with 7/10. Martyn Clayden of IT Reviews had said that the game is a mix of H. P. Lovecraft and Medal of Honor set in World War I.