Spending the bulk of my younger years in hospitals, I escaped to the deep stories found in point and click adventure games and globe-trotting RPGs. So, when I saw there was an RPG combining a rich player driven story with tabletop RPG style skill checks, and published by the point and click specialists at Wadjet Eye Games, I had to try it out.

Nighthawks is a richly textured RPG with a visual novel aesthetic by developer The Curiosity Engine. For this preview, the developers have given me access to the first act. Right after completing it, I wanted to continue the story of my created character, which says a lot. But what's really impressive is how so many people are going to get vastly different experiences, even in just the first three hours.

Nighthawks begins as you wake up as the sun sets, and vampires are free to live under the cover of darkness. These vampires follow traditional rules like no reflection and dying by being staked through the heart, but they are a somewhat known quantity in the world; feared by dangerous anti-vampire movements and hounded by the police. These are just a few glimpses of how you'll need to form alliances to survive and complete your missions.

The story kicks off with an emotional conceit: your sire's vassal has stolen your last link to your human life, and has suddenly gone missing in the seedy underbelly of the city. You're a baby vampire that other elder vampire's genuinely or disingenuously want to help or advise.

But first, you create your vampire by typing your name and selecting from a wide suite of class and skill options that mechanically alter how the game plays. Being predominantly a visual novel style conversational game where you select dialogue and actions based on your skill levels, these choices must be carefully considered. From choosing your sire's background as either a hedonist, scholar, warrior, shadow, or aristocrat. Their lineage, whether a British Imperialist, Continental Europe, Old Country, Mandarin, or from the New World. Choices that directly impact who your character becomes and how you can solve situations.

Lastly, and vitally, there's a set of vampiric powers to choose from: natural dominion to control tameable creatures, tenebrous form to use the shadows, the visceral power of the beast within, mesmerism, and the ability to converse with the dead. Powers to save yourself in particularly sticky moments. However, vampiric powers come with a cost: blood. Nighthawks has a green health meter, as well as a red blood meter, and it's up to you to decide whether to feed on innocent victims or take up donated blood at various locations around the city. Although, if you don't keep an eye on your blood levels, there could be situations that arise where you could've saved yourself from failure.

The best RPGs understand how to balance between player agency, choice and consequence, and frustration. Nighthawks gets this balance right through its powers. It allows the player to build their character however they want. So, if you choose to be a corpse talker, you'll feel like you're picking at the unseen seams of a situation others can't see. Or gain the upper hand by using mesmerism to sway minds. Powers and background traits open dialogue options, branching paths, and bolsters relationships with potential companions.

Your investigation starts in your hotel bedroom - a place used to sleep the night away, or equip clothes and items you've bought to increase skills. Like most games, you start with nothing but the basics. But as you discover new locations through conversations and visit them on the city map, you'll find shops to spend your money. But the game's economy is another mechanic where you start with nothing, and must complete missions or work at places to fill your wallet.

After selecting your outfit, you click to leave your room and bump into your first possible companion: a devilishly persuasive vampire who runs a religious, cult-like outfit under his bookshop - a confidence man that's lived a thousand lives. Every character is represented by a selection of still, painted character portraits; wonderful art that somehow gives personality to each character without motion. But it helps that The Curiosity Engine made the correct decision to use a talented cast to voice every character.

But like a lot of RPGs, they've chosen a silent protagonist. Instead, letting players live out the fantasy as themselves, and always be the person facing the characters and participating in every conversation and decision.

You follow the persuasive vampire to his quaint bookshop and meet his human familiar - the traditional concept of a human that serves a vampire's every whim. While expanding on Nighthawks' lore, it also teaches you to discuss your case with characters, to see if a new perspective can get you any closer to finding your sire's vassal.

After gaining new information, the game gives you the freedom to explore your way. Facing the static map, you listen to the atmospheric score that perfectly fits the energy of each moment and location, whilst deciding which new location to go to first. And every decision is important, as Nighthawks runs on a timer of sorts, much like Disco Elysium, where dialogue choices, actions, and travelling move the timer forwards. This narratively weaves in the foible of being a vampire, emphasising how the sunrise is their ultimate master.

At first, I made the decision to visit a free clinic, where I found a place to drink untainted blood that wouldn't reduce my stats, and more interesting characters to get to know. While the doctor expanded on the way of life in the city, I found another possible companion in a boxer who is muscle for a local gangster. Like with all possible companions, once you've built a little trust, they can accompany you on your journey for the night, giving you a stat boost based on their skills, and opening up new story scenes.

Although, what Nighthawks does really well is slowly texture the lore of the world. Every bit of exposition is natural, like learning about where homeless people sleep and where the shadier vampires congregate.

But the bread and butter of Nighthawks is the backbone of RPG skill checks. Every decision has a narrative consequence or can forge or ruin relationships with companions, and every systemic choice regarding your character impacts what you can and can't do. Although, you can improve these over time, equip clothes to improve stats, and gain a companion to temporarily improve stats that align to that character. From the Irish brawler that's good at combat, the sneaky child vampire that's a master thief and a flashy magician. Every character has wildly different skills and personalities.

Progressing my investigation to the local club turned vampire hangout, I found more leads and introduced myself to many interesting characters with their own hidden motives. Here, I accepted side quests I needed to complete to progress the main investigation, which naturally kept revealing the world and story. But as I completed quests by using my skills to break into an office, I improved my skill set and gravitated to companions with complimentary skills.

I spent some nights exploring the city with a magician who got insulted when I asked if she used her vampiric powers to perform. While some missions required me to work alone. It makes fights harder when your health is getting reduced and the skill checks now tell you how you're most likely going to fail. But when you beat the odds and win a skill check, it feels like another individual story moment.

Outside of the fantastic writing and interconnected storytelling, choice is the beating heart of Nighthawks. All of which is tracked on your smartphone that logs objectives, incoming texts, contacts, and your skills. But when you arrive at story points where you can either pay for help, risk using an underdeveloped skill, or figure out another method. There was one point where I needed to sneak into a building undetected. You have the choice to take out the enemies, use the appropriate vampiric powers to sneak into a tiny vent and more. But without the correct power, I had to find a different way. Everything is a combination of choice and consequence - a domino effect running from the beginning of the game.

You feel like the author unravelling a nicely crafted story until the endpoint of act one. The Curiosity Engine have layered so many richly detailed characters in the story, to create a vampire fantasy that you want to explore. As an RPG with detective elements, parts of your investigation lead to paintings of gory moments that won't be for everyone. But I felt they grounded the story and drilled home the severity of there being a cost to every action - not even vampires are invulnerable.

Now that I've completed act one, I can safely say that Nighthawks sets up a compelling mystery and leaves the player in a position where even more choice is set to be made. Although the game contains plenty of missions and lingering questions, Nighthawks does something truly special. As well as making you want to see where the story ends up, it also makes you want to simply live out your protagonist's nightly life. And that's without the prospect of starting a new game with a vastly different character build. If The Curiosity Engine maintains this high bar of narrative and player choice for the rest of the game, Nighthawks is going to be something special when it releases later in the year.

*Preview Code Provided By The Publisher

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