Vampires have been a staple of storytelling in different mediums for centuries. These undead creatures of the night appear in various settings and scenarios from ancient folklore to modern video games and have been implemented into different genres to the point that experiencing a vampire story in the classic Eastern European setting is now becoming a refreshing take on the trope.
Cabernet, developed by Party For Introverts and published by Akupara Games, is a narrative RPG set in a small Eastern European town in the 19th century. It follows the story of Liza, a young doctor who has passed a tragic death and has mysteriously risen as a vampire. She has to find her way in this new life and learn how immortality will affect her and those around her.
Cabernet starts with a funeral for Elizaveta Morozova, as her uncle is giving a eulogy for the deceased girl. We can choose certain dialogue choices in the uncle’s speech to give our character her starting attribute points. I love this unique way of creating our character in the beginning, as we learn about our character’s past, and her family members, and decide what kind of person they were in life. It’s a nice balance between lore dump and gameplay that elevates both aspects of the opening scene.
After the funeral, we wake up in a dark dungeon, unsure of how we got there and what has happened. A mysterious force opens the door for us, and we find ourselves in the middle of a gathering in a luxurious manor belonging to the Countess. We eventually learn the Countess and most people in this party, including us, are vampires, and members of the Higher Society. The Countess assigns one of her servants to teach us about our new powers, and then we are sent back into town to meet our sire, the person who turned us into a vampire and is giving us a place to stay.
The vampire responsible for Liza’s transformation is a doctor, who met her shortly before her death and decided to give her another chance in life, if you can call it that. We are now the doctor’s assistant, helping the people of the town and helping him with his research into vampire anatomy and blood. Thus begins our new life.
The story of Cabernet is about coming to terms with this new life, choosing between retaining Liza’s humanity or giving in to the urges of her new existence, forming genuine relationships or manipulating others for her benefit, and eventually fighting against corruption or becoming a part of it. The world is full of interesting characters and choices that can alter those characters’ fate, and going through Liza’s daily life and mundane tasks while interacting with these characters made Cabernet’s world feel alive and dynamic, sort of like a vampire-themed Stardew Valley where instead of farming and taking care of animals, we would help with doctor’s research and visit patients.
Cabernet deals with interesting and sensitive topics such as alcoholism and its parallels with a vampire’s bloodlust, relationships, betrayal, murder, and existential crisis that follows immortality. It can be very lighthearted and wholesome at times, and turn gruesome and terrifying with a snap of a finger. In one of the game’s pivotal moments, I had to make a choice that felt like the hardest choice I’ve ever made in any video game, to the point that I actually had to pause the game and step away from the computer to think about what I wanted to do.
The story is also very gripping. I could not stop playing Cabernet for three days straight, and I only stopped to write this review and wait for a post-launch patch to start another playthrough. The gameplay, while simple, only enhances the way we interact with the story. We have four main vampire powers, turning into a bat, turning invisible, enchanting people, and turning into our vampire form to drink blood. These powers help us navigate the world and satiate our hunger, and they interact with the NPCs in an interesting way.
We need to drink blood every day, and we can either buy cabernet from one of two sources in town or drink blood directly from an enchanted human. Buying cabernet can get expensive, and we have limited ways of making money in the game, leaving the direct method the cheapest way to sustain us. But that also has its drawbacks. We can only enchant humans who trust us and have a high relationship with us, and they won’t remember what happened during the enchantment, but they do remember how they felt about us. So drinking their blood over and over again can impact the relationship negatively enough that we are not able to enchant them anymore.
Drinking too much blood also has negative effects. If we drink more than we need, we get some temporary powers, but we develop a higher rate of dependency on blood and need to drink even more going forward. I have not tried this in the game yet, but it is revealed in the game that vampires who indulge in the blood excessively ultimately turn feral, perhaps leading to a game over.
Apart from the vampiric powers and satisfying our daily needs, Cabernet plays like a typical adventure game. We go around town, solving problems, helping others, and discovering bits and pieces of the larger story. Navigating the 2D world in bat form can be really fun, and helps the pace of exploration when you get used to the routine of the game. The exploration aspect is also complemented with the beautiful art style of Cabernet.
The Victorian-style depiction of the game world looks stunning. The architecture, character design, and especially the fashion in Cabernet look great, and help the immersion of a semi-historical setting. Liza’s outfits have interesting gameplay effects and finding a new dress felt as exciting as finding a new armor in a typical RPG game.
But ultimately for me, the best feature of Cabernet is its music and performances. I first learned about the game after seeing Samantha Béart was doing voice-over for Cabernet, and I’ve been a fan of them since their stellar performance in Baldur’s Gate 3. This made me think about a recent phenomenon that is becoming more prevalent in the video game industry; Star power. Not unlike its Hollywood parallel, video game celebrities are becoming influential enough to help boost a project’s marketing, but the cultural impact is still small enough that the industry hasn’t fallen into the same trap of spending most of a game’s budget on a star-studded cast. Samantha Béart’s name was enough for me to be interested in Cabernet, and the game’s voice performances only exceeded my expectations.
Samantha Béart has a small role as one of the NPCs, Alisa, which they do a wonderful job of portraying, but the rest of the cast is phenomenal as well. Most noteworthy for me was Laura Gray’s warm and loving performance as Liza and Brian David Gilbert’s relatable and charming portrayal of Petya. All characters are brought to life by unique personalities and memorable performances, which makes a dialogue-heavy game such as Cabernet stand out.
After about 15 hours of playing, I was getting close to finishing Cabernet. There were a few minor performance issues and bugs that I encountered during this time, but nothing too impactful. I was ready to give the game a perfect score as I loved every aspect of it, but one of the side quests towards the end ohad a major bug that prevented the completion of that quest and resolving the story of two characters. After reloading and trying again a few times, I encountered the same bug, and had to ignore that side quest and finish the game. I’m sure these are issues that can be easily fixed with a patch after launch, but for me, they impacted the experience negatively enough that I have to consider them in my scoring.
Despite these issues, Cabernet remained a wonderful experience and one of my favorite games this year I’m sure I will return to and see how different choices and paths can affect the story. It’s packed with tough decisions and consequences that create an engaging world and story, it looks artistic and stylish, and the stellar performances of its actors elevate the experience tremendously.
Nima played Cabernet on PC with a provided review copy.
