You’re Liza, a young woman in 19th-century Eastern Europe. You’re brilliant, one of the first female doctors in the country, though your family thought you might go another direction, career-wise. You fell ill recently, and were visited by a doctor afterwards. You died shortly after. Welcome to Cabernet.

And then you came back to life, or something like it. Surprise, you’re a vampire! Cabernet opens with your eulogy being read at your funeral, but you awake later, locked in a creepy basement. A mute presence at your door agrees to let you out, but only in exchange for a favour. This sets the tone for the rest of the early access build - it seems like a lot of what you’ll be doing as Liza is navigating aristocratic vampire society, building relationships with the right people and standing up to the wrong ones.

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Cabernet delves into a commonly explored topic in horror and fantasy: the ethical vampire. From the start of the game, you’re building your character - your eulogy is used to decide where your skill points should be, distributing them according to what you want your Liza to be knowledgeable about. As you level up, you distribute more points into these skills on your character sheet. There are also humanity and nihilism points, gained as you have conversations with the people around you. These points unlock conversation options, allowing you to appeal to their better nature or their darker side.

Cabernet talking to Alisa

There’s a journal that details all the people you’ve met and your relationships with them, and your relationship scores also impact what you can ask them to do for you, so staying aware of your surroundings is key. The initial cast of characters are all interesting in their own ways - some are helpful, some are dismissive, some are bored of their vampire lives, and some are downright scary. After you drink blood for the first time, a character correctly guesses that addiction issues run in your family and warns you to be careful around blood, telling you, “Demons are hereditary, lovely.” Addiction is likely to be a big focus of the game, as well as what we’re willing to do to indulge our vices.

Many vampire narratives have examined what it means to have to hurt people to survive, and whether there are ways around it. I suspect Cabernet will do the same, asking us to examine our morals and the impact of our actions on other people. Considering the evocative writing I’ve seen in Cabernet so far, I expect it to excel - despite seeing only a fraction of the game, I was impressed by how much it did in that time.

Cabernet Liza talking to Trofim

Cabernet has great voice acting, beautiful art, and you can turn into a bat to speed across maps. You can also do other vampire stuff, like hypnotise people, turn invisible, and of course, drink blood. Apart from all the interactions you have with others, there’s a thirst meter you probably have to manage, and choices you’ll have to make as to how you fill it. I’m excited to make those choices and see how Liza’s story plays out, because I’m already invested.

Cabernet is slated for PC release in early 2024.

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