Blood in the Time of COVID: Vampiric Societies, Morality and Pandemics in Shadows of New York

Blood in the Time of COVID: Vampiric Societies, Morality and Pandemics in Shadows of New York

Modern vampires have often been described as ‘de-fanged’ monsters who have become more and more empathetic as authors such as Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer have shifted the ‘alien threats’ of the vampire to something that should be embraced. However, authors such as Rice also often create vampires who are fascinated by a mortal world that is constantly moving beyond them and their anachronistic sensibilities. As a result, the vampire defines their own morality by human norms— enabling “the undead to grasp and construct their vampiric monstrosity in opposition to the humanity they lost through transgression”. One text that has attempted to take a different approach is the video game Shadows of New York (2022). This game is interesting because it not only attempts to utilise the idea of vampiric societies separated from the human hierarchies, but it also uses current events—particularly the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown—to show a vampiric society and norms that run autonomously outside of human endeavours. This paper will show how Shadows of New York uses the pandemic to illustrate how removed vampires are from the networks that they once held dear, instead emphasising an insular vampiric society in a time of flux while the mortal world grinds to a halt. By doing this, the paper will show a vampiric society and protagonist that must re-define its norms as it moves further and further away from human society

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