Bakir

Background

Bakir (voiced by Dai Tabuchi) is one of Brencis's most powerful lieutenants among the Vrakhiri. Before he was turned, Bakir spent decades galloping across the dry steppes of Central Asia, burning villages, trampling settlements, and pillaging whatever he found. He thirsted for blood long before he became a vampire. The transformation just made him better at it.

Personality

Bakir is the simplest of the Vrakhiri to understand and the hardest to deal with. He is a warmonger. He was cruel and bloodthirsty as a human, and becoming a vampire only amplified those traits. For centuries he hid in the shadows alongside the other vampires, and he resented every moment of it.

Now that the Vrakhiri rule openly, Bakir finally has what he always wanted: recognition. He craves it. He wants people to know his name and tremble when they hear it. Unlike Brencis, who uses politics and pragmatism, Bakir rules through fear and force.

Role in the Game

Bakir controls his own territory within Vale Sangora. Walkthroughs pitch his operations at around level 20, between Ambrus's and Xanthe's, and his reputation makes him the least forgiving of the three for Coen to operate in. Where Brencis might negotiate and Ambrus might manipulate, Bakir's default response to problems is violence. Any faction or player action that threatens his control will be met with direct, brutal retaliation.

Coverage of the finished game confirms that Bakir is one of three ancient vampires Coen can fight and then feed on, alongside Xanthe and Ambrus. Defeating him and choosing to drink grants Shadowstorm outright, with no skill points spent, which makes him a build decision as much as a story one. The option is conditional: if the fight happens during a daytime assault on Greifberg Castle rather than earlier and at night, Coen kills him without the chance to feed and the ability is lost for that run. These routes come from post-launch guides rather than from the studio, so read them as reported.

Fighting him is also optional in the sense that everything in the valley is optional. His territory can be left alone, and the Notoriety System means the attention Coen draws there is largely a consequence of choosing to work against him.

The Lunar Game

Bakir's anger rises as Coen hits his headhunters, payoff transports, distilleries and pillories; one of the pillories stands in Svartrau and another in Parlita. One walkthrough pitches his operations at around level 20 and suggests taking him second. When his anger peaks, the duel comes as a quest of its own, The Lunar Game, held at Lunar Manor.

It is a contest rather than a straight fight. A guide to the shipped game describes drinks with the other entrants beforehand, a run through a maze in which Coen starts with nothing and has to scavenge weapons and armour from containers, a tatzelwurm called the Great Bog Wurm near the end, and finally Bakir, who adds a volley of corrupted birds in his second phase. How Coen treats the other contestants decides how many of them he has to fight. Afterwards Coen can drink Bakir's blood for Shadowstorm, take his armour from the body, and empty his treasury, where a chest holds legendary bracers. A follow-up quest, The Ring, turns on a ring from the manor. Killing him during the games carries the achievement The Mad Khan.

Motion Capture and Performance

Bakir's combat moves were performed by Jan Błachowicz, a Polish mixed martial artist and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. The development team cast him because they wanted a performer who could embody the contradiction at the heart of the character: a vampire lieutenant who is enormous and intimidating yet still moves with surprising agility and speed. Błachowicz, a self-described gamer, treated the role as a new kind of challenge after his fighting career, and his MMA background gave Bakir's strikes the directness and weight that the team wanted on screen.

Błachowicz has spoken about how naturally Bakir's approach matched his own. He described the character's fighting style as simple but very effective in a real fight, the same philosophy he built his MMA career around, and joked that Bakir does not borrow any of his moves because Bakir uses them all. He also set expectations for the encounter directly, saying he hopes to kill every player at least five times before they bring the fight back to him. The combination of physical scale, MMA-trained takedowns, and a performer who openly wants to humble the player gives Bakir's boss fight a tone that is meant to feel more like a brawl than a duel.

Fight Choreography

Combat animation began with performance capture. A large share of the game's fighting was shot in motion capture and later adjusted by the animators to match the game's mood and direction. Choreography starts from the rules of the combat system: the team first studies how the moveset, hit reactions, and directional combat inputs behave, then designs choreography that fits those rules, and only then layers on the visual flourish. The constant challenge is balancing readable, fair gameplay against the cinematic spectacle of a vampire boss fight.

That balance shapes a clear split between the game's two combat registers. Human-form swordplay is grounded and weighty: Coen relies on a real blade, footwork, and conventional reach during the day. When night falls and his vampiric powers come online, the choreography pushes into vampire combat that is faster, stronger, and deliberately over the top. Bakir sits on the same supernatural side of that line. His fighting embodies the over-the-top vampire register, but Błachowicz's MMA-trained performance keeps each strike grounded in real body mechanics, so the encounter reads as an unfair physical contest rather than a stylized dance.

Boss tactics

Bakir gains attacks as each third of his health is removed. Use Perfect Blocks and active abilities to create openings, then become more cautious about his ground slam in the final phase.