Unlike some titles on the PlayStation 3 – LittleBigPlanet 2, Killzone 3 or Resistance 3, for example – InFAMOUS 2 doesn’t strike many as a game that requires DLC. It tells its own plot very well, and whether you choose the good or bad ending (or both), guiding Cole McGrath through his second exclusive story on PS3 gave you a lot of reward. Infamous fans couldn’t ask for more from their Infamous 2 experience.

But it’s this lack of natural fit for DLC that makes Festival of Blood so interesting. First announced at GamesCom in Germany last August, Festival of Blood is not DLC for Infamous 2 in itself, but a complete game that will be available for download directly from the PlayStation Network at launch on October 25th. You don’t need Infamous 2 to play.

Blood Fest takes players back to the fictional New Orleans-inspired city of New Marais and is set during the events of Infamous 2. But as you can see from the introduction, Blood Fest gives you a subplot that will be important to the game that inspired it. In fact, you can play it without any familiarity with the Sucker Punch series and still get something out of it.

In Blood Fest, the protagonist is still Cole, but he’s… Well… things have changed. Cole’s best friend, Zeke, is sitting in a seedy bar in New Marais while the Blood Fest is taking place. A fat woman is sitting nearby, trying to impress Zeke. At first, this woman isn’t at all excited when she speaks to Cole’s friend. In fact, she teases him for reading a comic book at the bar. But Zeke starts telling a story about the comic and his friend Cole, as if the comic’s plot is a lesson to the real-life Cole. And then the fictional events of Bloodfest begin in earnest, and you take on the role of Cole, narrating the story that Zeke makes up over the course of the film.

Well, Infamous 2 itself is obviously fiction, but when I say Bloodfest is fiction, I mean this in the context of the Infamous universe. Cole is a vampire who is chasing an enemy named Bloody Mary throughout New Marais in Bloodfest, and he only has eight hours to find her, but it’s all a fabrication to impress Zeke’s bar buddy with his cleavage. So you don’t need to worry about continuity issues.

Gameplay-wise, there are many differences between the Infamous and Infamous 2 experiences you are accustomed to and the gameplay in Festival of Blood. Because Cole is a vampire in this story and therefore inherently evil, there is no karma meter. Instead, it is replaced with a corruption meter that allows Cole to channel evil vampiric energy. By holding down the R2 button, Cole can use his vampiric vision to see who around him has been corrupted and turned into a vampire. Cole can also fill his corruption meter by drinking human blood, gaining a special vampiric attack unknown to Infamous and Infamous 2 veterans.

Sucker Punch was kind enough to show me much of the game, and I was able to spend a lot of time trying it out. We also got a pretty in-depth look at the game’s story, which we won’t talk about here. But regardless of the innovations mentioned above, there’s no doubt that Festival of Blood is a very notorious game in terms of feel and gameplay. Parkour is still the name of the game in Festival of Blood, and you can explore the entire city of New Marais, albeit updated to reflect the Halloween-like celebrations in Festival of Blood. Cole still has access to basic electrical attacks, and uses electrical devices around him to recharge his energy. In other words, if you already know how to play InFAMOUS, you’ll know exactly what to do as soon as you pick up the controller.

Interestingly, Sucker Punch and Sony have decided to offer Festival of Blood on the cheap, despite it being such an immersive experience; it will cost just $9.99. Even better, for those who enjoyed creating UGC missions in Infamas 2, Festival of Blood has a whole new set of tools that you can use to create Festival of Blood-specific missions (unfortunately, this is not available in InFAMOUS 2, but it is compatible). This time you can also create your own cutscenes, giving your creations special narrative options.

Festival of Blood will also be compatible with PlayStation Move (and will automatically patch InFAMOUS 2 to provide the same functionality), though I wasn’t able to try out the Move controls during the demo.

I’m excited to see more of Festival of Blood. If you’re a fan of InFAMOUS and InFAMOUS 2 like I am, you should definitely keep an eye out for this cheap download. With in-game collectibles to find and PlayStation Network trophies to earn, Festival of Blood is a mouthful of expansion into the Infamas universe that will keep people entertained until Sucker Punch returns to action in the latest series, whether on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita or beyond.