Profession: Head of R&D at Vykker’s Labs 16, surgeon
Dr. Vyle is the head of Research and Development at Vykker’s Labs 16, one of the most notorious laboratories on Oddworld and one of the only airships in the Conglomerate’s possession . Dr. Vyle is immediately recognizable by his four sleek metal arms, which replace his natural ones. These arms, each equipped with different surgical tools and gadgets, were self-engineered after a catastrophic lab accident left him permanently disfigured. His decision to create and graft these arms onto himself was driven by both necessity and his relentless obsession with scientific advancement. The arms provide him with enhanced precision during surgeries and experiments, allowing him to carry out intricate tasks faster than any other vykker.
Dr. Vyle’s perpetually furrowed brow and deep-set, glowing yellow eyes and sharp, angular features give him a look of constant, simmering anger—even when he’s simply focused on his experiments. As the head of Research and Development, Dr. Vyle oversees the most disturbing and groundbreaking experiments at Vykker’s Labs 16.
His expertise in surgery is unparalleled, and he often performs grotesque modifications on creatures for the Magog Cartel. From gene splicing to organ harvesting, Vyle is at the forefront of Oddworld’s most heinous scientific practices. His office is a chaotic mess of surgical tables, glass tubes filled with mysterious fluids, and rows of grotesque specimens—many still alive—suspended in jars. His mechanical arms allow him to conduct multiple procedures at once, making him a whirlwind of efficiency. However, this mechanical precision is also what makes him detached from any sense of empathy or morality
Dr. Vyle is intensely focused on his work, with little patience for distraction or incompetence. He’s known for being cold, calculating, and unfriendly, even among his fellow Vykkers, including his personal assistant, Lenny. His demeanor is clinical, but there’s a barely-contained frenzy in the way he operates. When presented with a new challenge or discovery, he becomes obsessively excited, though this excitement often takes a sinister form, especially when it involves invasive procedures or dissection. Like most other vykkers, Vyle has no moral compass—he views everything through the lens of monetary value and scientific curiosity. He is perpetually irked by anything that disrupts his carefully constructed world, and nothing vexes him more than unpredictability—especially when it comes in the form of one particular human girl.
Dr. Vyle’s life took an unexpected turn when he stumbled upon the human girl, Evie, floating unconscious in a river when the interns at the lab were retrieving captured test subjects in the forest. When she was first brought to him, he was immediately intrigued by her pale skin and unfamiliar anatomy with Vyle initially referring to the creature as “Specimen 117” with Vyle believing that she was some form of mutated mudokon or evolutionary offshoot until he heard her calls herself a “human”. Vyle’s excitement grew immensely when he realized that he could be dealing with an entirely new species that was likely worth astronomical amounts of moolah.
At the lab, the subject refused to cooperate despite her very obvious fear, and found ways to grate on Vyle’s nerves, with her yelling strange phrases and disrupting the invasive experiments Vyle attempted to perform on her. Evie one day freed herself from the lab by wiggling out of her restraints, knocking Lenny in the head, and stealing an elum meant to be used in an experiment and freeing several other test subjects before escaping the lab atop the elum.
The loss of Evie has enraged Vyle, and he has since issued a hefty reward for her return, spreading the lie that she is in fact a dangerous mutant and a threat to Oddworld. His reputation- and a significant amount of profits- rests on retrieving this elusive “human” and he will stop at nothing to have her back.
