To me, one of the most enjoyable parts of playing a game is the ability to experience something outside your normal life. Shooter games let you live vicariously as a soldier or action hero, flight sims give you the vicarious thrill of being a pilot, MMORPGs grant you the experience of a wage slave living in a fantasy kingdom, and base-building games let you imagine what your life would be like if you could ever afford real estate.

So, when a game promises an experience as something outside humanity entirely, I want it to submerge me in the feeling of being an inhuman creature, feeling both the power and fear of my preternatural bloodline. In this, V Rising succeeds excellently, placing you in the role of the returned dead: A vampire lord, awakening from slumber in a war-torn land, ready to carve out your own empire of blood among the wreckage of kingdoms.

What is V Rising?

V Rising is a new PvPvE open-world base-building hack & slash adventure game from Stunlock Studios. But what, exactly, does that genre soup mean? In V Rising, you take on the role of a recently raised vampire lord, fighting enemies and harvesting enemies in top-down hack & slash combat, not unlike the Diablo series, utilizing multiple weapons along with a collection of spells and other vampire powers. In addition to combat, you'll need to collect and refine raw materials to build your castle, the heart of your demesne. You'll fill your castle with machines to craft greater weapons of war, and with vampiric thralls who can both defend it against invaders and can be dispatched to infiltrate local human settlements, robbing them of their valuables under cover of darkness.

Your ultimate goal is to hunt down the V Blood carriers scattered around the land - powerful champions with unique skills who would stand against your rule. Defeating them will allow you to literally suck the knowledge from their blood, growing your might and expanding your influence further. At first, you'll be sticking to the shadows, fighting notable soldiers and leaders among the local militia, but as you grow stronger you'll be able to stalk and devour fabled heroes, master artisans, and even other vampire lords.

Going at this alone might be an intimidating task. However, you have the option of playing online on a server instead of going at it alone. Teaming up with other players can provide a huge advantage, but this can also be risky - while there's plenty of room for everyone to have their own lands to rule, some players might decide that it's easier to take what they need from your stores instead of gathering it themselves. PvP in V Rising has a huge amount of depth, as can be expected from Stunlock Studios, who previously specialized in MOBA games. Players who do not wish to participate in PvP can play on PvE-only servers as well, but those who choose to participate in some friendly competition will find a depth of options for both attack & defense. Combat-ready thralls, summoning rituals, and siege weapons can all shift the tides of battle.

What’s new in 1.0?

For some readers, this is all old news - V Rising has been available in Early Access for over a year before the 1.0 release. So, what’s changed? In short: The endgame.

There’s a number of minor quality of life features - reworks to how spellbooks function and allowing players to relocate existing castles without demolishing them, to name a few - but the biggest changes in the full release are at the highest levels of progression. In addition to upgraded versions of most crafting stations, an entire new zone was added: the Ruins of Mortium, a blasted, sunless wasteland surrounding Dracula’s castle. This zone also introduces a new challenge, Rift Incursions, where the cultists of Mortium will attempt to open a portal to the Shadow Realm, and defeating said cultist will summon a powered-up version of an existing world boss, which can be defeated for great rewards.

These Rift Incursions make a drastic change to the rhythm of the game once you can access them, as they happen on a fixed time schedule, so it’s important to seize the opportunity when it is available. However, veteran players may find the bosses a touch underwhelming - rather than new bosses, Rift bosses are copies of existing V Blood carriers, with their HP and damage increased to match the level of the Rift, but with otherwise no changes made to their mechanics. As a result, any enemy that relies upon a specific arena to facilitate their abilities, as many of the more interesting V Bloods do, cannot appear as a Rift boss. While the rewards are significant and the event can be engaging, you’ll see the same bosses repeated many times long before you’ve collected all the Rift rewards you’ll need.

There are several new bosses added, however. In the Ruins of Mortium you can find several of Dracula’s generals, as well as the entrance to Castle Dracula itself, home of the most infamous vampire lord and the ultimate challenge the game has to offer. Additionally, Simon Belmont of Castlevania fame has been added to the roaming threats, an expert Vampire Hunter with a variety of holy weapons at his disposal. Be sure to keep an eye out, as up-and-comers are likely to run into him long before they’re strong enough to stand a chance against him.

For this article, I did a full playthrough of the current V Rising content. Behold: Lord Tim, magic cowboy vampire.

The Good, the Bad, the Undead

The best part of V Rising is the world itself. The map has clearly been made with a lot of love and attention, with a wide variety of biomes you will explore in the search of ever more valuable materials. You can also set up your castle or castles in any biome you enjoy, though on a server with many players, you may face fierce competition for control of location near to valuable resources.

The V Blood carriers as well are a delight to fight. Every one has a different way of fighting you will need to learn and adapt to, with earlier bosses having only a few flashy weapon skills and a spell or two, while more powerful foes will bring a slew of powerful weapons, minions, and environmental hazards to bear against you. While this is a fantastic challenge, many players who are not experienced with V Rising's style of hack and slash combat may find later bosses overwhelming. Many have attack patterns that leave virtually no room for error, and a speed that makes counter-attacks nearly impossible - they've clearly been balanced with the expectation that you'll bring friends, so anyone adventuring solo might find themselves frustrated by the onslaught. Recent updates have been working to improve the balance on some of the more powerful bosses, making them more forgiving to non-expert players.

Lord Tim narrowly avoids a lightning barrage by turning in to mist

The only part where the game starts to flounder, in my opinion, is the very late game. Once players are approaching the pinnacle of their progression, advancement begins to slow to a crawl. Many crafting materials are refined using base materials from earlier in the game, so you'll find that the demand for resources of all tiers grows over time. Thralls can be sent out to gather these resources, but they need to be armored & equipped the same as the player does, and making end-game materials can require a lot of time, patience, and grinding. Silk, in particular, proved to be a bugbear for me, as all armor after a certain point requires a lot of silk to craft, and even more to repair. Silkworms only spawn in a single dungeon, so even with thralls dispatched to gather silk, expect to spend a lot of time going through the exact same tunnel with the exact same boss many times.

Interrupting the ritual in a Rift Incursion will summon a powerful boss, known as a Blood Soul

Another sore spot are the new Rift Incursions, a special event happening every hour. Rift Incursions are a timed event where cultists will begin opening Shadow Portals - by killing all the cultists around, you can destabilize the rift, summoning a boss who will drop a large amount of valuable materials & rare weapons upon defeat. However, the drop rate on these weapons, which you will desperately want for later bosses, is painfully low. Rift bosses also aren't unique - they're just the V Blood carriers you fought before, but with their health & damage increased. You will be grinding these every hour as they spawn - and if you're playing on a server, expect to be doing that grind every single day, as Soulstones (the best accessories in the game) will dissolve away if you don't clear Rifts every single IRL day. If you are part of a team, you can spread the work out by taking turns logging on every day to fight the Rifts, but if you're the kind of gamer who only logs in on the weekends: Say goodbye to that shiny gear. If you're on a PvE server, you can always go claim another one, but frankly, I'm not a huge fan of games which give me chores to do when I log in, before I can do the things I actually want to do.

Lord Tim in his workshop, crafting new weapons alongside his noble steed

Aftermath

Overall, I enjoyed my time with V Rising. Even after beating the game, I still find myself logging on periodically to decorate my castle and trim the topiary. The base building and crafting systems are a joy, or at least they are once you've figured out how to convince the building engine to put your staircases in the right spot. Even when not out fighting bosses, there's a visceral joy in simply ruling the land with an iron fist. If being a blood-sucking despot sounds like something you'd like to experience, V Rising might be the right thing for you.

If you'd like to play with friends, setting up a dedicated server is quick & easy - you can get started on our 4GB plan right now! Setup takes a few minutes, with no cap to the number of players who can team up and lay waste to the countryside (or each other!)

No friends? Come hang out with us on our Discord server! We love to hang out and play games, and we've got community servers that anyone is free to join.

You, too, could have a garden as beautiful as Lord Tim's some day