Surviving as a vampire isn’t easy. To start off with, there’s the allergy to garlic, sunlight, age-appropriate relationships, fighting on the side of the Union in the American Civil War for some reason, and silver. Some of those things will be an issue in V Rising. Mostly it’s the sunlight, garlic, and silver.
After a long rest in a now-abandoned crypt, you wake up as one of up to 20 vampires in the area. Your first task is to collect some bones, make a bone weapon, and try not to die. Generally, it’s nothing too hard, at least until the sun comes up and starts releasing waves of massive damage as it reaches out to you. Like in real life, there is a day-night cycle. Unlike in real life, you can stay up all night and day without any negative effects. Aside from having to jump from shady spot to shady spot in order to get back to your base during the day, you can be out and about during the day, but it’s not recommended. Besides, daylight hours are prime resource refining and castle building hours.
As with any survival game, focusing on building a base and collecting and processing resources comes up pretty early. It starts with a Castle Heart, a pulsing pool you need to feed blood to in order to build on a plot of land. Land ownership has never been so easy. This hub can be upgraded, offering more tiles to build on, more servants to keep, and generally allowing you to build the castle you deserve. Any self-respecting vampire has as big a castle as they can get.
The building controls are fantastic, allowing easy swapping between different categories, simple dismantling when you change your mind, and auto-filling wallpaper. You can change up a whole room on the fly, moving furniture around easily, and nothing is fiddly or clips through walls because you placed it badly. Your castle needs to upgrade as you do, expanding to include more and more specialized rooms.
Playing Castle Building Simulator 2024 is a core part of the game, but if it’s not your thing, you can always do the bare minimum and still move forward with the game. There is a solid combat system, with a control scheme a console MMORPG port can only dream of. Each weapon has a few different abilities, and you fill in the other quick slots with spells to fit around your preferred play style. On top of that, there is a quick bar for items, making it super easy to chug a potion or swap weapons. Something you will be doing often, as instead of having specialised tools for cutting down trees versus mining stone, certain weapons are ideal for doing those tasks. This means you aren’t weighing down your inventory slots for tools you might need, and you don’t need to work on upgrading your weapons AND tools.
V Rising is always an online game and allows a huge amount of customisation for your server. You can pick the number of players from one to twenty, day length, inventory stacks max, health, starting equipment, starting level, PVP status, and a lot more. The default settings are designed for three to four players, and while doable by yourself, they can be a bit of a slog, and you’ll likely get knocked out by a V Blood or two along the way. The one downside to always being online is that, despite what your mum stereotypically thinks, you can’t pause online games. It’s not a big deal, but it does mean that if life happens, you’d better have a fast way back to your castle so you’re safe.
V Bloods, the V probably standing for Very tasty Bloods, are bosses dotted around the world. They range from level 15 to 90 and are how you unlock new abilities, spells, and recipes for new furniture. As per true vampire tradition, if you don’t know what to do next, murder someone! Even if they’re not V Blood, since your regular person is what will keep you full and strong.
Unfortunately, aside from telling you to kill V Bloods and giving some basic tasks to aim towards, V Rising doesn’t give much guidance. It’s easy to wander into the wrong area and then get absolutely annihilated, only to be forced to venture back out to the same place to retrieve your gear. It can be a vicious cycle, especially if you don’t have the skills needed to sneak around. There isn’t much in the way of plot, hence the lack of direction, and while it would be nice to have, the game doesn’t feel incomplete. You might have to sit there for a few minutes to figure out where you’re going.
V Rising does a fantastic job of handing out tutorials and new items at a steady rate. It’s easy to pick up new skills or game play mechanics, and they tend to drop when the game feels like it needs a shake-up. At least for the first half of the game, it does. There are only so many mechanics to learn and items to unlock, and by the time you’re at the midway point, it feels a bit repetitive, even as you’re getting better and better gear. Kill V Bloods, create new gear recipes, and kill V Bloods. To spice things up, you can relocate your castle and rebuild it all. Which is handled well and makes rebuilding rewarding and fun. But only once.
V Rising is an addictive game that will keep you coming back time and time again. It’s fun with friends and on your own. The world is well built, with fun bosses and some distinct biomes. It has solid castle buildings and a fun combat system. A little more guidance would be nice over all, as well as a little bit more variation in the later game play, but you still won’t be able to stop playing.
Prepare to be addicted to this highly customisable survival game, and remember to take a drink every now (blood or water, up to you) and again because you will not be able to stop playing.
