REVIEW – Placing a vampire in a medieval fantasy world where he has to build castles and then ally with others is not a very common starting point. However, this alone is enough to set Stunlock Studios’ game apart from other products. Survival plays a role, but so does action-packed gameplay, and it’s the balance between the two that makes the difference between success and failure. It’s the former.

Before launch, it was mainly the online interactions that might have caught players’ attention, but now that the game is beyond 1.0, there’s more to come, so there’s plenty of time to spend in it.

C for can’t neglect collaboration

The success of the game lies in the fact that it is good for everyone to not be alone. By forming a clan, you can explore the terrain much better, and when you need to fight, PvP is not left out of the equation. Depending on the skills you choose, there are additional abilities, as well as a variety of weapons and basic core skills. This can be a bit of a cheat, as a player who doesn’t run around with a weapon drawn will look a few levels lower. In the online aspect, the castle metagame is not left out, and there may be a few changes while offline: you can attack someone’s building even if they are not online, but so can we. For example, you can cast a spell to freeze your opponent, and each of these spells is modified based on the diamonds you find. So this customization isn’t just about looks, it’s also about your character’s abilities, and the latter can even be improved by changing weapons, which also have upgradeable abilities.

If you ignore all this, you will get an experience very similar to Diablo, although you will have to learn the basics of the game (the first 3-4 hours), so don’t forget the blood itself, for example, because your character is a vampire and it doesn’t matter what source it comes from. The cleaner it is, the more positive it has and therefore the more desirable targets it becomes. So draining other players can be a good way to do that. There is also the V-Blood. You can get it mainly from bosses, and you can gain new skills, knowledge, transformations, and materials. They’re even rarer (and harder to defeat), so more people will fight for them, and that’s usually where PvP happens, if you choose one of the servers that supports it. There is a menu where you can see how far away they are from you (no spoilers: there will be some that will surprise you no matter what), and here you can also see what they will give you if you defeat them. Therefore, it is really worthwhile to look with one eye at the state we are in (blood deficiency is not good) and with the other eye at how we can effectively improve our situation.

B for building castles cleanly

It takes a lot of materials to build our castle, and even more to upgrade the equipment. The harder the material, the better we can make it. This makes the grind a bit repetitive, with no use for teleporting, moving quickly between points A and B, and storing materials. This can be seen as a kind of annoying micromanagement, and there’s nothing worse than that (this is true in all contexts). At least the construction itself is not problematic, as walls are automatically placed and it’s not difficult to build a castle. However, you should also have a roof over your head, because remember: we are vampires, so sunlight is extremely dangerous.

But that’s not the only problem: the music is also very average, and the audio segment in general is mostly average. Since this is a game designed for a long time, it is perhaps understandable that the developers did not want to have any serious background music, but what we have now could be quickly muted by switching to some BGM of our own. The environment itself isn’t that outstanding either: all you can do is shrug your shoulders and go about your business, because it also feels a bit forgettable, that’s all. However, these are not so serious negatives as to make it a negligible game, as it can sometimes be a very frenetic experience once you get over the initial difficulties. Still, it will be a tough nut to crack in the beginning.

R for recommended for purchase

V Rising is a weak 8/10 (even though it has a seven in the first digit of the rating) because it’s a really good game that will keep the audience engaged for a long time. The use of vampires is not a bad idea and can be quite atmospheric with a good community. Although a server connection was mostly mentioned, the game, which runs on the Unity engine, can also be played OFFLINE. And that’s a lesson for everyone who pushes server connections (Ubisoft: The Crew…).

-V-

Publisher: Stunlock Studios

Developer: Stunlock Studios

Style: survival action RPG

Published: May 8, 2024