V Rising

220 hours in (most of which were probably spent theorycrafting, building my castle or farming), I've finished everything the game has to offer to a solo player on normal difficulty. I took my time and loved every minute. I've known about the devs since their Battlerite days, and V Rising feels like a spiritual successor to its combat system, with a few caveats after recent updates (nerfed player mobility, bosses still doing parkour).
I dove headfirst without any prior knowledge and pretended it was 2005; no wiki, guides, reviews or speedrunning. It was great as a mainstay game for the duration. More below:
1. Pros:
🟢 One of the most intuitive and hassle-free crafting/building systems I've interacted with. Rooftop generation is automated after you enclose a room. The only downsides are that a) you can only rotate everything 90 degrees, and b) snapping cannot be toggled off. Placement requirements are sensical and balanced in terms of costs. Castle architecture is where the real end-game is at, so the possibilities are aplenty.
🟢 The power fantasy is gradual and done right. You start off as a scrawny vampire fledgling, and you slowly move up to defeating Dracula himself. The layers of complexity that come with progression are served to you with a piecemeal approach, and you have complete freedom over how slow or fast you go. There are a few main quests that serve as railguards and guide you throughout the entire run, but there is no hand-holding involved; you awaken into a world with a mind of its own and are forced to thrive or die.
🟢 You can freely change between different playstyles (melee, ranged, caster) on the go by equipping different item sets and ability jewels; nothing is set in stone, so you don't spec into one niche at the beginning of the game and then stay pigeonholed forever after.
🟢 Skills and tooltips have an accessible level of complexity; there are no hidden interactions or shenanigans. What you see is all there is.
🟢 No P2W. Microtransactions are purely cosmetical.
🟢 The soundtrack. It's available on most streaming platforms under the artist Migova. You also have a pretty little music box as a prop for your castle, unlocking more music as you progress. You can exclude tracks from the rotation if you'd rather not listen to combat music while idling. "Dawn Comes" is a standout. The sound design overall is memorable as well.
2. Mixed bag:
🟡 Gear, skill and playstyle diversity is insufficiently encouraged. I soldiered my way through with nothing but my bow, shortsword/claws, and the same spells on repeat (veil of storm, bloodrage, sanguine coil, crimson beam), with very few exceptions. If you're the lazier armchair gamer type, this is great news, but brutal difficulty is a different story. Overall, V Rising is ultimately a skill-based arena brawler type of game wherein combat is the only solution; you can't play economic wars or take the non-lethal route.
🟡 Some boss encounters can be exasperating (Simon and Megara especially). If you're into souls-like fights, rejoice. For the more casual players like myself though, this resulted in frustration. This is especially true as their AI has a tendency to anticipate your skillshots and dodge as soon as you cast. On the other hand, summoning minions tends to mess with their aggro meter, so you can cheese them to an extent.
🟡 Most server settings can be tweaked via rulesets you can customize yourself or import predefined ones. However, they are set in stone once you start the playthrough; other than the difficulty, you can't modify them later (at least not in-game; you can alter the JSON file though). For PvP this is great, as it ensures a more consistent experience for everyone; for solo PvE players it can feel restricting, especially if it's your first time playing. Most of the jargon from the rulesets only makes sense after you have already invested a few hours into the game, so it'd be best to stick to vanilla settings if you're soloing PvE and have no clue what the parameters mean.
🟡 Every once in a while you will run into stacked encounters that are pure chaos. You're following the blood trail of a boss, but you get ganked halfway through; then, your initial target somehow finds you instead, multiple bosses summon adds, the sun rises, the environment provides no shade, you run out of potions or defensive cooldowns, so you end up getting sandwiched on every possible front. This is not a frequent occurrence, but it does tend to happen with roaming bosses like Vincent, Jade, Jakhira or Bane. It can be fun if you enjoy surprises; I acknowledge the potential for entropy to keep things fresh, as the majority of bosses are in set locations, but this just wasn't for me.
🟡 Rift incursions are the only recurrent event. V Rising doesn't try to be an MMO, but I would've liked to have more side-content other than fishing, building or min-maxxing servants and prisoner blood quality. There's not much else to do after you defeat Dracula as a solo player; you either give brutal a try, or join a PvP server. The game doesn't branch out in any other direction; it is built from the ground up to culminate with you killing the immortal king, or being the top dog if playing PvP.
🟡 This is a Unity game. Don't expect it to have a visual style like that of No Rest for the Wicked or Pathfinder WOTR. It sits somewhere between Original Sin 2 and Magicka 2 in terms of graphics and geometry, and it has a mild voxel flavor. Serviceable, but not outstanding.
🟡 Steam achievements are there (49 in total), but there's definitely room for more.
3. Cons:
🔴 The damage you take from sun exposure is one the most consistently punishing mechanics, even with sun resistance potions or blood key amulets. I understand this is a vampire game and sunlight is meant to be the bane of our existence, but there is no way of toggling it off in an integrated way; at most, you can fiddle with the day/night cycle settings, but even so, you will be forced to fight in the shade if you venture out before sunset.
🔴 You unlock flying too late into the game. Bosses range from level 16 (Alpha Wolf) to 91 (Dracula), and you can only shapeshift into a bat after you defeat Styx at level 84. Ideally, it should've been closer to level ~60. It's not a huge map, but you'll often find yourself hoofing across the same paths many times. The same could be said for automatization engines.
🔴 There is no indication of what a well-positioned base looks like, especially early into the game. You have to eyeball it and hope you're close enough to points of interest. Because of this, it can be very easy to over-invest into a bad base location at first and regret it later. Thankfully, you can have two castles, and there's also the option to relocate everything from your castle to another, but you can say goodbye to your base layout since locations aren't identical.
🔴 The servant system is very limited in scope compared to what it had the potential to be, but it gets the job done. Saves you some unwanted trips but can't really be relied on as your sole resource gatherers.
🔴 Monster variety is so-so, but there are enough boss encounters to compensate.
🔴 QoL may hurt at times. You can only fast-travel to and from specific vampire waystones and your castle, but only if you're not carrying specific items. While this makes sense for PvP servers, solo PvE players should have this an option, not something enforced by default.
All in all, V Rising is an A-tier game that does the genre justice, with a twist: it's an interesting hybrid isometric ARPG with base-building elements. It runs well, feels well, and rewards skill-based gameplay above all. It takes a bit of everything from everywhere and is self-aware of its limited scope, but is aptly executed for what it is. Few games manage to make you feel like both a monster and an architect.

You wake up naked in a crypt, immediately allergic to daylight, and within an hour you’re committing home invasion on a lumberjack to steal his blood type like some kind of gothic mosquito.
V Rising in a nutshell:
Be vampire
Punch bear
Drink construction worker
Build evil Pinterest castle
Get emotionally attached to crafting stations
The gameplay loop is illegal levels of addictive.
You go out saying
“I’ll just get some copper.”
Three hours later you’re:
- redesigning your castle foyer
- hunting a boss for a hat you don’t need
- reorganizing your prison so the 100% scholar blood guy has better vibes
Combat? Surprisingly tight on both K&M and controller. Nothing like getting vaporized by a nun with a flamethrower to remind you you’re just an undead raccoon in a cape.
Base building? Dangerous. You start with “small twigs shack” and end with
“Welcome to Castle Overcompensation, please admire the symmetrical torture wing.”
Also:
The sun is your real nemesis
Trees are the second
That one patrol that always catches you at 3% HP is third
Multiplayer ranges from:
“Let’s cooperate, fellow creatures of the night”
to
“Your castle location offends me. Prepare to evaporate.”
And you get cool powers. Blood lasers. Purple chaos meteor shower. Undead armies. Storms. Ice beams.
Just play it, fools.

Change the settings to fit around your playstyle. There is no need for a casual playthrough to have long crafting times or for items to restrict teleporting if its going to negatively affect your experience. PVP servers can use these to force player interaction and keep risk involved.

Bored of grinding resources? Increase the resource yield.
Tired of waiting for Rift Incursions? Increase the frequency and decrease the wait.
Tired of spending all of your time avoiding the sun? Tweak the day/night cycle times.
Spend your time enjoying the game.

The combat is unique to quite a few of the boss & crafting based progression games I have played and it scratches the itch juggling both defensive and offensive abilities and strategies. Multiplayer elevates this allowing for harder and easier fights depending on your teams experience level & brutal difficulty adds so much depth to the boss fights with new mechanics forcing you to use everything at your disposal.

The base building and crafting gives a ton of freedom but it also has its flaws. As you play you will continue to unlock more ways of crafting and upgrades to your current crafting stations changing their sizes and shapes requiring constant reorganization. If you build a multi-level base or need to move your base prepare for difficulty. With it being a fairly grind intensive game you will probably get the most enjoyment out of building your ideal base the first time, with subsequent playthroughs feeling more tiresome.

Overall I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is interested (especially for the combat!), but multiplayer is much more enjoyable. There's a TON to explore and even more to do and its much more manageable with at least one other person.

I found V Rising to be a surprisingly good game. Why surprising? Well, I wasn't expecting much. I never heard of Stunlock Studios before, and only bought it because it was going cheap and a friend recommended it (for the base building).

The graphics are the first thing that struck me. They're pretty simple, but the style the devs used is very effective and the result looks stunning. The appearance of this game will age well.

The combat is a lot of fun. There's a large variety of weapons, and they all perform differently, and have their own special moves/attacks. Initially this can be overwhelming, but as you learn what each weapon does then it becomes obvious that the range and versatility means you can take many approaches to combat. There's something for everyone here. Combat is expanded by the huge number of spells which also have many different effects. Both weapons and spells can be modified and tailored to your liking. Several sets of armour are available at each tier, catering for various styles of play (tank, mobility, magic), along with a range of buffs (via potions, elixirs, and "blood types"). It's a comprehensive and well balanced system.

When it comes to fighting bosses and combat in general, some of the bosses and packs of mobs roam around. This can be used to your advantage if you engineer a situation where you kite a boss into a bad situation, but sometimes you might get ambushed by mobs or even another boss. Personally I found this highly entertaining, and spent hours stalking bosses who might otherwise be too difficult, waiting for a scenario that could swing the battle my way. If fighting where you may be interrupted then it pays to be aware of your surroundings.

Base building is straightforward yet impressive. You can build a massive castle without much effort, and the range of devices and decorations is vast. If you enjoy pottering around with bases then there's a lot to keep you occupied, but if you just want something quick and easy then the V Rising provides that too.

The game loop revolves around killing (about 65) bosses to unlock more machines, abilities, weapons, etc, and exploring the large map to obtain the resources to make what you need. There's a good variety of zones, and plenty of places to explore, from wealthy cities to creepy forests. Travel is interesting given you can shapeshift into many different forms, and horses can be ridden (and trained/improved).

You can obtain servants to help you gather resources as the game progresses, so you're spending more time fighting and exploring rather than having to farm materials.

Optimisation is good, and with all settings maxed playing at 4k/120Hz my rig (RTX 4090/7800X3D) was barely tested. I imagine players with older machines can expect decent performance given how well the game ran on my machine.

I did not purchase the DLC as it's strictly cosmetic, and there are so many options with the base game that I didn't feel the need. Although it was nice to know that sections of the game aren't gated behind DLC. I felt that this was a fair and responsible approach to DLC, and appreciate the devs' attitude with respect to this often problematic area.

Basically if you like this kind of game (beating bosses to progress, experimenting with combat, exploring, and base building), then you're likely to enjoy V Rising. The game looks great, plays great, and there's a lot to keep you busy. The whole package comes across as very polished.

I literally don't have a bad thing to say about the game, which is unusual, as I'm a pretty picky gamer and it doesn't take much to set me off. I'll definitely be checking out what Stunlock Studios come up with next.

Game is great, lots of content, you can be a rat and prank peasants with bowl cuts
It is a complete, finished game with a lot of things to do; if anyone tells you it's "abandoned," then they don't know what that word means, and they need to stop thinking of everything like a perpetual live service game

A survival RPG with its own characteristics and a true understanding of vampires
★ 8.5/10 — The vampire gameplay is well done, and the survival process is indeed time-consuming
⊕ BEST FOR: Players who like vampire themes, castle construction, top-down combat, cooperative survival, fixed maps, open-world PvP, and custom Private Games.
⊖ NOT FOR: Players who are unwilling to collect repeatedly, prefer random maps and story-driven RPGs, want to freely advance the process, permanently retain the progress of the Official Servers, or are ready to play single-player with the default settings.
▣ Media Benchmarks: Metacritic PC 83/100 · OpenCritic 83/100 · IGN 9/10 · PC Gamer 89/100.
◆ Opening
As of Update 1.1: Invaders of Oakveil, new areas, bosses, weapons, and main features have been added through free updates, and paid DLC only involves cosmetic packs and soundtrack content.
◆ Strengths
⊕ The identity of a vampire does affect how you play
The sun will burn in a few seconds, and you have to find shadows on the way during the day, but the shadows will move over time. The blood pool has been consumed, and the bonuses provided by different Blood Types are also different. Shapeshifting can help rush, sneak, and explore, and some special areas must also be entered by it. Silver, garlic, and human settlements have their own places to pay attention to.
You will choose to hunt at night and go back before dawn. You will also detour because of the sun, the enemies on the road, or the blood type you are looking for.
Production, research, production of equipment, arrangement of Servants, and detention of Prisoners reserved as blood sources are all carried out in their own Gothic castles. At first it was just a place to stay, but slowly a decent vampire palace could be built. The Advanced Game Settings of Private Games can also adjust resource output, crafting time, enemy strength, blood drain, sunlight, and death penalties.
⊕ The combat is excellent in the survival game, and the fixed map also makes value
The combat uses a top-down angle, WASD movement, mouse aiming, and movement abilities (Veils), weapon skills, and spells. With another weapon, the basic attack, skill, and attack range will all change; the spell school and equipment also support different builds such as melee, ranged, summoning, control, and damage over time.
It is not as complicated as a dedicated action game, but the movement, combat feedback, and build options are already better than most survival games. Many V Bloods have their own moves, arena mechanics, and phase changes, and they need to be familiar with them before they can deal with them. Brutal will increase skills and change combat behavior, not just increase health and damage.
The factions, resources, enemies and patrol routes in each area are different, and different factions can be encountered in the wild to fight each other. You can take the opportunity to pick up a bargain, or you may bump into a patrol that can't be beaten at all when you are on your way. After you are familiar with the map, the fun of exploring comes more from your understanding of the environment: where is it dangerous, which way to transport materials, and where to find suitable prey. These experiences are useful in collecting, castle site selection, and PvP.
◆ Weaknesses
⊖ The upgrading of the production chain makes the upgrade feel fulfilling, and it is really abrasive
The problem is that the later, the more steps will be taken to collect, refine, transport, and make a string. Many early materials have to continue to be collected in the later stage, because they still have to be used for advanced materials.
Version 1.1 reduces some chores in the castle. The Treasury allows the crafting and construction to directly use the territory inventory, and the Redistribution Engine can transfer items between production facilities, but it is relatively late to get it.
Private Games can increase resource output and shorten crafting time, but the steps to take are still those. To play alone, you have to fight monsters, collect, ship goods, arrange production, and maintain the castle by yourself. Two or more people divide the labor, and the rhythm will be much better.
Room and flooring bonuses will also affect the layout. If you want to build a castle beautifully, you have to consider production efficiency.
⊖ Although the growth route is very clear, there is less freshness when replaying
Following the Journal, you basically know what to do next: defeat the V Blood boss, get the unlocked content (V Blood Unlocks), get new equipment, Spell Points and recipes, and then go to the back area until the final boss. Weapons and skills can be selected, and some bosses can also be played in a different order, but many tools necessary to advance the process still have to defeat the designated boss to get them.
If you start another game, it will still be those areas, roads and resource points, and the growth route will be much the same. Compared with survival games with randomly generated maps, after the first round is played, the next round can bring a lot less freshness of exploration.
⊖ The castle needs to be reopened for large-scale updates, and the built castle will inevitably make people reluctant
As of version 1.1, large-scale content updates have made changes to maps, units, and systems, and players have been asked to reopen the save. The old local saves, Private Games, and self-hosted servers can be left in the corresponding old version to continue playing, but they cannot be brought into the updated world. The Official Servers will be reset during large-scale updates, or they may be cleared in a fixed cycle, and the characters, resources, and castles cannot be left forever.
If you can save the blueprint or building layout, at least you don't have to build it from scratch every time. Of course, map changes and server balance must also be considered, and it will not be as simple as directly importing the old save.
⊖ Even if you have to fight for PvP, you have to fight for who has time
If players want to fight for territory and find each other's castle, they must also consider whether their layout is convenient for production or more resistant to Castle Raiding.
However, in a server that opens castle raids and wipes regularly, the amount of resources, clan size, online time, progression speed, and raid hours will all affect the results. Organized clans can collect, produce, and guard their homes separately, and it is much harder for small teams and people who enter the service late.
It's really exciting when the competition is fierce, but if you can't follow the server's schedule and want to stay competitive, you may have to invest more time than expected.
◆ Conclusion
From the first time I played it in 2024 to the present, what I admire most is that "V Rising" has added so many things and still retains its original characteristics.
If you can accept fixed maps, linear growth, and are willing to spend time collecting and operating, the vampire survival experience it provides is indeed worth a try.
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I thought V Rising was a fantasy game.
But apparently it's just my daily routine.
Sunlight? Avoid.
Go outside? No thanks.
Active at night? Yes.
This game didn’t let me roleplay a vampire.
It just confirmed that I already am one.
10/10
Most relatable game I've ever played!