V Rising - Early Access Review

V Rising is the latest game by developers Stunlock Studios who you might know from their previous titles Battlerite and Bloodline champions. V Rising was recently released on Steam as an early access title and I must say that this was a game that slipped under my radar as I only found out about it a few days before release, that’s not to say that there wasn’t any hype leading up to its release as looking back on the games unofficial subreddit it looks like hype was building for this game for quite a while.

V Rising is a survival game with elements of base building, crafting and PVP. Many people have described the game as ‘Valheim, but with vampires’ and although V Rising does have a fair bit in common with Valheim it is certainly not a direct copy of that game and varies enough in its own originality that I wouldn’t consider it a clone. V Rising sees you awaken as a vampire hungry for blood and power in a mysterious and unfamiliar world. On first impressions you would be forgiven for comparing the game to ARPGs such as the Diablo series  or Path Of Exile due to the isometric viewpoint and HUD that these games all seem to share but even though V Rising does share gameplay elements with the aforementioned games it is certainly no ARPG.

Like most survival games your first decisions are whether to play on a PVP or PVE server or to create your own private server (either dedicated or non-dedicated) if that’s your thing, with that out of the way it’s time to then create your character and jump into the game. The first things you will need to seek out will be food and shelter as even though you are a Vampire you start off in a weakened state and are especially vulnerable to sunlight. The game does a great of helping you to get your head around basic mechanics via it’s in-game tutorial which a quest system of sorts that tasks you with gathering items and then crafting them into items and weapons and then helps you set up a basic castle and also introduces you to the games crafting systems.

Of course once you have crafted some basic armour and weapons your curiosity will get the better of you and you will want to go out and explore the world, you will quickly realise that travelling during daylight hours can be risky due to your vulnerability to sunlight, traveling during daylight hours will require you to dart from shadow to shadow in order to stay alive which adds a new degree of tension to the game, especially when playing on a PVP server as not only other players are your enemy, it is also the sun that is trying to kill you. The risk of travelling during daylight made me fall into the routine of upgrading and expanding my castle during daylight hours and then slinking outside of my castle walls at night in order to go and gain resources, there is an advantage to going out and gathering resources during the day though, there are usually less players out during daylight so if you are on a PVP server you will have less risk of being ganked and also because of the lack of other players there will be a larger amount of resources for you to gather, it’s all about balance and risk vs reward and I found the day/night mechanics really adding a lot of depth to the gameplay loop.

Fighting is of course one of the main parts of game play in V Rising and I am happy to say that Stunlock have done a great job with the mechanics here. Movement is controlled by standard WASD keys (which may feel awkward if you are used to games such as Diablo and Lost Ark) and abilities and spells are handled by a set of keyboard shortcuts, thankfully you can edit the shortcuts to your liking. When firing off abilities the direction they travel is determined by where you aim your mouse with a handy on screen crosshair showing where you are currently aiming, pressing space will also cause you to dash relevant to where your mouse is currently aiming. The combat feels fluid, and since the game has a lot of abilities available to your character it can also feel very strategic at times as you have to strike, dodge and make sure to time your cooldowns in order to vanquish your foes. Speaking of foes you will encounter plenty on your journeys throughout the game, from both animals such as wolves and bears through to rogues and poachers, all will do their best at trying to stop you from achieving your goals, once you weaken a foe sufficiently you will be able to drink their blood which serves two purposes, it fills up your blood pool which acts as a hunger gauge of sorts and you will also be gain certain strengths depending on what type of blood you have just consumed.

The main foes you will be setting your sights on though will be the games bosses, of which there are over 30, which is a staggering amount especially for an early access game. Bosses are challenging and they will require you to be at a certain item level in order to have any hope of taking them down, I can attest though that even if you do meet the item level suggested for some particular bosses in the game they still won’t be a cakewalk and will require you to time your abilities, dodges and attacks with precision in order to come out victorious. Once you do manage to take down a boss you can then drink their blood in order to gain some powerful permanent abilities such as wolf form that will be integral to your progress in the game, bosses also drop crafting recipes for armor and base upgrades that are needed to push your character to higher item levels in order to be able to take on later bosses in the game.

The gameplay loop of gather resources, build base, upgrade items has been seen several times before and is pretty much a staple for most survival games, the twist in V Rising though is how it is intertwined with being able to steal powers from enemies, with some incredibly powerful abilities only coming when you conquer certain bosses, this I find adds an extra dimension that is rarely seen in the survival game genre.

For an early access game V Rising is extremely well put together, graphically the game is beautiful and just as importantly the games soundtrack from the music through to the environmental effects are all pleasing to the ear. The fighting is fast and fluid and certainly requires time and effort to become good at without ever reaching the difficulty of something such as a ‘souls like’ game. The game is also incredibly well optimised and I had no trouble running the game at 1080/60 FPS on the highest graphical settings. I know a lot of people are hesitant to lay down money on early access games especially when so many of them never seem to actually leave early access or ever get updated by the devs, in the case of V Rising though you would be forgiven for thinking that the game is a full release rather than an early access title.

Between gathering resources, sucking foes dry for power and maintaining and expanding your base there is a lot to do here ensuring you will get at least 40 hours’ worth of play out of the game before you have seen everything, and with the devs promising future updates to the game and the games cheap price I consider V Rising to be outstanding value for money. I can’t wait to see how the game evolves and expands during early access and on to the full release.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Stunlock Studios

The Pros

+Addictive gameplay loop

+Freakin’ vampires with freakin’ vampire powers!

+Graphics, sound and overall game design are great

+Combat is fun and strategic

+Absolutely massive roster of bosses

The Cons

-Having to constantly feed your castle heart with blood essence can become tiring and stressful, especially if you can’t log on for a few days which will leave your base vulnerable

-Map can be hard and confusing to navigate especially when rotating the camera in game

-Tracking of bosses can at times be confusing