5 Reasons to Play Vampire Survivors

Have you ever come across a game that you couldn’t understand why everyone loved it? And then, did you try it yourself and become instantly addicted? That was me with Vampire Survivors.

And no, this is not a paid partnership or advertisement post, I just really love this game!

If you’ve not picked up or tried the roguelike bullet-hell here are 5 reasons why you should.

Vampire Survivor – Synopsis

Vampire Survivors is a time survival game with minimalistic gameplay and roguelite elements.
Hell is empty, the devils are here, and there’s no place to run or hide. All you can do is survive as long as you can until death inevitably puts an end to your struggles. Gather gold in each run to buy upgrades and help the next survivor. 

The supernatural indie phenomenon that lets you be the bullet hell!

From the Steam Store

1. Timed Runs

Let me preface this by stating, I am coming at this game from the perspective of a woman who also takes care of a household full of animals and has other responsibilities. I have to prioritize my time, so that laundry gets at least thrown into the wash or dryer, and dinner will be ready at a reasonable hour. I can’t just lose myself in a game for hours at a time. That’s what my weekends are for (if I’m lucky) but the work week it’s very rare for that to happen.

So when I discovered that Vampire Survivors essentially comes with a 30min max playtime (31 later on) I felt this huge sense of relief.

I wasn’t going to get locked into an arena match for an hour or more which can happen easily in Destiny 2. Giving myself 30 minutes to sit and “relax” is pretty doable.

Making dinner or meeting someone in a certain timeframe? I can literally plan out how many games of Vampire Survivors I can play with the time available. It’s not like others where you never know how long a match is going to run, so you may as well not even start.

For people who often find themselves in a time crunch, this game’s time limits are a sweet perk.

2. Well, It’s a [Directional] Toby…

If you get the reference, I hope it made you chuckle.

If you didn’t, it’s from The Office and it’s always made me laugh. [Season 4, Episode 11 “Survivor Man”]

Anyhow, this game is one of the easiest to play. It may seem daunting if you’ve seen trailers or even still-shots of the waves of enemies coming at you. But I promise, you can literally play it one-handed.

The only thing you have to do, is use the directional keys on whatever format you are playing.

I like to use the WASD keys personally (Up, Left, Down, and Right respectively) as I play on my laptop, but you can also use the arrow directionals to move your character around the screen. Or if you’re playing mobile just drag your finger around. And that’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Your character will automatically fire projectiles or their action (such as a radiating shield) without any input from you. And the only time you aren’t using the directionals, is when you get a chest from defeating an enemy or when you level up, and get to choose either a new (again automatic) type weapon or buffing item. But then you are back to using those directional keys.

Once you’ve put some time into the game, and understand how certain things run together, you’ll probably even hit a point where you’re just sitting back watching the beautiful chaos unfold.

3. A Never-ending Story – The Roguelike

So let’s say you picked up Vampire Survivors, and after a lot of trial and error you “beat” the level, and are subsequently killed by The Reaper. Why keep playing?

Good question. With a lot of good answers.

First off, there is no “story” in Vampire Survivors per se. So you won’t get different versions of some inane dialogue. You’re not experiencing a narrative over and over again. You’re just killing waves of enemies until the time runs out.

Continuing to almost do the same thing over and over again, is actually very crucial to a roguelike. It’s not insanity. You’re not crazy.

Playing this game, over and over again, reaps (ha – see what I did there) a lot of rewards. Some smaller than others, but all pretty essential.

Leveling a certain weapon to 9 or higher can unlock further possibilities for more weapons on your next run. Playing and defeating certain maps, of which there are several, will unlock other maps, and other mysteries. You will come across coffins, thinking that you’ve found the elusive “vampire” only to find a new playable character.

I have over 100 hours in this game on Steam, and I still have so much I can do and discover.

4. Weapon Evolutions

Recall when I said earlier that leveling a weapon up past a certain point can unlock possibilities? Well it is one of the aspects of this game of which I fell in love.

Yeah, you can have The Whip, one of the first weapons you have access to, leveled up as far you can. But, combine it with Hollow Heart, a passive item that you can hold, and after The Whip is maxed out you will get a drop or chest that evolves The Whip into Bloody Tear. Bloody Tear does more damage and also has a healing HP (Health Point) effect if you land a critical hit.

Every weapon has an evolution. And there are some weapons that have more than one evolution. Once an evolution has been discovered, the game does tell you when you open a chest that, hey, this item will evolve the X weapon you currently have. You will also eventually have access to the Grim Grimoire, that will have your known weapon formulas laid out.

Although I have most known weapon evolutions unlocked, there are still a few I am hunting down. And again, this is after over 100 hours played in the game. I am sure there are some I’ve not even discovered yet.

5. Recent DLC Release

Vampire Survivors was originally published by poncle, aka Luca Galante, in October 2022 according to the Steam store (early access started back in December 2021), and with over 170k reviews remains to have an Overwhelmingly Positive feedback from users. It was even nominated for Game of the Year in 2022. How crazy is that!?

This past December 2022, the first DLC, Legacy of the Moonspell, was released. This game which already boasted a vast cast of characters, weapons, and maps just grew even more. I have just barely scratched into the DLC and it is even more chaotic and challenging.

Just when I was relaxing into a certain comfortable knowledge, I have a whole slew of new things, eight new characters, and several maps to learn. I am beyond excited!

You think you have this game almost all the way figured, and it just keeps on giving.

In Conclusion

For being an indie-game that just came out in full last year, Vampire Survivors has taken the gaming world by storm. And for only $4.99 (USD) on Steam, the DLC is only $1.99 (USD) it is more than fairly priced. If you have Xbox Game Pass it’s free to play. The mobile version which is on Android and iOS is also free to play. So far, no mention of it coming to Nintendo Switch but it would be so nice if it did!! I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

This game is amazing, addicting, easy to play, and has so much more details to offer that I didn’t go into in this blog post. I just touched the surface.

I would highly, highly, recommend giving Vampire Survivors a try even if you’ve never been into roguelike bullet-hells before. The replay value, of which I guarantee you’ll be doing many times over, is insane. You will definitely be getting more than your money’s worth.

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, I gave Vampire Survivors

Until Next Time,

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