Vampire Survivors: A Thrilling Adrenaline Ride Through Endless Undead – Weekly Indie Spotlight

Developed by Poncle Games and taking obvious inspiration from Castlevania, Vampire Survivors is based on a very simple concept. You pick from a wide selection of characters, each of whom has a unique weapon, and you’re dropped in a stage with the tried-and-true arcade goal of surviving for as long as you can. Your weapon fires automatically, so you only have to worry about movement. However, every weapon behaves differently, and you can obtain multiple weapons and other upgrades as you level up. Yes, this action survival game also has RPG elements.

However, unlike in traditional RPGs, you don’t get experience automatically when defeating enemies. Instead, enemies drop coins that you have to collect in order to gain XP. This may not seem like a dramatic feature, but it adds an element of strategy to the game. When you’re being pursued by hundreds of enemies, do you take the risk to pick up the coins? You need the coins for upgrades, but diving into a horde of enemies to get them could mean death. Do you risk death by picking up the coins and getting the XP right away, or do you wait and circle back to grab the coins when you’ve lured the enemies away and risk dying in the meantime?

Tons of Unlockables!

The more you play, the better you get, and the more surprises you unlock. You can unlock new stages, characters, weapons, and power-ups, and all the unlockables have widely varied requirements. As a result, you’ll keep playing over and over, trying out different weapons and characters in hopes of a new unlockable. It makes for many hours of replayability. The longer you survive, the harder the game gets, so even when you’re mega powered up, you can still get overtaken by the undead – but then you’ll just want to try again.

Conclusion

Vampire Survivors is a mega hit for a reason. It’s addictive and adrenaline-pumping like few other games are. It’s always a matter of when you’ll die, not if, which makes the game feel like a good old arcade game where the end goal was to see how long you could survive on one quarter. Any fan of horror games or fast-paced arcade games should definitely play this. Vampire Survivors can be purchased on Steam for $4.99.