A sneak peek at V Rising — Valheim, but with vampires?
V rising review: V Rising has recently been released for Windows PCs via early access on Steam, and despite the fact that it will continue to be in early access for another year, we found that it already possesses an impressively large number of features.
Our senior staff member Brandon Orselli and one of our more recent hires, Manny, participated in an in-depth gameplay demonstration of the game.
Brandon’s internal monologue
As soon as I watched the first trailer for V Rising, I became quite enthusiastic about the possibility of playing a real-deal vampire role-playing game in which you can not only level up but also build up your base, take over the planet, and perhaps acquire a few brides of the undead.
You know, what a proper vampire role-playing game ought to center its attention on — not what body type you have or who you identify as.
I had the same worries as Manny, in that I didn’t like the thought of being compelled to not only play online, but also play on a server for the game to be completed. Those were my issues.
Because I’m getting older, I normally only play games with other people when they’re friends of mine – I don’t enjoy it when people drop in on me without my permission.
I’m also hesitant to get invested in survival games since I don’t like games that drag out the gameplay and force you to wait around for something to happen.
What a great surprise it was for me to find out that V Rising is now one of the games that I am most looking forward to playing in 2023, when it will be fully released, and also one of the games that I am most looking forward to playing overall, regardless of the genre.
Let’s get started with the game that kept me occupied well into the early morning hours for the first time in a very long time, and it wasn’t even because I was racing against the clock to complete something.
V Rising started off just as mysteriously as its trailers made it seem like it would – with the promise of a massive globe in which you, as a recently reawakened vampire, find yourself stumbling around and trying to live.
I had no trouble getting the hang of movement and battle straight away, but it wasn’t until I died for the first time—to an adversary, not the sun—that I started to get into the game properly.
The idea that a person will perish after being exposed to sunlight for an extended period of time will immediately put off a great number of readers, and it will also reduce the amount of blood available to satisfy your vampire’s need.
I’m here to tell you that V Rising has a gameplay loop that is so insanely compelling that it actually makes the survival mechanics exciting to play and integrates them into the game’s basic principles.
In normal survival games, your only options are to consume food or water, which is quite dull. However, in V Rising, you play the role of a vampire, and your objective is to consume living creatures.
You have the ability to replenish your blood supply at any time, regardless of whether or not you are fighting an enemy that has blood (there are other foes besides mammals). As a result, you will never have the impression that providing food for your vampire lord is a nuisance.
The sun is a significant mechanistic component, but for some time during our preview of NicheCast, we comically failed to discuss it. The day and night cycle is there in V Rising, and as the day progresses, so does the sun; it physically moves, and the shadows cast in real time move along with it.
You are a busy vampire, and you have things to do and people to eat, so just because the sun is up does not mean that you have to stop working hard.
Even during the day, Manny and I were continually adventuring new territory, engaging in battle, and improving our abilities as vampire kings. As a vampire, having sunlight actually kill you is a totally new handicap, but the fact that it made surviving more fun does not negate the fact that it is a handicap.
You won’t have the sensation that you are simply satiating your hunger and quenching your thirst while simultaneously falling asleep and waiting for your makers to ding when they are finished.
You will never have the impression that grinding for resources is a bother while playing V Rising because the game satisfies that base-building itch so nicely.
In most cases, gathering the necessary finances to acquire the next piece of equipment or to begin construction on the next phase of our vampiric castle was not a laborious or time-consuming process.
It was simple and enjoyable to accumulate hundreds of a resource before processing it further or turning it into something else; this process.
The environment of V Rising has been painstakingly hand-crafted, and it is teeming with non-playable characters (NPCs) who you can run into and fight, as well as creatures to face and places for you to construct the vampire castle of your dreams.
V Rising’s world map blows my mind because of how detailed and well-thought-out it is, especially in comparison to the other roguelikes and roguelites out there.
To sum it all up, I just want to say that V Rising is one of the games that I am most looking forward to playing in 2023. When one considers that V Rising was made available through early access, it is rather remarkable how well constructed the game already is.
The developer, Stunlock Studios, deserves praise for creating V Rising, a survival action RPG that is both extremely audacious and extremely promising.
After we got started and made rapid progress, I had a few friends who were disappointed that they did not join Manny and me in V Rising so that we could play the game together.
Even if it’s not a high-end AAA title with a massive budget, you shouldn’t ignore V Rising like a lazy vampire. My mind keeps going back to the vampiric action role-playing game (RPG) V Rising, which looks like it has a lot of potential.
Manny’s internal monologue
My mindset was one of openness but also healthy skepticism going into V-Rising. On the one hand, my passion for survival games isn’t what it used to be, and I’d just finished playing a game with a vampire theme a few days ago.
On the other hand, V-Rising stood out as an original and intriguing option due to the combination of its isometric perspective and vampire-centered plot.
I really did not want to get trapped into another survival game where I would have to spend days gathering resources and building a base, just to have some jerk log in at two in the morning and demolish it all while I slept. I really did not want to get sucked into another survival game.
The “Blood Heart” concept that V-Rising employs is intended to mitigate these drawbacks. According to this system, your base is shielded from attack by adversarial players for as long as it maintains a supply of blood flowing through it.
As a result, the majority of raids are not worth the risk, reward, or amount of time they require.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into the meat of the matter. V-Rising borrows elements from both Conan Exiles and Valheim to create its own unique gameplay experience.
You are a recently resurrected vampire who is embarking on a mission to reclaim your dominion.
To accomplish this, you will need to construct a new castle, subjugate the local populace into your service, and vanquish the several bosses that are spread throughout a reasonably big territory.
When you defeat a new boss, you will gain access to new vampiric skills, which are derived from the blood of the monster, as well as new buildings and craftables that will assist you in expanding your castle.
You also have the ability to seduce humans and convert them to the dark side, so turning them into your vampire slaves. These slaves can be directed from your throne or sent out into the wild to assist you in gathering and hunting for resources, relieving you of some of the burdensome job.
Although the preview servers weren’t precisely filled enough to evaluate the player against player (PVP) aspect of the game, the fighting mechanisms were surprisingly interesting as well.
They were deep enough for some minor variety, but shallow enough for balance. The bosses each have their own distinct flavor and set of abilities, which makes it exciting to take them on in combat.
The world design, graphics, and voice acting all contribute to the game’s endearing persona, which I like and loved very much.
The fact that I was able to clock up 16 hours of gameplay in just one day while playing V-Rising throughout the course of the weekend left me quite thrilled with what I saw.
And a total of 22.5 hours, and I can’t wait to get my teeth into further content and discover what the future of V-Rising has in store for me.
