Stunlock Studios have created an addictive experience in their new title, V Rising. The developers have done an amazing job creating this beautifully dark and haunting top-down survival game where you need to avoid the light at all costs, all while rebuilding your vampiric empire.

Stace had a chance to play this one in Early Access, which you can read here, and I initially read her review to get a bit of an idea to try and see how the release version compared. To be honest, it made this review a little harder to write out – her experience almost perfectly matches what I encountered, and I agree with everything she has written, so this will be less of a review, and more of a “this is what stood out to me.”

The controls have been mapped out in a way that makes sense, but they are also one of those things that you need to get used to while playing the game. You utilize the mouse a lot with basic attacks and camera panning, but you also have more technical controls to make use of. As Stace mentioned, these are all simple to learn and easy to master, but you need to stretch your fingers out a little, as it did feel a little spread out for me.

The easiest way to describe the graphics and gameplay is by suggesting you imagine something along the lines of the Diablo franchise, or perhaps some of the early 2000s Baldur’s Gate games, as the graphics and playstyle are both very reminiscent of this. They have taken it a little further though, with the addition of some resource management and a survival element as you rebuild your empire.

In saying that, the combat does feel quite fluid, chaining attacks and the various skills you master as you level up and defeat bosses, but as Stace mentions, you can get bogged down when you’re trying to progress past a boss that is a little tougher than your level requires, so you’ll be honing your skills against mobs and collecting more resources in an attempt to gain those few extra levels.

The day and night cycles add some extra immersion to the game, and as Stace mentions, should you be caught in the sunlight, your custom-created vampire will burst into flames, so the best thing you can do is stick to the shadows as you hunt your prey through some beautifully crafted forests, mountain ranges, and towns, all while listening to some stunning ambient music, the calls of wild animals, or the terrified cries of villagers.

I have to agree with Stace when it comes to the online side of things. It’s very much a case of “hope for the best” if you join a full server, and you’d be fairly lucky to come across another player should you join a lower-population one.

It’s either struggle in a high-level area, because all of the “good” places are taken, or join a world where you have so many resources you don’t know what to do with them all, because you won’t run into any competition.

I really enjoyed my time with V Rising by Stunlock Studios, and I feel like it deserves a better score than what was given in the Early Access review. The gameplay is fun, the combat is exciting, and it looks and sounds fantastic. It’s a great blend of the dungeon crawler and survival genres, feeling familiar enough to players, but offering enough to really set it apart.

Written by: Hayden Nelson