V Rising

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Vampires had their time in the sun awhile back when Twilight was big, but by and large they’ve retreated to their coffins in favor of a constant stream of superheroes. Guess it turns out that sparkling during the day wasn’t enough to keep our bloodsucking friends awake. V Rising, the latest survival action game from Battlerite creator Stunlock Studios, wants to raise the dead once again by giving players a chance to become the most vamp-tastic vampire around.

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As a vampire newly risen from the grave, your job is to consume blood, construct a mighty castle and eventually claim the mantle of Dracula. This means hunting hapless prey, consuming the finest plasma in order to become a more powerful creature of the night and, of course, the old survival game staple of tree-punching. You’ll start with nothing but your claws and some minor blood magic, but by taking your teeth to your foes and your fists to the trees, you can craft improved gear and gain more powerful vampiric abilities to dominate the land.

V Rising owes a lot to classic survival games like Ark: Survival Evolved, albeit with a little more focus on action much like a battle royale game and a little less focus on nag meters that you need to refill with food and water. You’ve got a blood meter, but that tends to be more of a concern as a resource for magic and healing than as a constant drain. Your uptime is spent hunting baddies, especially baddies carrying power-enhancing V Blood that can give you new abilities.

There’s also downtime, such as when you’re working on a castle, and you’ll probably want to avoid going out during the day because the sun’s just plain mean to a vampire. When it comes time to fight, it’s good to have some friends, and you’ll find that many PVP servers are dominated by groups of players – solo vampires might have a little more trouble than they would in the average game. Find or grab some friends on Discord if you want to get the most out of V Rising.

With various PVP options, including disabling it entirely, V Rising has a little to offer every aspiring Count out there. Resource grinding and construction might be a little bit of a drag if you only came for the combat, but that combat is plenty of fun with various options and magic abilities available. If any of that sounds interesting – and it should! – you might as well go “Bleh!” and stake your claim now. After all, you already died once, right?

About the Author: Cory Galliher