Middling art sits atop a generic description that does its very best tonotsell the game.
“Hunt for blood in nearby settlements… conquer the land of the living.”
Screenshots show what could be any other isometric RPG likePath Of Exileor something anything.
So, you dive in expecting an average time.
V Rising is the opposite of average; it should be renamed V-ERY GOOD Rising.
Forget the art, the description, the screenshots.
Just give it a shot.
So, Ollie was already very much on board, but the rest of us were outliers.
Was the game really all that good?
Think of it as a vampiricValheimin many ways, just with a top-down perspective and added MMO goodness.
The open world is your exposed vein.
The game directs you carefully with only the simplest of steps: “Make some bone gloves”.
Hover over the quest and it’ll tell you what ingredients you need.
“20 bones”.
The skeletons nearby supply the goods, and act as punching bags for combat practice.
You move with WASD and your mouse is used to aim or twirl the camera around.
Like one where you charge an energy orb and fling it for big damage.
Another lets you counter an attack with a full-on explosion.
Gathering resources early on is easy, too.
Just hit stuff and it’ll drop straight into your inventory in fairly large quantities.
The game understands what makes survival games tick by eliminating chores from chores.
What ensues is an exciting bounce between quests that gradually ramp up the complexity.
Then, before you know it, you’re snapping together walls and setting foundations for a new home.
Turns out vampires don’t claim their territory by pissing on trees.
They craft blood altars and sawmills instead.
More and more, the quests ramp up!
Planks are a gateway to research tables.
At research tables you’re able to spend paper on new technology.
New technology means… well, you get the idea.
There’s never enough time in an evening for V Rising, basically.
You’re a vampire, after all, and this game sure as heck wants you to enjoy it.
They were neat encounters that encouraged use of the noggin over crazed button mashing.
And for our efforts we got some new powers!
Without a doubt, these fights get much harder later on.
It’s perhaps the smaller details, though, that make V Rising so exciting.
Or wait until the safety of darkness?
And trust me, when night arrives you’ll breathe a deep sigh of relief.
Let’s not forget that jot down A rum to fill your tum, though.
If you’ve knocked an enemy to low health you’re free to choose to suck them dry.
Some bosses will stroll along paths too, and just, like, go about their day.
If they encounter one another, they’ll immediately swing fists and have at it.
And it’s a world that’s wonderfully realised too, even in closed beta form.
As for destroying other players and their housing?
Just the thought of MOBA-style PVP battles or raids gets the blood pumping.
V Rising really impressed, turning the RPS Treehouse from skeptics to obsessed in next to no time.
