V Rising (Early Access) Review
Release Date: May 17th, 2022
Developer: Stunlock Studios
Platforms: PC
Price: $19.99
There is something inherently fascinating about vampires that have cause them - or the concept of them, anyways - to stand the test of time for a millennia through stories told in books that span countless eras and into the modern day. From the gothic aesthetic of vampiric habitats, concepts of immortality, blood-infused diets, and signature fangs, vampires have always had an allure alongside their werewolf enemies that make them a popular subject for stories and characterizations to this day. Some of the most famous and popular contemporary stories, heroes, and more all stem from vampire-themed epics, and this isn't just a trend but a cultural mainstay that will continue to garner a following for centuries to come. They can be good, they can be bad, they can be half-breeds, but most importantly is that they're compelling in so many ways thanks to frequent themes of what it means to be human or pure hearted when your nature tells you otherwise. V Rising adds itself to the list of ever-expanding lore and content within the vampire genre, and does so with an influenced yet identifiable panache that helps it give it a life of its own, all while remaining incredibly engaging, visually appealing, and most importantly fun to play.
It's hard to believe that at the time of this writing with the amount of impact V Rising has had in its short time since release and the content included that V Rising is considered an Early Access title (from a small studio no less) when it's already surpassed similar games within the genre that have had years to ferment, especially those that are more tailored to a live-service approach. V Rising immediately has this fantastic presentation that it shows off every chance it gets, and it makes sure that those first impressions wow you right out of the gate… or coffin. With a vareity of modes, you can choose how you'd like to play - either solo, PVP, or PVE, and create servers that can include your friends, or make it entirely open for a true survival experience where others can invade and steal materials. Regardless of your method of play, V Rising makes sure that it's accessible to anyone and everyone who wants to jump into a refreshing open-world survival experience where they'll grow, empower, build, and overtake the land around them as they begin to learn and evolve their newfound vampire abilities and lifestyle. The entire experience is tailor-made from the start, with a character creation screen that gives a healthy amount of options to make the vampire of your liking that embodies the nature and look you're going for. There are masculine and feminine options, alongside many hairstyles tailored for each, a multitude of colors to choose from for your eyes, hair, and skin, quite a few face presets, as well a few options for accessories. While it may not be as elaborate as ones from other games, it's hearty enough that you can be mostly satisfied with your vampire once you start your game, and you won't be able to see them much anyways given the game's mostly top-down camera, though you can zoom in and out whenever you please with a few restrictions.
V Rising doesn’t necessarily give you a story to follow other than what's given in its opening cinematic about wars, being resurrected, and trying to rebuild an empire again from scratch, so there's not much to go off of until the tutorial and quests you follow start to subtly come into their own and get you comfortable with how the world works. After building a bit of my castle, which you'll have to do shortly into it to understand crafting mechanics and how all the different workstations and mechanisms function and can be utilized in the most optimal way, I started to focus more on the hunt, where a Blood Altar can list out all currently available characters to hunt that come in a variety of difficult levels and all provide a skill that can be learned after they're slain. These skills can be mixed and matched in any way you please when placed on the appropriate available keybindings, which can make for an even more interesting setup as a vampire that has its own identity for each player. These skills can come from a wide range of sources that include buffs, passives, projectiles, vicious close-combat moves, and more that all have a variety of effects that can span individual or multiple enemies depending on the range and description for each. It's actually extremely fun to me to prepare for a hunt at your castle by making sure you have the necessary resources before going off, since tracking doesn't necessarily tell you exactly where a target is directly on the map and instead is left to a scent of blood that intermittently appears on the screen for you to follow. Some targets could be close by your location, while others could be quite a trek away, but your preparation is integral to your survival as you'll no doubt face many enemies on the way there before reaching your target, which more often than not will give you quite a bit of trouble and refuse to go down easily.
While Blood Altars can provide a large amount of activities to take care of, the multitude of workstations and benches you can apply to your castle will give plenty to take care of before heading out again to grow, invade, and reclaim. These workbenches will come in a vareity of styles and tiers, however, so at the start of the game you'll be crafting a lot of the more basic items before you gather the resources to be able to move up to bigger and better recipes for not only yourself but for your castle via decorations and other useful perks as well. Each castle can NOT have a foundation, however, without a heart, and these castle hearts are limited. Because you can have multiple, however, this means that, yes, you can have more than one castle out in the open world of V Rising, but each castle will have its own set of resources as chests don't carry over materials, for example, so it's best to have castles set in specific locations you frequently find yourself in that are also far enough apart to make the resources worth it while building, and even then a lot of these won't function without the castle hearts having a blood essence to power it. Once that's taken care, of a border can be placed around the castle heart which will effectively function as your layout for the castle which can be shaped any which way so long as it's within boundaries and connected to the castle heart. No good castle is set without your coffin, though, which you'll use to sleep, regain health, and have the day/night cycle pass by. This will also be your location for respawning if you die, so it's always good to have a point to go back to, but you'll lose any resources and items you had on you at the time of death, though thankfully this can be reclaimed by visiting the area you last perished. The structure of V Rising and how you would expect a game like this to work simply makes sense, and it's because of this that V Rising makes the entire experience comfortable and focusing on innovating and polishing the areas that matter without having to reinvent the wheel at the risk of losing cohesion.
Any good game with crafting elements wouldn't be complete without a large set of recipes, though, and V Rising has plenty throughout a multitude of tiers and unlockables that can be found as you play through the game through various pages you'll find and the foes you face. Your castle will start out looking flimsy, dilapidated, and unkept at first, but eventually you can get to a point where you can build the castle of your dreams and one so fantastic it would make even Dracula jealous. This on top of the vareity of armor sets and builds you can create make V Rising a borderline addictive experience for those that like to be creative and craft in games, and since this is - or can be - a huge focus for V Rising to give that sense of a "second coming of vampires", those looking for something that's akin to a pure dungeon-crawling or RPG experience might not be entirely invested, though I have no doubt they'll still have a great time with V Rising.
V Rising is a big, big game, so it's a surprise that even in its Early Access state it's accomplished what it has in such a short time and right out of the window because it could easily be considered complete in my eyes. In a genre that feels almost over saturated in recent years, V Rising comes out biting with a refreshing take on survival open-world games that makes the vampires feel important - and most importantly utilized properly - in a way that feels genuine without exploiting the concept of them as just a glorified skin or selling point. It's intuitive nature makes it so there's not much of a learning curve in order to pick it up, but even for those unfamiliar with the genre and these types of games will be able to have a lot to enjoy here as the quick and seamless tutorial at the beginning of the game after your character creation. The depth is really where V Rising counts, however, and even though its sandbox is but a humble open world, it's flourished with unique areas, standout enemies, challenging bosses, and with a plethora of resources that can be crafted into what feels like myriad items that simply make sense and are unlocked through a multitude of recipes that increase in depth and complexity as you grow alongside it. Even as someone who's been playing mostly single player, it's not a game like others that can *only* be fun with others, because V Rising does well to accommodate for any number of people, so RPG and dungeon-crawling fans in general have yet another fantastic game to dive into that will no doubt continue to grow for years to come. V Rising has already begun to feel like the true definitive vampire experience.
PROS:
A great art direction that's flashy and equal parts ominous and dark in all the areas where it counts.
Controls are responsive and intuitive, making for a comfortable experience to those that are used to MMOs or multiple keybindings especially
Generating new abilities, hunting, and building in a luscious open world filled with tons to explore is such an addictive draw to V Rising
CONS:
Controller support isn't immediately available, even though the game seems flexible enough to support it.
The sun is understandably unapologetic, but it can restrict movement and get in the way of accomplishing stuff for a good portion of the game.
A big thank you to Plan of Attack and Stunlock Studios for providing us a copy of V Rising in Early Access for the purposes of this review!