Vampire Survivors Review: A Bullet Hell in Reverse (PC)

Vampire Survivors is a game developed by poncle that is notable for inspiring many similar games over the past couple years. The game revolves around fighting off thousands of enemies using combinations of automatically-performed attacks, leveling up from pickups they drop to enhance your weapons and abilities. It’s notable for having very simple gameplay where much of the combat is done by the game itself with little player input.

Over the past couple years, there has been an increase in games of a similar genre to Vampire Survivors. Focusing on fighting large hordes of enemies and picking up exp to upgrade attacks that are usually done automatically. The specifics of each game are different, of course, but they share many similarities to each other. This game could be considered the first of these to really popularize the genre, so it’s interesting to look into it to see how it influenced them.

Vampire Survivors is currently available on Steam for $4.99 at base price, as well as on the Nintendo Switch eShop.

Story – Swarms of Monsters Wherever You Go

There isn’t much story to speak of in Vampire Survivors, with the only real given narrative being a short blurb that the characters are trying to stop an evil vampire. Said vampire never actually appears in-game, nor does any other vampire for that matter. There is a little more information given in the Bestiary, but that’s about it. The game is mostly just fighting massive armies of enemies with little explanation.

Gameplay – Thousands Against One

The gameplay of Vampire Survivors revolves around fending off against massive hordes of enemies while trying to survive for an allotted amount of time. After the time limit has passed (different based on each stage) the run automatically ends. Your only interaction with what goes on during gameplay is moving your character around the level. All attacks are done automatically. Enemies leave behind exp pickups that can be collected to raise your level, whereupon you can choose to gain a weapon or passive item, or to upgrade one you already have. Weapons activate automatically, with up to six at a time working simultaneously. Passive items provide boosts to stats like area of effect and movement speed.

In a way, choosing items when leveling provides most of the strategy and interactivity in Vampire Survivors. What build you have can have a major effect on how you do in a run. With a good enough set of fully evolved weapons, Vampire Survivors can practically become an idle game.

At the start, there doesn’t seem to be much content. Just a handful of characters, levels, and items. Over time, however, the games to be one of the most content-rich of its genre. There’s plenty to unlock and discover.

Things may start out simple in this game, but there’s huge amounts of hidden content.

Characters

While there are only four characters initially shown to be available, Vampire Survivors actually has dozens of different playable characters. Some are unlockable through achievements, finding them hidden in the levels, or through accessing secrets. These characters each have a different starting weapon and a different passive trait. Passive traits tend to be along the lines of leveling up a particular stat over time or gaining more projectiles with a certain weapon. The characters overall don’t feel that different from each other. After fully upgrading your items, their differences are largely inconsequential. They also have very few animations, mostly just walking sprites.

Weapons

There are many different weapons in Vampire Survivors, each behaving in a different manner. Most of them are projectiles that go out either randomly or in a set direction, but some are based on the direction you’re currently moving in. Upgrading these weapons can give them more projectiles, faster cooldowns, more damage, and more. Most weapons can be evolved with a chest if they’re fully leveled and you also have a particular passive item as well. Evolved weapons become much more powerful and have unique properties.

Most weapons can be evolved into more powerful forms when fully leveled.

Enemies

Vampire Survivors has many types of enemies, though they almost all behave about the same. Most of them don’t have projectiles or attacks besides simply damaging on contact. They rely on sheer numbers to be a threat and attack you in massive mobs. A few use projectiles, but there are usually not many of those at a time. You can easily fight tens of thousands of enemies within a single run. The main draw of the game is more the sheer amount of enemies rather than what the enemies themselves are like. Over the course of a run, enemies gain more health and damage.

There are also bosses, unique enemies that have far more health, but otherwise behave the same. These drop chests which can evolve fully-leveled weapons.

Weapons are possibly the most important aspect of Vampire Survivors. You typically have a maximum of six at once, and the right combination can produce a never-ending wave of attacks filling the screen.

The swarms of enemies can get quite overwhelming in just a little time.

Locations

While there are five regular stages in the game, there are a high number of additional stages unlockable through various means. Most levels are pretty sparse, just having a few collectable passive items lying around. Most stages have a coffin that you can find to unlock a secret character. Some levels have different gimmicks, such as one where the enemies are all stationary or a level that’s just fighting boss enemies in a small confined space. The levels introduced in the DLC are more elaborate and don’t loop like the base game levels, having specific locations with specific enemies and items. One stage that you unlock eventually functions as a “final boss” stage. It’s the closest the game currently has to an ending.

Some levels, especially in the DLC, are significantly more elaborate than others.

Graphics And Audio – Mostly Drowned Out

Vampire Survivors has a pixelated artstyle that is fairly unremarkable. Some of the sprites clash with each other somewhat and the characters have very little animation. The flashy particle effects from the weapons can be fun to watch, and they tend to cover up most of the other graphics anyway. 

The game’s soundtrack has some catchy songs, with stages having one by default but allowing you to select a different one before beginning a run. These songs are usually pretty decent, but they tend to be drowned out by all the sound effects going on from the attacks. They’re also not very long generally, so they’ll loop many times within a 20 to 30 minute run.

Vampire Survivors was reviewed on PC.