Seeing the announcement of V Rising stirred within me a range of emotions. First excitement at what I believed to be a new Castlevania game, then a bit of disappointment when it wasn’t, then intrigue about what the game actually was, and then a second wave of tentative excitement at the fact the game was getting Castlevania DLC. Honestly, it was an emotional roller coaster.
Truthfully, I have loved the concept of vampires ever since I was young—and maybe a bit too much when I was an insufferable teenager—so I’m always on board to step into the role of the mysterious creatures of the night. However, when the whirlwind of emotions settled and the dust cleared, I was left with a clear image of what V Rising is: squandered potential.
V Rising tells the story of how vampires once ruled the land, but after a massive uprising by mortal men, they were forced into the shadows of their coffins. Now they’re done sleeping and decide it’s time to remind the world why they’re so fearsome. That’s about all the plot this game has, and honestly, it’s a shame.
Stories of vampires are always underscored by the tragedy of eternal life and the curse of god-like power at the price of one’s humanity—punctuated by a never-ending thirst for blood. Even to be cast in the role of a straight-up villain, there are always interesting dynamics to explore and this game just doesn’t which is too bad.
“…my issue with V Rising’s combat is that feels needlessly restrictive.“
But V Rising doesn’t really need a story because that’s not the game it’s trying to be. Based on the initial trailer, I had thought V Rising would be a Diablo-style loot crawler, where players would take the resources they find in dungeons and use them to build their own unique castle. What I was not expecting for V Rising to just straight up be Minecraft.
That’s not even a joke. As soon as you leave the tutorial graveyard, you’re placed in a forest where the majority of gameplay is punching rocks and trees in order to gather materials to build your first base—filling it with the usual crafting tables, refineries and storage chests. Sure, there are enemies and monsters to face off against in the world in order to gain new abilities and crafting recipes, but I was generally flabbergasted by how much rock/tree punching my dark creature of the night had to do.
Now, before I get too far into it, I want to say at least that V Rising is theoretically an interesting game. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with an open-world survival crafting game where the player is also a vampire—CGM’s Brendan Frye definitely enjoyed it far more than I did. Furthermore, V Rising has a few interesting ideas that I wanted to highlight.
For starters, the day-to-night cycle creates a unique tension as players need to stick to the shadows when venturing out in the day, lest they burst into flames. This also adds an interesting layer to the harvesting since cutting down trees for precious lumber will destroy potential shadow spots. And while, despite being given a coffin to sleep in, there doesn’t seem to be any way to expedite the progress of day to night but I believe that’s because V Rising is also meant to be a multiplayer game, so I’ll let it slide.
Furthermore, despite being an open-world survival crafting game, being a vampire means V Rising can eschew the standard hunger, thirst and exhaustion meters in place of a Blood meter. Players can drain the blood from weakened enemies, which not only allows them to heal themselves and allies but also grants different buffs based on the source of the blood. It’s a unique idea that not only incentivizes combat but adds an interesting layer to the game’s vampiric theme.
Also tied to the blood mechanic is “V Blood,” which is special blood drained from boss characters that provides players with unlockable magic abilities and crafting recipes. In fact, almost all the crafting recipes are received from sequential quests that are given to the player, which is a good way of incentivizing gameplay and easing the player into the game’s many mechanics.
Unfortunately, that’s about all V Rising did to interest me. My problem with the game isn’t that it’s bad, because it’s really not. The problem, like with so many games I’ve reviewed recently, is that it’s just kind of boring. My excitement for the game quickly turned to mind-numbing apathy at the monotonous familiarity of its gameplay.
“V Rising’s problem is that it tries to have a little something for everyone, and, in doing so, never really achieves any one thing to great effect.”
To borrow a Rock Paper Shotgun quote from V Rising’s Steam page, “It has a little something for everyone, and that’s its greatest strength,” but I don’t entirely agree. V Rising’s problem is that it tries to have a little something for everyone, and, in doing so, never really achieves any one thing to great effect.
Take, for instance, its crafting. It’s the usual Minecraft shtick of punching rocks and trees for an obscenely long amount of time to gather resources. It immediately creates a bizarre thematic dissonance that a vampire who possesses magic and god-like strength would need to spend hours punching the environment to get resources to build his/her castle from the ground up.
Furthermore, V Rising partakes in something I have truly come to hate in these types of sim games: refineries. Honestly, I am so sick of needing to place materials into a machine and wait precious seconds, if not minutes, to get a different kind of resource to build something necessary for the advancement of my game. Smelting copper takes 30 seconds PER PEICE. No one should have to wait for whole minutes to continue building armour or designing their dream castle.
“But wait,” I hear you say, “You can just explore the world and battle enemies during that time.” Well, this highlights yet another issue with V Rising—its combat isn’t particularly interesting either. It’s not bad, but it feels about as basic as a top-down Diablo-style hack ‘n loot game gets. Players have a basic three-hit combo for every weapon and can use two weapon abilities, two magic abilities and an ultimate to cut down foes.
But my issue with V Rising’s combat is that feels needlessly restrictive. When I said you get two magic abilities, I didn’t mean at the start. Players ONLY get two magic slots, and there are six different kinds of magic players can use, with some of them providing useful defensive magic because apparently blocking is too advanced a concept for our eternal warriors of the night. So, despite the incredible suite of magic you gain access to, you can never really build a character that utilizes it in a meaningful way.
Not only that, the only dodge manoeuvre you get is set on an EIGHT SECOND COOLDOWN, so any potential fluidity the combat could have had, especially if you’re choosing to play as a melee-based character, goes completely out the window. I could understand putting a special dodge ability on a cooldown while giving players a standard dodge, but restricting the only dodge you get makes no sense to me.
And it’s not like the combat is particularly nuanced or engaging. It’s mostly just holding down the attack button as enemies all rush you the moment they see you, resulting in mobs of humans lining up to get cut down by your sexy, undead eternal warriors. So it’s not like participating in the combat while you’re waiting for copper to smelt is an enticing concept.
Castle crafting isn’t terrible, but it’s not exciting enough to really stand out. As I said, you need an incredible amount of resources to build anything resembling Castlevania—the castle, not the game—which means participating in V Rising’s unyielding tedium. I will say it’s at least optimized for controller use and does offer a fairly wide variety of customization that building enthusiasts will find something to enjoy.
However, this, too, is marred by unnecessary tedium. Dotted around the world are several locations to build your castle. Early in the game, you’re given the means to transport your castle from one location to another. However, this doesn’t mean the game will pick up your build and allow you to lay it on a different plot—prompting you to make any changes if size is an issue. Instead, it gives you a box full of the resources that would be at your previous location, and you have to rebuild your castle from scratch. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
So, as you progress through the world and find better locations or even ones that are more conveniently located to a current V Blood target or better resources, you’ll need to reconstruct your castle and spend more of your precious time completing a task you already did. Perhaps this is the game’s way of incentivizing players to experiment and come up with new castle designs, but to me, it’s just tedious.
As I mentioned at the start, V Rising seems like a lot of its design is meant to facilitate online play—where different vampires either compete or cooperate to build their empires. However, since my initial instinct is to always play solo, I didn’t participate much in it. But honestly, even when playing with other people, the base gameplay was still a little too monotonous for me to enjoy fully.
I’ll say it again in case this review sounded too negative. I don’t think V Rising is a bad game. I like its mood and atmosphere and what it’s trying to achieve in theory. Maybe in the right mindframe, with a good podcast, this is the kind of game you could just shut your brain off for and enjoy the zen of the grind. But I have enough games I shut my brain off too, and a game about vampires is definitely one I don’t want to have to for.
