Do we need to call in Van Helsing?

Awaken as a weakened vampire after centuries of slumber. Hunt for blood to regain your strength while hiding from the scorching sun to survive. Rebuild your castle and convert humans into your loyal servants in a quest to raise your vampire empire. Make allies or enemies online or play solo offline, fend off holy soldiers, and wage war in a world of conflict. Will you become the next Dracula?

V Rising looks like if Diablo and Dracula had a baby, but there’s more to it than that. While being an action RPG, it’s also a survival game as you need to feed and hide from the sun. There’s also crafting and optional online play as you build your empire, which makes the game an interesting study. It’s been on Early Access for PC for a bit, but now it’s released fully on consoles…

At least half the time I review a game that launched on PC first, I come across many issues like poor optimisation of either the engine or controls, but I can happily say that I was impressed with what the team have delivered here. The controls are easy to get to grips with and you can tell real effort has been put in to make it feel just as good with a controller than a mouse-keyboard setup.

It’s a bit of a slow burner to begin with and it can be a bit bumpy at the start, but it soon becomes apparent that this is something quite special. Add that there’s a Castlevania DLC that include items and cosmetics from the series to craft, as well as music tracks. It’s optional, but its nice to see the crossover. Now, if only Konami would actually make a new Castlevania…

The visuals are decent and the game runs at a solid framerate. The soundtrack is impressive and I didn’t encounter any bugs during my playthrough. So, all in all I have no bad notes to make here.

The Verdict

V Rising may not be for everyone, but for those who love survival-crafting games, Diablo or even Dracula then you’ll find it hard to put this one down.

Score: 8.5

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co