Game Review: Vampire Survivors (Xbox Series X)

Vampire Survivors is a roguelike shoot ’em up video game developed and published by Luca Galante. Originally released for macOS and Windows, ports soon arrived for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in late 2022. In the game, you control an automatically attacking character while fighting against continuous waves of monsters. The goal? Survive the onslaught for as long as possible and unlock additional characters, weapons, and relics for subsequent sessions.

In the game, defeating monsters and exploring the stage allows the player to collect experience gems, which are used to level up. There’s “floor chicken”, which restores the player’s health, and other helpful items. Each level increase provides the player the choice of three or four weapons and passive power-ups. Once the player has collected six weapons and six power-ups, upgraded them all fully, any further levels they gain offer only gold coins or floor chicken. Another way to upgrade weapons and power-ups is to open chests, which are dropped by powerful monsters and may contain one, three, or five random items. Most weapons have an ultimate form that can be attained by opening a chest after fully upgrading them and meeting other specific conditions.

Sessions of Vampire Survivors have a limit of 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the stage chosen. At the time limit, the stage is cleared of all enemies and a final, tremendously strong enemy named Death will spawn. In between sessions, accumulated gold coins can be spent to unlock new characters and persistent power-ups. Additionally, by completing challenges, the player can also unlock new stages, weapons, and characters.

If you could only take one video game with you onto a desert island (assuming it works), what would it be? I now know my answer is, Vampire Survivors. This game should come with a warning before anyone decides to play it, a warning about addiction. Make sure you have all the chores done because if you don’t, say goodbye to any hopes you had of getting anything done if you dare fire this up. Hours & hours will pass by in the blink of an eye due to how much of an absolute blast it is to play.

It’s worth knowing beforehand, the early hours of this game can be brutal and unforgiving. That’s right, it’s a bit of a grind at first. You’ll struggle and die, then struggle and die again some more. However, while this is happening you’ll start to notice how you managed to make it a minute longer than you did in the last run. You’ll start to feel more powerful and figure out the types of character builds that work best for you. It’s an immensely satisfying experience that feels genuinely rewarding to you for putting in the work. Eventually, the game will make you feel like an absolute God. The flood of enemies that you once had to contend with shall come to realise that it’s them who should be afraid.

Witnessing all of the carnage on display is an exhilarating, satisfying experience. The amount of enemy sprites that this game manages to display on screen is nothing short of astounding. I didn’t experience a single bug or glitch throughout my time and considering everything, that’s some achievement. It’s so much fun to play around with all of the different characters and their builds. I certainly had my favourites but it’s worth trying out as many of the weapon combinations as possible just to see them in action.

Overall, before I installed Vampire Survivors I read some reviews for the game. There were a large number stating similar things to what I have said above and I didn’t think for a second it could be true but I was wrong. Believe the hype and play this game, you won’t regret it. Even after doing everything there was, I wanted more. I literally cannot fault it in terms of its genre and all things considered, you know what that means…..