Vampire survival game V Rising is taking over players' lives thanks to its well-established crafting and combat systems. In the game, players create and control their very own vampires as they plunder the surrounding environments and settlements. The aim of V Rising is for players to create a name for themselves by first establishing a base of operations (in this case, it means building a castle), enslaving or terrorizing the local citizens, and defeating many enemies and bosses.
Currently, there are 37 total bosses in V Rising's early access build. These bosses range from a large Alpha Wolf to specialized vampire hunters. The wide variety of enemies found in V Rising gives combat aficionados multiple chances to flex their knowledge of the game's robust combat system. Those who prefer base building over combat can do so, but to access the more complex crafting and building recipes, players have to be ready to fight for them.
Battle Basics For Combat And Resource Collection
As players go through V Rising's tutorial, they begin to understand the basics. Attacking trees with dual axes breaks them down faster, while hammering stone and ore deposits with a mace yield their resources quicker. Players can combo their specific weapons' skills with normal attacks to make resource collection even faster. There are no pickaxes or special mining tools in V Rising, so the act of breaking down resources teaches players the basics of combat.
With their wood and stone in hand, players can begin setting up their castle. As with all crafting/ survival games, V Rising's starting bastions tend to look more like wood huts than actual, livable abodes. But as long as players have a place for their coffin (which serves as a respawn point), storage containers for their items, and the basic crafting structures, then they can call any area home.
Blood For The Blood God
One of the most important structures players will need in their castles is a Blood Altar. With it, they can track V Blood Carriers - V Rising's special bosses. Interacting with a Blood Altar creates a scent of blood that points players in the general direction of their marked V Blood Carrier. The tracking system can be a bit unintuitive since players are forced to run in a straight line with a vague heading, but it does make them feel as though they are vampires stalking their prey.
Once a V Blood Carrier has been found, players have to defeat them by using all the tricks in their arsenal. This includes using their equipped weapon skills, spells, ultimate abilities, and maybe even a healing potion or two. Since many of V Rising's bosses can summon additional enemies, it is in the players' best interests that they coordinate their attacks with their teammates (or focus all their efforts on taking down the boss if they are playing solo). Defeating a boss allows players to suck their blood, which rewards them with a new power, recipe, or buildable structure.
Combat Leads To Progression Which Leads To More Combat
Powers can be accessed by players immediately, but recipes and structures are best inspected back at the castle. Here, they can use their accumulated resources to create new items and gear that can make them more accomplished vampires. V Rising works on a gear level system, meaning that players have to forge better weapons, armor, and equipment to take on the game's tougher areas and challenges. There are other ways to get new recipes. Items such as paper and scrolls, which can be found in settlements and enemy encampments, allow players to research a random recipe when taken to specific buildable structures like a Research Desk or Study. Players can use these items and structures to research better gear and equipment, but collecting the resources requires them to go out of their comfort zone and pillage nearby settlements and encampments.
V Rising is different from other survival games thanks to its vampire aesthetic, but the game also goes out of its way to funnel players into vampiring. Crafting and building a castle experience, but to become a successful vampire, players have to take part in combat.
V Rising is available in Early Access on PC.