This new vampire game is taking over Steam

Count Goofmanicus in his natural habitat: somebodies forgotten cupboards

(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

V Rising wasted no time gazing at its own lack of a reflection in the mirror, instead crushing a million sales in its first week of early access.

The dev team over at Stunlock Studios, previously responsible for the criminally underappreciated Battlerite, have been watching V Rising rapidly claw into Steam's concurrent players list. In its first week V Rising has climbed into the top 10 above titans like GTA 5, Elden Ring, and even survival-staple Rust, which V Rising takes a few design cues from.

V Rising goes to the deep well of base building and open PVP that Rust thrives on, but crosses it over with the ability to just chill with friends and hunt down bosses for cool new powers in PVE like viking-sim Valheim. Plus, you can decorate your gothic castle with all kinds of fancy carpets and spooky wrought iron fences. And make an entirely goofy looking vampire who seems more like a rejected Disney villain than an centuries old apex predator of the night.

1,000,000 Vampires have risen from their slumber! Thank you all for being part of this achievement! pic.twitter.com/p96f0E0pbVMay 24, 2022

V Rising brings a lot to the table for an early access game, so Stunlock's success isn't a huge surprise. The size of V Rising's map is expansive, it brings five full sets of abilities are already in, and there's plenty of castle stuff to build, even if I can never have enough V Rising leather. V Rising's monster mash has just the right blood type for future success, with additional content and options just lengthening the vampire buffet table.

You may like

More than any individual content though, V Rising is smooth and fun to control. The brief cooldowns on abilities mean I'm constantly trying to find the right pattern to use them in for each enemy and situation. The smooth gameplay also has me excited to unlock each new ability, so I can become an entirely new type of bumbling vampire. Shooting frost arrows, blinking around the battlefield, and turning into a bat haven't gotten old for me.

The fact that my character is basically a sun-seeking vampire missile, is a problem I'll have to solve on my own.

Dying to learn more about the undying of V Rising? Stuck on Whetstones? Get some help here.

Sarah (She/Her) is a contributor and former Senior Writer for TechRadar Gaming. With six years of experience writing freelance for publications like PC Gamer, she's covered every genre imaginable and probably a few she made up. She has a passion for diversity and the way different genres can be sandboxes for creativity and emergent storytelling, and loves worldbuilding. With thousands of hours in League of Legends, Overwatch, Minecraft, and countless survival, strategy, roguelike, and RPG entries, she still finds time for offline hobbies like tabletop RPGs, wargaming, miniatures painting, and hockey.