REVIEW / V Rising (Steam Deck)

Vampires have captured the imaginations of most people since Nosferatu first graced the silver screen way back in the early nineteen hundreds. Since then, there have been many other movies about vampires as well as novels and even other video games that have managed to capture the horror that this imaginary creature brings up in the psyches of fans the world over. In an attempt to capitalize on the vampire phenomenon, publisher/developer Stunlock Studios have crafted an experience that puts the player in the shoes of a vampire that has risen from a hundred years slumber and attempts to regain the power and renown that they once possessed. V Rising meshes the best of the survival, action and RPG genres to craft the ultimate vampire adventure.

In V Rising, you take on the role of a vampire that has awakened in the world of Vardoren after hundreds of years of slumber. This long slumber has only managed to weaken you and has made you extremely thirsty for blood. Your goal at this point is to hunt, either solo or with a clan of allies online, and explore a vast open world of dark horrors while tryin to stay alive by avoiding the deadly sunlight. As vampire lords are wont to do, in order to regain your once mighty standing in the world, you must raise a mighty castle worthy of your name. This castle will stand as your base of operations or sorts and it will be up to you to staff it with humans that you have converted into thralls to serve within it.

As a vampire with the goal of regaining your physical strength as well as your cadre of followers, you will need to undertake a campaign of rebuilding in order to reign supreme once again. You will be tasked with pillaging villages, raiding bandit camps and traversing the territories of supernatural beasts. These activities will allow you to replenish your reservers of building materials, weapons and potential thralls to serve at your beck and call. To obtain their power, you must drink their blood, obviously, to become the greatest predator of them all.

You begin the game by creating your character with the provided character creation system. You can choose from a plethora of choices to create your ultimate vampire by picking between male or female as well as hair style, skin color, and even some accessories such as jewelry and sunglasses. Once you are finished with this, you are thrown into the action where you will be shown the basics of playing the game with a few tutorials. Completing these tasks will earn you a few new weapons as well as a few beginner spells that you can use to get the hang of how the games systems work. Getting the hang of the games controls was a snap and allowed me to jump right in and start feeling like a vampiric badass right away.

Visuals in V Rising are amazing and definitely help to set the theme and feeling of the game from the moment you awaken in your casket and make your way out of your crypt and into the surrounding forest. The environments are extremely detailed and provide the backdrop for an adventure that is sure to be engrossing and very fulfilling. You will meet up with skeleton men, werewolves, zombies, walking tree creatures, etc and each and every one of them have been crafted with the utmost degree of care. There is also a dynamic day/night cycle that sees you at your strongest during the night hours but leaves you vulnerable to the effects of the sunlight during the day hours. You can move around during the day but you must utilize the shadows if you want to avoid being burned to a crisp.

If you are worried that you will have to scavenge for decent weapons, don’t because there are plenty that you can find out in the world or your can simply find the parts needed and craft one yourself. There are no shortage of supplies and items that you can find in the world to craft the ultimate weapon and the crafting system is really simple to master. The more you use a particular weapon, the stronger that it becomes and the more fun it becomes dispatching the enemies that you may encounter. As a badass vampire, you can also cast spells that allow you to be just as deadly from a distance as handheld weapons allow you to be up close. You learn spells in the beginning of the game by completing the tutorial quests but can soon craft more powerful spells with the spell crafting system in the menu.

The sound effects and the soundtrack in V Rising are spectacular and is some of the best sound that I have experienced in a game this year. The singing of your blade as you swing it through an approaching zombie and the crack as it makes contact feels weighty and full of substance. The howls of a werewolf as it prepares to attack and the sizzle of your flesh as the sunlight cooks you alive brings the world to life. The soundtrack also does an amazing job of setting the tone of this desolate world and makes you feel like you are living the journey of your character to reclaim his/her place in this world. Both of these elements together combine to create and other-worldly experience that is unique and a breath of fresh air in an era of gaming that seems stuck on remakes and remasters.

If all of this sounds like something that you would want to tackle with friends then you are in luck. V Rising offers the ability to rise, build and hunt in clans of up to four fellow vampires online if you choose not to go it alone. Your clan offers you the ability to rule the night as each member becomes a formidable threat to the unsuspecting denizens of Vardoren. This game is packed to the gills with things to create, build and hunt and will offer hours upon hours of gameplay. If you are into this type of gaming experience then I would highly recommend that you give this one a try. I suspect that you will not be disappointed.

This review is based on a copy of the game provided by the publisher.