Survival in V Rising is fast-paced and filled with hazards as players attempt to craft armor, weapons, and bases to protect from attacks against various enemies. Developed and published by Stunlock Studios, the game was released in early access for PC on Steam last week and has already sold over a million copies. Interesting environments, creepy horror elements, and complex gameplay are likely a big draw for hardcore survival fans looking for a new challenge. However, V Rising does have some significant bumps that will need to be fixed to help create seamless and rewarding gameplay, and currently, they could be a setback for players.
Despite being an early access game, V Rising presents players with a detailed world heavy in content right from the time they spawn in. After awakening as a dilapidated vampire and escaping hordes of skeleton archers, players will find themselves in a large open-world map fleshed out with enemies, passive mobs, crafting resources, and narrative secrets. V Rising also provides a helpful quest system to obtain crafting recipes, with objectives listed in the top left-hand corner of the screen for easy access. This makes progression before base building less daunting and helps new players get a handle on the controls.
Additionally, both V Rising's crafting systems and building menus are intuitive, making quick crafting and base building a simple and pleasant task. Unlike clunky, early base building in Valheim, base walls snap into place, and the fields for item placements are clear and easy to guide when fleshing out the interior of a base. The player's basic craft menu can also be found using the "TAB" button, and craftable items are lit up for quick access, so time isn't wasted looking at inventory resources if players are not in a safe and sheltered location.
Exploring the large open-world map of V Rising can currently be a mixed experience due to balance issues. While the map is beautiful, with almost every object capable of providing the player with a needed crafting resource, traveling far from home base is risky. Not only do players lose all their items if they are killed, but there are also few locations to pause and rest while out tackling story objectives. Players also aren't able to transport inventory items when using V Rising's Waygate system, creating a frustrating obstacle for those who have journeyed a long distance from their base to obtain rare crafting materials. While avoiding the sun and keeping to the shadows is a creative and interesting aspect of immersion when playing as a vampire, the travel and transport setbacks can make resource hunting a tedious grind.
Another aspect players will want to be careful of are the game types when setting up servers. V Rising offers the ability to include PvP, or focus on PvE, depending on the servers. While the PvE will encourage surviving vampires to work together when challenging powerful enemies or fending off hordes of wolves, the PvP server can be brutal for new players. It is easy to be killed before a base has been constructed, and those with low-level gear and armor may find themselves the victims of quick and repetitive killings. Because of this, new players may want to give V Rising a try in a personal PvE server to learn the ropes before jumping in with others online.
However, the biggest current setback in V Rising is the requirements for crafting. Like most survival games, players will need to consistently craft new gear, health-restoring items, and weapons to progress through the challenges of the story, but the crafting system is bogged down with steep material costs. Tools and weapons will cost 30 materials minimum right from the start of the game, and the cost keeps going up as gear becomes more advanced. Building bases can be particularly expensive, with wooden walls costing 80 lumbar and 30 plant fiber per installation. This is quickly compounded by advanced materials like planks, which are rendered in the sawmill and cost 20 lumber per plank. Not only does this make resource gathering in V Rising a grind, but the high costs of early-game gear and items feel disproportionate for their use, which could be frustrating to some survival fans.
Additionally, all crafted items in V Rising are set on a timer. Only one item can be in progress at a time, creating an item queue, and each item takes a varied length of time to create. While this would make sense for advanced gear or crafting tables, the timers on basic items that can be crafted from the "TAB" menu feel like an unnecessary hindrance, and greatly slow down access to needed items while away from the base. Rebalancing the early crafting system for a less expensive and less time-consuming model would likely help players get started more quickly, and help encourages taking risks like wandering far from the base earlier in gameplay.
Despite this, V Rising is going to be a great pick for fans of open-world survival, MMORPG gameplay, and horror elements. The game is surprisingly bug-free for an early access title, and while there are areas that need improvement or balancing, the overall structure works well and doesn't lack content. Hopefully, V Rising will continue to receive updates to flesh out areas and polish gameplay, giving each vampire survivor a chance to create a magnificent army of undead allies to rule alongside.
V Rising is currently available as an early access title for PC on Steam. Screen Rant was given a digital download code for the purpose of this preview.