Item: V Rising
Rating: 4.8
Author: marcoleo

V Rising is a survival ARPG that puts you in the role of a weakened vampire awakening in a hostile world. Your goal? Reclaim power, rebuild your empire and dominate both human and supernatural foes. Gameplay blends fast-paced combat, survival mechanics, base-building and MMO-lite elements into a fascinating gothic world. The game feels like a spiritual successor to games like Diablo or Valheim, but it manages to carve out its own identity by anchoring its entire design around the vampire fantasy.

The world of Vardoran is sprawling and beautiful, split into distinct biomes that gradually unfold as your power increases. Instead of leveling up in the traditional sense, progression is tied to defeating specific bosses. Each boss offers a new ability or crafting recipe, making every fight meaningful and pushing you further into the world. Combat is tight and responsive, using a real-time action system with dodges, cooldown-based abilities and weapon-specific movesets.

Customizing your loadout and vampire abilities lets you approach fights in different ways and the freedom to switch playstyles between battles keeps the experience always fresh. Pair this with a system that let you drink from different enemies to receive stat bonuses and you get a combat experience that encourages experimentation and planning. Enemy variety is also a pleasant surprise, not just in design but also in combat behavior, offering a wide range of patterns and challenges.

V Rising Requires Your Full Commitment

On the surface, V Rising might look like a Diablo clone, but it’s also a survival game that requires your full commitment. Each new playthrough generates a unique world that you can keep closed (for a single player experience) or open for online multiplayer (PvE or PvP). You will need to log in regularly to defend your base from powerful enemies (or other players if you are playing on a PvP server), farm materials, hunt bosses and maintain your vampire empire. Blood collected from your victims fuels your stronghold, making each battle even more meaningful.

Online, the world persists in real time. Your carefully built castle can be raided if neglected and every hour spent offline can have consequences in the game world. But for those who love persistent worlds and high-stakes gameplay, this intensity is exactly what makes V Rising so rewarding. That said, V Rising is not a player friendly game. Solo play can be grind-heavy, especially at the beginning of the game, and PvP servers can be brutal for the unprepared. Still, these online mechanics make the game highly replayable and also ideal for streamers, who can jump into V Rising with new unique playthroughs, castle designs and multiplayer interactions. The ever-changing state of the world makes for compelling live streaming sessions and the game practically writes its own episodic content, giving creators plenty of material to entertain and engage their communities.

Update 1.1 Brings New Content and Major Changes

The V Rising Update 1.1 titled “Invaders of Oakveil” is now available and introduces a new biome, Oakveil Woodlands, infested by a new enemy faction, the Venom Blades, led by Megara the Serpent Queen. Players can now explore the corrupted forest, unlock dark secrets and face Megara in her ritual sanctum. This free update also brings major changes to the systems, as well new features, new bosses & enemies, 3 new weapons and 7 new spells, new castle decor and much more. It’s great to see the developers continuing to support V Rising with substantial free updates alongside the premium content available through DLC. This approach not only keeps the community engaged but also shows a strong commitment to delivering value to all players, regardless of whether they’ve purchased additional content.

STREAMER SCORE

V Rising - Game Review

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4.8

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Summary

V Rising offers an addictive ARPG experience that delivers a finely tuned mix of combat, survival and strategy. It’s one of the best realizations of the vampire fantasy in recent memory and it will easily divour your free time, especially if you dive into the online multiplayer mode.