V Rising. I just started playing and am already hopelessly addicted. Please send help.

For those not familiar, it’s a Diablo-esque (with direct controls) open world hack and slasher with light RPG elements, but a comparatively much stronger crafting, building and upgrade component, so much so in fact that there are barely any character upgrades beyond some unlockable spells. The core gameplay loop revolves around finding resources (by killing enemies - ranging from humans and animals to all sorts of supernatural creatures and beings - opening chests and farming resources in the environment), then refining them and thereby unlocking new items and things to build in your castles. The latter can be built pretty early on, but in the beginning, it’s little more than a few palisade walls (and no roof) protecting a handful of crafting stations and storage chests.

The no roof thing is relevant, because as the V in the game’s title implies, the protagonist is a vampire, which means they can suck blood and assume some of the capabilities of their foes. This also means that they need extra strong sun cream, but since it hasn’t been invented yet and the substitute magic potion isn’t very effective, longer boss fights (which are plentiful and can happen everywhere) that stretch into the day turn into an interesting game of dashing from shadow to shadow while at the same time dodging enemy attacks in order to not get roasted by the fiery ball in the sky. Before I managed to find the necessary resources and crafting stations required for building stone flooring and walls, which automatically create a roof (must be vampire magic), I had to help myself by using braziers that turn bones (a rather plentiful resource, thankfully, given the enormous kill count you rack up in this title) into a mist that blocks out sunlight over a fairly generous area.

Just like other resource-consuming stations, it keeps running even when the game isn’t playing. This has advantages and disadvantages: On one hand, you can just do something else for a couple of hours and return to piles of resources having been crafted, but on the other hand, your castle also consumes another resource in order to even remain standing - although this can be turned off, at least in games you host yourself for singleplayer or co-op. V Rising is very generous in this regard anyway, allowing the player to customize virtually every balancing aspect in excruciating detail.

I’m still not very far in the game, having only just unlocked the ability to turn humans into slaves. Depending on their class (from lowly worker to skilled fighter, at least that’s what I’ve encountered so far) and the quality of their blood, the ability of the servants you create can vary quite widely. Capturing slaves is neatly done: You have to bring their health down to at least 30%, then use a special spell to control them. You cannot cast any other spells as you are doing this. The player then needs to carefully bring the extremely vulnerable human back to their castle and place them in a coffin, which starts the conversion process to a servant. The way back home becomes a tricky obstacle course as you try to avoid any bigger fights in order to keep your almost dead human alive until you reach your destination. It’s also advisable to kill all other enemies the human is with first, being careful not to use any area of effect spells that might inadvertently kill that rogue with 96% blood purity you so desperately want as your loyal servant.

If there’s one thing about this game that is below average, it’s the presentation. The intro is the usual cheap motion graphics with voiceover style doing the absolute bare minimum to establish the scenario (vampires once ruled the world, humans fought them, won, you slept for centuries waiting to take over again - that’s it), sound effects and music as generic as the fantasy scenario, voice lines repeat themselves all the time, objects are low-poly and textures muddy even from the far away default camera perspective. It’s serviceable, but clearly extremely outdated. Nobody would have been impressed by this even 12+ years ago. Effects like magic and explosions are solid though, the day night cycle is well done, the forest is dense and environments have a large number of destructible objects, so at least there’s that.

Overall, I’m impressed. V Rising is addictive, challenging and motivating, with tight controls, frantic combat and excellent crafting. This is a clever, well-made game with what appears to be plenty of staying power, exposing new systems and mechanics to the player at a nice, even pace.