Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors is a 2022 roguelike shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Luca Galante, also known as poncle. Following an early access period from December 2021, it was released for macOS, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS in late 2022. A port for Nintendo Switch was released on August 17, 2023. The game is also coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in Q2/Q3 2024.

The player controls an automatically attacking character while fighting against continuous waves of monsters, with the goal being to survive the onslaught for as long as possible and unlock additional characters, weapons, and relics for subsequent sessions. In spite of the game's name and key art, none of the monsters encountered are vampires.

Vampire Survivors received accolades at the Golden Joystick Awards, New York Game Awards and D.I.C.E. Awards. The game was nominated in five categories at the British Academy Games Awards, of which it won in two: Game Design and Best Game.

Gameplay
The player selects one of multiple characters with different starting weapons and bonuses, and controls them on an endless stage with an auto-generated, repeating layout. The player's weapons attack automatically, and the goal is to survive as long as possible against constant waves of monsters that inflict damage when they come in contact with the player. Defeating monsters and exploring the stage allows the player to collect experience gems, which are used to level up; "floor chicken", which restores the player's health; and other helpful items. Each level increase provides the player the choice of three or four weapons and passive power-ups; once the player has collected six weapons and six power-ups and upgraded them all fully, any further levels they gain offer only gold coins or floor chicken. Another way to upgrade weapons and power-ups is to open chests, which are dropped by particularly powerful monsters and may contain one, three, or five random items. Most weapons have an ultimate form that can be attained by opening a chest after fully upgrading them and meeting other specific conditions.

Sessions of Vampire Survivors have a soft time limit of 15, 20 or 30 minutes, depending on the stage chosen. At the time limit, the stage is cleared of all enemies and a final, tremendously strong enemy named The Reaper will spawn. One additional Reaper will appear every consecutive minute thereafter to ensure the player's eventual demise. A session that reaches or exceeds the stage's time limit is considered a successful completion and rewards bonus gold coins. Between sessions, accumulated gold coins can be spent to unlock new characters and persistent power-ups. Additionally, by completing challenges, the player can also unlock new stages, weapons, and characters, as well as additional game modifiers, such as an endless mode that removes the soft time limit, a hyper mode that raises player and enemy speed, and a limit break mode that allows players to continue to improve weapon attributes even after fully leveling them. Additionally, players can gain golden eggs from killing certain enemies or buying them from an in-game vendor, which apply permanent attribute improvements to their currently selected character.

Plot
Vampire Survivors is nominally set in rural Italy in 2021. Hordes of monsters summoned by the evil Bisconte Draculó (a villain based on Count Dracula) ravage the land, and the Belpaese family and other heroic survivors take it upon themselves to hunt down and defeat Draculó. This quest takes them through monster-infested locales such as a cursed forest, a haunted library, an abandoned dairy plant, an ominous tower, and an otherworldly chapel.

Development
Italian developer Luca "poncle" Galante began developing Vampire Survivors in 2020 using the Phaser framework while he was unemployed. He wanted to create Vampire Survivors because he wanted to manage a community, based on his past experience as being an admin for an Ultima Online server. The game was inspired by Magic Survival, a 2019 mobile game that also consisted of a character automatically attacking enemies. Development of the initial early access version took around a year, with Galante spending around £1,100 on assets, art, and music. Prior to developing Vampire Survivors, Galante had been a developer in the gambling industry, and he used his knowledge of how to use flashy graphics for slot machines as part of the allure for Vampire Survivors chest-opening animations.

Galante released his initial version of Vampire Survivors on itch.io, but did not see much engagement. He then decided to release it on Steam before the end of 2021, keeping the cost low since the game had little art aesthetics. The low price meant that his game could also reach a larger audience. However on the same day, he came down with COVID, and focused his attention on his recovery than on how his game was selling. In early 2022, he learned that the game had caught attention of some YouTube creators, which led to a increase in Steam sales.

The success of the game exceeded Galante's expectations and allowed him to quit his job in February 2022 to focus completely on development of the game. He was informally assisted by "a few friends" in their spare time. Planned content included additional weapons, characters, and stages, and an "endless mode". Galante's intent was to bring Vampire Survivors out of early access by the end of 2022. Galante hired multiple freelancers in March 2022 to expand the Vampire Survivors team and accelerate development. In addition to outlining the scope of the promised new content with a roadmap, Galante explained that a major milestone slated for mid-2022 would be porting Vampire Survivors to an "industry-standard" game engine to improve its overall performance.

The full game was released for macOS and Windows on October 20, 2022. The game was also ported to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 10, 2022. Ports for Android and iOS devices were released on December 8, 2022. The mobile versions were fast-tracked for development as a response to a number of clones that appeared on mobile app stores with stolen code and assets from the original game. While the game released on other platforms as an inexpensive but premium game, the mobile versions are free-to-play with optional ads.

The Nintendo Switch version of the game was released on August 17, 2023. This also included support for local co-op play for up to four people, a feature that was simultaneously released for all versions of the game.

The Tesla Cars version was released in September 2023 with the 2023.26 firmware update for vehicles with the correct hardware.

A free update, titled Whiteout, was released on October 19, 2023, adding a new snow-themed stage and additional characters and weapons. In April 2024, Poncle surprise released the free Laborratory update.

In April 2024, it was announced that the game would be coming to PlayStation systems, with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions set for release midway through the year.

Downloadable content
The first paid DLC expansion for the game, titled Legacy of the Moonspell, was announced on December 6, 2022. Inspired by Japanese folklore and anime, it adds thirteen weapons, eight characters, and a new stage featuring enemies designed after yōkai and oni. The expansion released on December 15, 2022, for macOS, Windows, and Xbox platforms, and in early 2023 for mobile. A second paid DLC expansion, Tides of Foscari, was released in April 2023. It adds new weapons, and new characters, and features a new stage inspired by fairy tales.

The game has also released DLC expansions featuring elements from other video games. Emergency Meeting, based on Innersloth's Among Us, was released on December 18, 2023. Operation Guns, based on Konami's Contra, was released on May 9, 2024.

Television series
An animated Vampire Survivors television series was announced in April 2023, to be created by Story Kitchen in partnership with Luca Galante.

Reception
While Vampire Survivors was initially obscure on release, by late January 2022 it became a hit and reached over 30,000 concurrent players on Steam. This number continued to climb, with the game reaching over 70,000 concurrent players the following month. While not the first game in its genre, Vampire Survivors led to several other games called bullet heavens or reverse bullet hells, based on automatic gameplay and roguelike progression being released the following year, most released for a small price and in early access. Some of these include Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and HoloCure – Save the Fans!.

Vampire Survivors received "generally favorable" reviews for Windows according to review aggregator Metacritic; the Xbox Series X/S and iOS versions received "universal acclaim".

Ian Walker of Kotaku and Graham Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun praised the game, both comparing the game to dopamine. Polygon's Nicole Carpenter noted the game's depth, with her saying "no one streamer I've watched played entirely the same". Aaron Zimmerman of Ars Technica named Vampire Survivors as his pick for game of the year. Marie Dealessandri of GamesIndustry.biz also named Vampire Survivors her game of the year, speaking to how well it played on the handheld Steam Deck, which had also released in 2022.