Vampire Hunters Review
Gamecraft Studios’ Vampire Hunters delivers over-the-top roguelite Survivors mayhem in a snappy FPS package.
Vampire Hunters. Credit: Gamecraft Studios
The “dance party” trailer I saw for Vampire Hunters made me immediately add the game to my watchlist. Showcasing frenetic, boomer shooter action with a ludicrous number of guns onscreen, it looked like a hell of a time. I’m happy to report the game doesn’t disappoint. Gamecraft Studios has delivered some sublime chaos.
Story in this game doesn’t matter. You’ve got to hunt vampires and other monsters, and you’ve got lots of guns. That’s all you need to worry about here. The gameplay loop will be familiar to anyone who’s played Vampire Survivors or any other games in the genre it spawned. Pick a character, enter a stage, survive as long as you can, spend permanent upgrade points. Rinse and repeat.
Vampire Hunters. Credit: Gamecraft Studios
You can stack up to 14 weapons at once, which you’ll see in a ridiculous ring around the sides and bottom of the screen. As you’d expect, they scale up as you earn experience and choose one of the upgrades offered each time you level up. The balance feels very good in the moment and as you incrementally gain power between each run.
The packaging is familiar, but those genre tropes aren’t where the game shines. The highlight here is how well Vampire Hunters has translated the moment-to-moment gameplay of Vampire Survivors into an FPS format. Running around a level blasting endless waves of monsters with your guns feels great. Having verticality designed into the levels makes it even better as you get assaulted from all sides and are forced to climb, jump, or dive.
Vampire Hunters. Credit: Gamecraft Studios
The small number of playable characters is limited compared to Vampire Survivors. It seems the developer took a quality over quantity approach, balancing and polishing each. They offer unique skills and perks and have individual upgrade trees, making each character stand out even more. All of them are a blast to play.
Graphically, the game isn’t much to write home about. The art style is a couple of generations old, but that doesn’t matter much in this genre, where gameplay reigns supreme. If the gameplay is good enough, the art doesn’t matter—and the art here is far from ugly. Getting lost in the 3D arenas, like the levels in this game, can be problematic when things become repetitive. The game’s visual design and texturing help avoid this issue by creating distinctive-looking sections and areas.
Vampire Hunters. Credit: Gamecraft Studios
Vampire Hunters first launched in Early Access in July 2023. Now that the game has reached 1.0, I hope that Gamecraft Studios keeps adding to it and doesn’t slow down. They’ve got something great here, and I want more of it!
Vampire Hunters is available now on PC (Steam), PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox One / Series X|S.
Overall Score: 8/10
Played on: PS5
