A few weeks ago, we here iOS gamers received one of the best gifts 2022 has to offer. Inevitably, people will fall into one of two camps: those who appreciate this most bountiful gift of free roguelike slaughter, and the rest, who haven’t yet been sucked in by hours of undead action. that hurt your thumb and warm the toilet seat.
That giveaway is Vampire Survivors, a “time survival” rogue-lite game from Poncle (aka developer Luca Galante), and it’s completely free on the App store (opens in a new tab). Not without extra charge for a apple arcade subscription i mean free free. It’s a great deal for a decent game, but it’s not just any old twiddler: not only is it one of best iphone games to play right now, it’s one of the best games this year on any platform.
Low stakes
In Vampire Survivors, you kill hundreds, thousands, millions of pixel-art sprites and collect gems to increase your stats, upgrade your weapons, or pick up a new damage-dealing tool. So far, somehow, right? Well, here’s the twist: your weapons are unlocked automatically. This means that all you have to worry about is sneaking through the enemies that spawn around you at the start (and at the end, a menacing, throbbing ocean) to pick up the gems needed to level up and increase your power. .
But calling it a casual or idle game just because you don’t have to fire your guns doesn’t do the nuances of Vampire Survivors justice. First, it means you can have multiple weapons and boosts at once – they add up very quickly with each run, with the wonderful chaos that ensues making you feel immensely powerful, without being overwhelmed with managing multiple projectiles. .
Most races don’t last more than ten minutes at first, so you can create your character and try out any variant arsenal you want, safe in the knowledge that you can soon try something completely different. Achievement lists also encourage you to do this, rewarding you with new gear for lasting a certain amount of time with a certain character or upgrading a particular weapon. This, along with the ability to spend resources gained in rounds on permanent stat boosts, means you rarely feel safe on death. You just want one more try.
Not caring too much about weaponry means you’re thinking much more strategically about movement. Before long, your screen will be full of enemies, so you’ll have to consider whether it’s worth heading towards tougher enemies, hoping for better gems or softer targets for a quicker getaway. At first, the environmental obstacles will be frustrating and have to be maneuvered, but you’ll eventually use them to help you escape.
Poncle also has a lot of fun manipulating the way you move. The gems you need to level up are dropped by enemies, so you might have to risk your health bar to backtrack to grab your goodies, reminiscent of the likes of Doom’s ammo pickups or Kill Confirmed in Call of Duty. The more a location is occupied by enemies, the more gems will remain, swinging a glistening pool of loot and tempting for you to risk your life and your pixelated limb.
Undead Nightmare
While Vampire Survivors first released in early access in December last year on PC, it feels more at home on mobile. Something suitable for short bursts and so simple to interact with, yet still deep, is just perfect on the iPhone… and even more so if you connect a gamepad – here it is how to use ps4 or ps5 controller on iphone, Besides. Playing only with the touchscreen feels inherently less accurate, and if I wanted to swap thumbs to rest one, or not obscure a certain part of the screen, my playable character would often stop dead in their tracks – not ideal in a game where agile movement is most important. It’s also worth mentioning that you can play in either portrait or landscape mode, and I found the latter to be more comfortable, with my hands less annoying.
The only other major difference is that it’s free on iOS, but it only costs a few dollars on PC or Xbox. That means there are ads, but they’re entirely optional – you can watch a few to increase your gold haul at the end of a run, but also when you die to revive yourself with a portion of health. This depreciates the fairly expensive permanent upgrade (in terms of in-game currency), Revival, but at no point do you have to submit to it.
We also don’t have access to Legacy of the Moonspell on iOS just yet, the game’s first DLC that launched close to its mobile release. It came with eight new characters, 13 new weapons, and a new map, so hopefully we’ll see that soon after we burn through the vanilla maps and characters over the holidays.
So, for these reasons and more, you have a duty this holiday: bring your friends and family to Vampire Survivors. I can see why the retro art style, vampirism and roguelike elements might put some people off – they did, at first – but I’ve rarely come across a game so accessible, available and downright excellent. Get them past the first hurdle and they’ll be hooked, freeing you up for, well, more Vampire Survivors. You could tell they’re gonna be consumes by this.
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