Vampire Survivors will get a spin-off in 2026. The spin-off is called Vampire Crawlers, and the game is a first-person rougelike deckbuilder where Crawlers – returning Vampire Survivors Characters – explore dungeons, battle enemies using cards and customizing cards to optimize gameplay. Vampire Crawlers will come out in mid-2026 for PC, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
Poncle’s founder and CEO Luca Galante hopes that the game will be the first in a series of spin-offs. Meanwhile, the developer said to Xbox Wire that a sequel is in the works, but he can’t reveal much about it.
More About Vampire Survivors’ Spin-Off
According to Galante, fans of Vampire Survivors can expect “familiar elements like treasure chests, weapon evolutions, unlocking something new after every run, a banger of a soundtrack, and terrible humour,” as Survivors makes fun of the Castlevania series.
Galante said,
“The idea is to take some of the core pillars behind the development of VS and to apply them to existing genres. I’m talking about accessibility, immediacy, affordability, replayability, and sparkly stuff. Tons of sparkly stuff!”
The Inspiration Behind Vampire Crawlers
Regarding the inspiration for Vampire Crawlers, Galante said,
“To some people this game will look like a “blobber”, a half-unknown genre that used to be very popular on PC in the ’80s, and that nowadays is quite rare to see. The user interface, where you explore grid-based dungeons in first person using giant buttons to press on the screen to move, is a rather old concept that we’re marrying with this really fast card-playing game mechanic.”
PC games from the 1980s, computer RPGs, modern solitaire games and JRPGs from early console eras were additional inspirations for the upcoming rougelike deckbuilder. With Vampire Survivors, Galante said, “The main goal was just to have a simple game where I could keep adding content, because I mainly wanted to focus on creating content.” With Vampire Crawlers, Galante wanted to remove frustrating parts of the deckbuilding genre, such as artificial pauses or waiting on animations to complete.
Vampire Survivors came out December 2021 and became a huge hit. Known for its simple and addictive gameplay, the game has DLC featuring collaborations with Balatro, SaGa Frontier and, most unsurprisingly, the Castlevania series. The game currently has an 86 on MetaCritic, with Generally Favorable reviews. On Steam, the game currently has Overwhelmingly Positive reviews.
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