V Rising 1.0 review: one of the slickest survival games gets even slicker

You won't be surprised to know that after two years in early access, V Rising's 1.0 launch hasn't seen Stunlock Studios drastically change the V for "Vampire" to V for "Venetian Blinds" or "Vienna Sausage". From a top-down view, you still play as a newly awakened vampire on PVE, PVP, or private servers, and you're still tasked with becoming the most powerful bloodsucker around. It has, however, streamlined some things and added in an endgame zone. All of this combines to form a survival game that was great back then and is even better now, with thrilling MOBA-esque fights and little in the way of faff.

In my early access review, I talked about how V Rising doesn't exactly iterate on the typical survival fare: punching trees, building a workbench, punching rocks, building a wall. And with its 1.0 release, you'll be totally unsurprised to learn that this also hasn't changed. To become a more powerful bloodsucker, you have to craft leather pants and copper swords and raise your gear score a la Destiny. To gain power is to build things, until the thing you want to build requires you to build something else. And to build that something else, you need something else.

In most other survival games, I find the building loop grinds me down. Mostly because the process of gathering things can be laborious, unclear, or when you finally pop your thousands of bits into the pissing refiner, you produce one (1) pissing ingot. V Rising is different, though, in that gathering materials is generous and simple. You clunk trees with your axe just like you'd attack an enemy, and loads of logs enter your inventory automatically. No smashing a button to pick up individual bits. No holding down a button to lock onto a tree.

And while I hadn't really noticed the promised 1.0 UI tweaks to make building clearer than its early access release, I can confirm that building things is wonderfully streamlined no matter what. Unlike, say, Nightingale's nightmare lists, V Rising clearly draws your eye to dropdowns and materials needed and works in tandem with how your brain actually thinks. Want to slide the material into the box? Yes, it will work that way. Want to split those stacks? The tooltip is displayed where you'd expect it.

While building isn't your typical vampiric activity, it's coupled with bounty hunting that's not only more vampire-y, it also feeds into the building side. To become stronger you'll need to work your way up a hierarchy of V Carriers, with 1.0 popping Mr. Dracula at the top of the food chain. You'll select those of a similar level to yourself, click "track", and then follow their scent to wherever they're tucked away. Defeat them and you'll unlock new building recipes (being able to construct a tannery, say), as well as spell points you can spend in one of several skill trees. In early access you'd hunt powerful V Carriers and receive whatever spells were slapped into your tree. With 1.0, spell points mean you've got greater choice in how you'd like to build your character. And the higher you climb, the more complex the spells that can be bought, too. Early on it's exploding frost bats and easy to control orb flings. Later, it's summoning death knights to bludgeon things for you.

And fights are intense, ramping up as you start unlocking new abilities. Drawing on Stunlock's MOBA credentials, they are essentially Battlerite-esque one-on-one duels where you're dodging area-of-effect toxic blasts and waiting for your dash to come off cooldown. Against mobs it has a touch of Diablo to it, too, as you clatter through bandits with axe boomerangs or generate exploding spiders to crisp them. Early on it's a bit repetitive, mind, but it doesn't take long to rinse the first few bosses and start upping your options.

I'm a fan of the bounty hunting setup in general, though, which pushes you into unfamiliar territory, guarantees a good fight, and promises solid rewards. I like a bit of structure to my survival, and V Rising keeps my tiny attention span whirring, even if the world doesn't earn any points for originality. Sure, the lighting's been given a bit of spruce with 1.0, but it can't make up for what's a pretty trad fantasy affair. Woods with some rock golems, some snowy mountains, some gloomy bogs. They do at least have a sense of life to them, where you might stumble on wolves nipping at the heels of skeletons or bandits now pushing carts filled with precious materials.

Being a vampire, you can better navigate the woods by shapeshifting into a wolf or a bear or toad or many other things that I'd say are more up a druid's street. But then again, I am no vampire lore expert and they are more than entitled to transform into whatever they'd like. Anyway, yes, spider form is the latest addition, built expressly for those who want to avoid being burned by the sun when they want to logout in the middle of a dirt path, as opposed to the safety of their base. At the press of a button you can burrow under the ground, not only protecting you from the sun's rays, but also from nasty players who might loot your corpse if you leave the server to get din dins.

A word on the sun, which I thought was an "irritant" in early access. While I understand that the day night cycle exists to promote a rhythm of doing stuff when it's dark, and not doing stuff when it's sunny, I still find the threat of UV endlessly annoying. I can incinerate a throng of zombies with a snap of my fingers, yet I have to run between shadows like a buffoon. Can I construct a cape to further my sun resistance? Yes. Would I rather defeat a Superdrug employee in a fistfight and wrestle some Nivea Factor 50 out of their pockets? More than yes.

Thankfully, the new endgame area The Ruins Of Mortium is permanently dark so you won't find me cowering in a patch of shade with my arm raised to the sky, performing the universal hand gesture for "tosser". And that's about the only upside, as it's otherwise occupied with lots of Dracula cultists who aren't best pleased you're barging into their turf, as well as plenty of new V Carriers including ol' Draccy himself.

Now I'll level with you quickly. I'd found plenty of time to test out the early to mid game, but only really got to experience V Rising's new endgame offerings by creating a pre-levelled super vamp on a private server. This meant I rocked up in the Ruins missing some context, but hey, such is the way of things.

Context or no, the Ruins continue V Rising's tradition of areas being just fine. It's fine! A lot of grey forest and stone, with grey pillars and the occasional slightly less grey zone (I've on the grapevine that Dracula recently had his carpet done by The Carpet Man). The main new activity is to explore the area and farm for things called Stygian Shards, which you can then use to buy new passive abilities, shattered weapons you can restore, or to upgrade existing legendary weapons.

The activity itself has two difficulty tiers, with the toughest unlocking once you've defeated two of the newest V Carriers. In general, the activity has you seek out cults praying to big crystals, battering them so that smaller crystals spawn, and then battering the demons who spring up. Once you've battered everyone - succubi and other assorted demons - you'll hoover up Stygian Shards, with the biggest crystal offering plenty of Shards once you've bested a miniboss. Current shard gains are generous, which is great, as its mindless ARPG tendencies can grate for those who aren't into their Path Of Exile or Diablos.

Fights against those new V Carriers are tough, though, demanding far more patience and an understanding of your abilities than the early game stuff. There's a lot of waiting for tells and dodging flashing red zones by the skin of your fangs. If it's your server, you can now turn the difficulty down if you're struggling, or up if you're more of a masochist. Again, being granted more choice makes it a far more inviting prospect for all types of bloodsucker.

The expanded arsenal includes apex legendary weapons, one of which is an axe that's got a wonderful spinny ability that definitely kept me in a lot of fights against Dracula's pals. And there's a new Storm spell tree that lets you generate bouncing electric orbs if you successfully block, as well as hurl lightning tornadoes. While I'd say both of these additions more than fulfil the power fantasy, I do feel like I'm missing some of the context as to why players might want to chase the finest endgame equipment.

I'm presuming it's for an edge in PVP battles, where players can raid each other's castles and nick each other's belongings. There are servers for this, which may appeal to you if you like forming clans and battling against other people. I didn't get a chance to test these bits out properly, but truthfully, PVP isn't my jam in these sorts of survival games. I prefer the PVE side, which is more than catered for here in this 1.0 update. All those shards and spells and passive abilities? You'll want to gather them all for the final hurdle, Mr. Dracula.

Launching into 1.0, V Rising is in a great spot. This is a survival game that doesn't faff around and is wonderfully streamlined, making your climb through the vampiric ranks a bounty hunting delight with little in the way of chores. To be honest, the game was worth getting in early access, and with 1.0, my thoughts remain the same. Get this if you're a survival fan who wants a good time by yourself or with pals, and especially if you love some MOBA combat.