I Finally Played: Vampire Survivors
Posted on August 18, 2026 by Aywren
In this short series, I finally pick up some games that I’ve heard about, and are highly rated, but I just have never given a shot. The first of these is Vampire Survivors.
The subtitle to this post is: How I discovered I actually love bullet heaven games.
What is a Bullet Heaven Game?
In general, I’ve stayed away from bullet hell games. In this type of game, you play a small character on the screen in a typical shoot-em-up way, but the objective is to avoid being hit by the enemy’s bullets. And when I say bullets, I mean hundreds of on-screen projectiles, often distributed in patterns you need to recognize to be able to survive.
In contrast, a “bullet heaven” game – sometimes called a Survivors-like - is the exact opposite. You play some sort of character whom is the source of hundreds of projectiles on the screen. And something about this simple yet intricate gaming concept is quite addictive.
As far as I’m aware, Vampire Survivors was the break-out game in this genre. While it wasn’t the first, it was the game that brought the concept into the spotlight.
I’ve seen that this game was rated overwhelmingly positive, and I’ve heard it referenced time and again. I also knew that it inspired many spin-off games. But it wasn’t until I caught it on sale that I finally gave it a try at a super low price.
What is Vampire Survivors?
Basically, you select a character – of which there are many to unlock – and this character often has a signature “weapon” or style of “shooting” enemies. I put these in quotation marks because while every character has a default way to damage the enemies, some may not seem like weapons or shooting.
For example, the character Poe uses Garlic as a “weapon” default. This puts a damaging ring around the character that hurts enemies when they run into it. But it has nothing to do with shooting, and Garlic isn’t typically considered a weapon.
Well, mostly.
I do love the Garlic aura effect in the game, though!
Anyhow, so you start with a character and as you defeat enemies on the screen, which you do simply by walking around – all shooting and damaging is automatic – you gain levels where you can select from random power ups and new weapons.
While the rewards are somewhat RNG, in order to continue to survive, you must gain knowledge of which weapons have synergy, what upgrades to what, and how to basically build a powerhouse that can wipe out anything the game throws at you.
As I noted, the controls are very simple – you just move your character on the screen. But as the waves and patterns of the enemies start to grow, you have to be more strategic on how you move through the crowds. You can also get power up drops from destroying light sources, such as torches. These can range from coins, to healing floor chickens (this is real), to amazing temporary buffs. So, destroying torches as you come across them is always a good goal. Just keep in mind, the quality of these drops are affected by your level of luck – which is actually a buff you can increase if you choose to.
I believe every map has a max time of 30 minutes, so no game will last longer than that. If you do survive that long, you meet with the grim reaper, who can one-shot you. I know there’s a way to defeat the reaper, but I’m still too new of a player to be concerned about that.
So, if you know that you’re going to die no matter what, what’s the point of playing, you might ask.
These types of games have a hint of roguelike to them. Even though you’re defeated, you earn gold during the run that you keep. With this gold, you can unlock lasting improvements that make your characters stronger in future runs.
You can also unlock new characters with new mechanics to try as you successfully clear game achievements. Really, part of the fun is mixing and matching characters, weapons, abilities and finding new synergies.
Every run feels different as you learn how to play someone new, and discover new favorite combinations. It’s very, very satisfying when you run into powerful weapon upgrades that just shower the entire screen with death to enemies.
Not only is there a ton of content in the base game, but Vampire Survivors also offers new characters as free and paid DLC. I have all the free DLC, and when I saw the Ode to Castlevania pack on sale, I picked that up, too.
I was surprised to find this unlocks a separate mode for just these characters and this setting. So while you do have to “start over” in building up your buffs (I didn’t mind), it doesn’t change the integrity of your base game save in any way.
Oh, and did I mention that you can play this with friends? Yep, there’s a multiplayer mode which works quiet well. I was able to get Syn to try it out, and while this wouldn’t normally be the sort of thing she played, we both had fun.
While I still have a lot to uncover in this game – for a low price tag, you get a LOT of entertainment – this has made me curious about other bullet heaven games. I’ve even tried one here or there, and might write about it in the future.
Steamdeck – before I forget, this game runs beautifully on the Steamdeck! In fact, it’s my favorite mode of play so much that if I do play on the PC, I feel the need to plug in my PC controller (which is rare for me).
On top of all this, despite a new Vampire Survivors deck builder they recently released, the base game is still seeing updates like this:
So, basically, if this sounds fun, and you’ve never tried Vampire Survivors, know that it goes on deep discount during sales. Check it out and see if it’s for you!