What is V Rising

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V rising is a new top-down Vampire survival game being developed by Stunlock Studios. It is a PvPvE game and you play as a vampire looking to claim the mantle of New Dracula. When you awaken as a vampire you will hunt for blood to regain your strength and will need to hide from the sun in order to survive. You will have to gather resources in order to build your castle, and will fight monsters to gain power.

V Rising Map

V Rising is set in a Gothic open world called Vardoran. The map consists of five regions that players can explore, Farbane Woods, Silverlight Hills, Dunley Farmlands, Cursed Forest, and Hallowed Mountains. The world is more than 4.5 square kilometers or 1.7 square miles with plans of future expansion. Players can progress through the world freely, however, the further you venture from the starting zone the harder the areas become.

Farbane Woods

Farbane woods is the starting zone for all players. The woods are an untamed wilderness of towering trees, ruins, and overgrowth. This is the perfect hideout for bandits and beast alike, and because of the primitive nature of the beasts living in the woods it’s the ideal starting area for players. You will be able to get your first kills and begin your progression in the game.

You will encounter your first human prey here, the bandit faction. The bandits are a loose collection of outcasts from human society. The great barrier that once protected the vampiric crypts has decayed over time and allowed this group of bandits to find a home in Farbane Woods. They have primitive technology compared to other encounters you will have, making them ideal starting targets.

Dunley Farmlands

The next step in your progress is Dunley Farmlands. These farmlands were once the shining crown of Dracula’s empire but have since collapsed into dust. Farmers and aristocrats have taken over the farmland. The farmers here tend the fields and grow crops and are largely defenseless. Creatures in the night often prey upon them. The local militia and the corrupt church are far from powerless and control these lands with power and purpose.

The militia is led by Captain Octavian and they are under the watchful eye of the local monastery of the Church of Luminance. You will need to carve through their ranks and bend this area to your will. This will be a necessary step on your road to ascension.

The Cursed Forest

The Cursed Forest is located to the far Northeast. You will have to follow the roads to the northernmost parts of Dunley to enter this area. Evil forces have corrupted this area that was once as vibrant as Farbane Woods. The Curest Forest is now a desecrated place and the boundaries between life and death are blurred here. You will find curling trees, glowing green eyes from the wildlife, wooden protrusions, dark witches, and half-living corpses.

Silverlight Hills

Silverlight hills is home to the port city Brighthaven. This is the seat of human power, and the true home of the Church of Luminous. Silverlight Hills is where the first humans landed in Vardoran. Both rich and poor occupy the city in the towering buildings and slums. This area is rich in natural resources, most importantly, silver ore. This material is so pure that it is toxic to vampires. Silverlight Hills is filled with both wealth and desperation.

Outside of Brighthaven sits the Fortress of Light. It is a sacred sight that’s gaurded by the church’s greatest champion, Solarus. He stands a a symbol of hope and perseverance in the name of the Church of Luminance. Fighting Solarus is expected to be a difficult fight for players.

Hallowed Mountains

There is not much known about the Hallowed Mountains at this time. It does connect to the northeastern part of Farbane Woods, so it’s speculated that it may be a zone that players may be able to explore early on.

Roads in V Rising

All of the zones will be connected via a road system. Roads in the game have unique properties that will dictate various levels of gameplay. NPC’s use the roads to travel around the world, and if the wrong groups run into each other it could result in a fight. These fights are completely independent of player interaction.

Players can happen upon a skirmish at any time and take out the remaining stragglers leaving you to reap the benefits of the fight. There are also bosses in the game. These bosses have set spawn locations, but you will also run across random boss encounters that also utilize the road network.

Mount System

There is a mount system in V Rising. The mounts serve as a means of transportation and additional storage for loot. Mounts spawn within the world with randomized qualities. This offers differences in their movement speed, rotation, and acceleration.

There have also been teases about other forms of fast travel, including transforming into a bat to fly across the map. Little is known about this feature at this time.

Day Night Cycle

There is a full day night cycle in the game that’s important part of gameplay. A full day day is 1,080 seconds and nighttime is twice as long. You can adjust these settings on a private server.

This feature is important because as a vampire, direct exposure to the sunlight will cause you harm. This means any attempt to raid or pillage in daylight will be more difficult. You can utilize the shadows as temporary cover from the sun. There are in game systems that will allow you to increase your sunlight resistance. This will increase the time you can spend in the sun without dying.

At night players will have an advantage over the NPC’s. Humans can’t spot you as easily which makes hunting much easier. There are also specific creatures that only wander the world at specific times of the day.

Combat in V Rising

The game features action combat. You move your character with “WASD” and aim with your mouse. Your abilities are skill shots and need to be aimed to land. A big part of the combat is readability. The abilities in the game can be telegraphed giving players a chance to react and counter.

You start the game with one basic attack, a movement ability that give you an i-frame and a momentary shadow double that fools PvE Mobs. You also start the game with the Shadow Bolt and Bloodrite abilities. Shadow Bolt is a basic magic projectile. Bloodrite is a channeled counter that blocks damage and causes a knockback on hit.

You gain new abilities through weapons and spells. You can swap your weapons freely during combat, but spells are locked during combat. Weapons unlock more abilities as you get higher tiers of them. You will eventually have one basic attack, and 2 other unique abilities on each weapon on your Q and E hotkeys.

Weapons have shared cooldowns. For example, if you use your spears Q ability and swap to your sword you can’t use that Q ability but you can still use the swords basic attack and E ability.

You obtain spells by killing and devouring V blood units. The units can be obtained from bosses and minibosses in the open world. You can have two different spells and one ultimate ability slotted at any time.

Blood and V Blood

You will need blood to survive. You can obtain blood by attacking humans and then finishing them off with a bit. Different enemies have different blood types that grant the player specific perks

Warrior blood improves physical damage, rogue blood improves movement speed, scholar blood improves magic damage, and worker blood enhances your resource gathering. Each individual human will have a varying quality of blood. The higher the quality of blood the more benefits you will receive.

If you allow your blood stores to fall too low it will cause ill effects and can eventually lead to your death.

V Blood is essential for your ascension as a vampire.

If you defeat an enemy that’s imbued with V Blood will unlock that particular blood memory. When you kill and feed on a V Blood unit you will unlock an ability and recipe. This will allow you to utilize various crafting stations.

In order to track your V Blood units you will need to construct a Blood Altar. This workstation allows players to set goals and focus on specific targets that will help you meet those goals. The blood alter gives you basic level intel but does not tell you how to kill a specific target.

You can spot V Blood units by their unique UI indicators. They will have different colors and names indicating that they V Blood creatures.

Castle Building and Crafting

Players can create a castle basically anywhere in the world. The heart of your castle is the blood well. You will need to transfer blood into the well in order to power the castle. This includes fortifying the walls, activating the crafting stations, and ultimately providing your with a safe haven from your enemies.

You must keep your blood well stocked with blood or it will start to decay and crafting stations will not function. Eventually your walls will begin to crumble and breaching your castle will become much easier.

Owning a castle also allows you to capture and enslave servants. You can have your servants collect different material for you. Some workers will be better at collection mining material, some better at collecting refining supplies, and so on.

Within your castle you can have basic crafting stations, refining stations, specialty stations, and production stations. Each of these stations have a unique purpose and players must collect resources and crafting recipes to craft specific items.

V Rising Early Access Details

Early access begins on May 17th. Private servers and Official servers will be available on the launch of Early Access.

Official servers will run with around 40 concurrent players. There will be PvE with 4 player clans, PvP with 4 player clans, PvP solo, PvP duo, and PvP Merciless servers with 4 player clans (Hardcore full-loot).